Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Maritime Powers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2012. I understand this will provide a single standard framework for authorising and exercising maritime enforcement powers and repeal those powers in a number of other acts, including the Fisheries Management Act 1991 and the Torres Strait Fisheries Act 1984. Amongst other things, this may streamline the pursuit of foreign fishing vessels suspected of operating illegally in the Australian Fishing Zone, AFZ.

I welcome legislation to make Australian powers to police the AFZ against illegal foreign fishing vessels more effective. What I question is the Labor government's willingness to enforce this legislation. I have seen precious little evidence of this government taking any action to enhance the Australian fishing industry—in fact, just the opposite. The Labor government has taken numerous actions during its term in office that can only damage the Australian fishing industry. Policing—or, rather, non-policing—our Australian Fishing Zone is just one example. Rear Admiral David Johnston, Commander of the Border Protection Command, admitted to a Senate estimates committee hearing on 12 February 2013 that no Australian vessel had conducted a patrol in the Southern Ocean for a year, and is not likely to do so any time soon. This is the first time in a decade Australia has not had a presence in the Southern Ocean. Between two and five patrols were conducted each and every year for the previous nine years. The admiral did say that French vessels patrol the region, and one or two Australian officers sometimes hitch a lift with them. Should we be relying on the charity of the French navy to guard Australian fisheries? Of course not. This demonstrates the complete disinterest of the Labor government in protecting our fishing and seafood industries.

I would criticise the Labor government policy for recreational and commercial fishing, but the fact is the Labor government does not have a fishing policy. What it does have is a policy to maintain the support of their effective coalition partners in government, the Greens—a policy that has been scripted by international environmental lobbyists. This involves locking out fishermen, both commercial and recreational, from vast areas of Australian waters containing stocks of fish that all the science says are being caught sustainably. Fisheries science says they can be caught, common sense says they should be caught, but, of course, the international environmental lobbyists have ordained they will not be caught. Those are the people this government listens to.

Under its same non-policy the government has allowed the reputation of Australian fisheries science and fisheries managers to be trashed without speaking a word in their defence. Worse still, the government itself has actively promoted the notion that Australia's fisheries science and fisheries management are inadequate and incompetent. The government has overridden sensible recommendations made on the basis of rational fisheries management and instead implemented short-term policy fixes. It has created doubt and uncertainty where none need have existed. The situation has been summed up by Dr Robert Kearney, who has been involved with Australian fisheries research and management for over 40 years. Dr Kearney is an emeritus professor of fisheries at the University of Canberra. He made a submission last year to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture, Resources, Fisheries and Forestry. Dr Kearney told it like this:

The effectiveness of Australian science and analytical capacity to sustainably manage the Australian fisheries and aquaculture is constrained not by the lack of science or capacity, but by the lack of strategic assessment and government policies for the future security of Australia's seafood supply.

He said it was 'shameful'—and shameful it is indeed. Let us step back and look at the bigger picture. Labor has not created a fishing industry policy, but in its dealings with the seafood industry it has created a perfect template for how to destroy a primary industry. Let me tell you how this Labor government is destroying the fishing industry. First, work in a policy vacuum, then let a department, wholly and utterly unsympathetic to the industry—

Debate interrupted.