Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. There is danger in coming into this place and not knowing what you are talking about. The marine protected area in Commonwealth waters around Tasmania that we delivered was 20 per cent larger than the area that was proposed by the government in the initial round. What we implemented in those waters in the south-east was 20 per cent larger than what was initially proposed. The Greens were running around Tasmania saying that the coalition wants to shrink it. The initial boundaries were proposed by us. They were not good, I have to say. They had seriously bad impacts on the fishing industry in Tasmania.

There was a cooperative process that allowed negotiation between the fishing industry and the environment groups. We put everybody in the tent. We did not do what this government has done, which is silo the negotiations and play parties off against each other and basically take the line being run by giant environmental groups from not just Australia but the United States. Thousands of emails have come into Australia from overseas trying to push the government into implementing these marine protected areas. Through that negotiation process we changed the boundaries, provided the environmental values and provided the representative areas that were required under this process. We reduced the impact on the fishing industry in Tasmania by 90 per cent and increased the area by 20 per cent. So, Senator, do not come in here talking rubbish. You have no idea what you are talking about, and you have demonstrated that again here today.