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

I was saying just before lunch that the Labor government is destroying the fishing industry and I was explaining how. First, work in a policy vacuum. Then let a department that is wholly and utterly unsympathetic to the industry effectively take over control—that is, the environment department. Then, when we are trading in a global market and the price of our product is critical to sales success overseas, add unnecessary cost burdens at every stage of production, like the carbon tax and renewable energy target. This also makes our own seafood less price competitive against cheap imports on our own domestic market. At the same time, put no facility in place for the industry to easily gather funds from innovation, thus making it even more difficult to run marketing campaigns. Then reduce the area open for fishing by declaring 2.3 million square kilometres of our oceans as marine parks and ban commercial and recreational fishing in these vast areas, reducing the catch even further. At the same time, refuse to compensate many of the businesses directly affected and destroy much onshore infrastructure needed to support the catching sector. After that, override the recommendations of experienced fisheries managers and fisheries scientists for the sake of short-term political expediency, raising doubts in the minds of the community about the management of our commercial fisheries. Finally, to ensure that no-one can make any future investment plans with any confidence whatsoever, launch a root-and-branch examination of fisheries management.

Overall, demonstrate that you do not value the industry as a vital producer of healthy, high-quality food and as a provider of crucial jobs in often remote areas where there is little alternative employment, and demonstrate that you care more about the accolades of overseas, city based environmental activists and the continuing political support of Labor's coalition partners in government, the Greens. That is how to destroy an industry. That is how Labor is destroying the commercial and recreational fishing industry.

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Joe Ludwig—he is a fine fellow; I get on well with him—is fisheries minister in name only. Everyone in government, everyone in fisheries science and management and everyone in the fishing industry knows that the portfolio is in fact run by the environment department and its minister, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Tony Burke. Senator Ludwig's views, advice and recommendations have been ignored or overturned on one major fisheries issue after another. When it comes to real decisions on the big issues affecting the seafood industry, the environment minister has the call. A fishing portfolio run by an environment minister results in a fishing industry offered up as a sacrifice to environmental activists. This makes it impossible for the fishing industry business to predict what access to fisheries resources will be available to them in future and makes forward planning and sensible development of the industry impossible.

The Australian dollar is close to record highs against the US dollar and other international currencies. This makes our exports dearer in overseas markets and makes our imports cheaper in our domestic market. So it is harder than ever before for our fishermen and seafood marketers to make a profit or even sell their product in the first place. It makes our fishing charters relatively more expensive compared with charters in overseas locations.

Despite the fact that the industry is already doing it tough, this government has added more and more costs that fishermen, processors and marketers have tried to absorb. The carbon tax—the renewable energy charge—is a classic example. Of course, the Labor government is not really managing fisheries—not coherently, rationally or predictably. It is moving from one ill-considered, illogical short-term decision to the next, going wherever it is led by the environmental activists.

Take the case of the Abel Tasman, where the government took its lead from Greenpeace. This is the so-called supertrawler. The government invited the trawler to Australia, and its Australian-based operators went through the proper process. And yet the government went to water when the vessel actually arrived. Environmental minister Tony Burke banned it from fishing for the last two years. He did this against the sound advice of the fisheries scientists and fisheries management. His action trashed the reputation of Australian fisheries science and raised unnecessary doubts in the mind of the Australian public about the state of the fish stocks and their management.

Banning the Abel Tasman you can chalk up to Greenpeace. However, their fellow environmental multinational, the Pew foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and others had a far bigger win. This was on 16 November, when the environmental minister, Tony Burke, declared 2.3 million square kilometres of new marine reserves that will lock commercial and recreational fishers out of vast swathes of our ocean. I expect this week that Minister Burke will table in the other place the management plan for these marine reserves. These plans will have enormous impact on the commercial and recreational fishing industries, and on small business and individual rights right around the Australian coast. They should be rejected by parliament. Minister Burke should be made to go away and try again and then bring back proper management plans for the marine zones.

The current plans have not taken proper notice of good science, just what Labor regards as good politics. There has not been proper consultation with recreational or commercial fishermen, just backroom deals with local and international environmental activists. There has not been any proper consideration of the terrible impact the plans will have on the lives and businesses of people in the coastal centres right around Australia. It is just simply to boost Labor's image in the inner-city seats in the federal election.

What Minister Burke has put in these management plans is bad policy development, for the wrong reasons. They are not about protecting the marine environment; they are about protecting Labor votes and preferences. They are shoddy—absolutely shoddy. Quite apart from the terrible impact these marine reserves will have on regional economies, there is the question of how these vast areas of soon-to-be-empty oceans will be policed.

What Minister Burke described as the 'jewel in the crown' of the marine reserve network is almost one million square kilometres of the Coral Sea. Much of this vast area will be completely closed to all fishing. Effectively, what this means is that the commercial fishermen and charter boat fishermen, who are the eyes and ears of enforcement there, will be banned. These are the very people who are in a position to spot any illegal fishing vessel operating in the waters hundreds of kilometres from the Australian mainland, and they will not be allowed in there.

How does this Labor government intend to police this area of almost one million square kilometres? No-one is prepared to say. I heard someone say that scuba divers will keep their eyes open on their way to their dive trips. Maybe we can ask the French to send some patrol boat from New Caledonia. This is a very serious question. The government is bringing in this Maritime Powers (Consequential Amendments) Bill, but how will it enforce these marine powers? How will it enforce the protection of our fisheries in the huge new marine reserves and the huge new zones where Australian commercial and recreational fishermen will no longer be allowed to fish?

It is really just creating protected fishing zones for illegal foreign fishing vessels—places where foreign fishing operators will no longer have to worry about being spotted by Australian commercial and recreational fishermen. Australia has the largest area of marine parks of any country in the world—more than three million square kilometres. Sadly, that is not a proud boast; it simply means that we have locked away more of our seafood, more of our exports and more of our recreational fishing areas than any other country in the world.

It is no wonder that we now have to import more than 70 per cent of the seafood we eat in this country every year and that international anglers are choosing alternative fishing destinations—when they look at the map all they see is green—before they make a decision to come to Australia or not to come to Australia. How ironic that a major report released by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Joe Ludwig, in December demonstrates that Australian key wildlife fish species are well managed. Over 80 of the country's leading fisheries researchers collaborated to produce a report on 49 species contributing over 80 per cent of the value and 70 per cent of the volume of Australian wildcatch fisheries. They found that fisheries are operating sustainably and our seafood stocks are in good shape—they are in great shape.

This government has demonstrated more than once it cares nothing for the opinions of the commercial and recreational fishing industries and all the families involved in fishing for sport or business. What matters is that it maintains the support of the Greens and the international environmentalists. As far as consultation with the industry is concerned on things like new marine reserves, the government is just ticking the boxes. It does nothing more than the minimum it is required to do. For example, the government released its draft management plans for new marine reserves with just the minimum 30 days of consultation in the middle of the Christmas school holidays. Of course, many of the people most interested in commenting on these very complex plans for the future of fishing in vast areas of ocean around Australia's coastline were on holidays—they had literally gone fishing. Both recreational and commercial fishing representatives requested the government extend the period for consultation from 30 days to 90 days. This very reasonable request by these representatives and others was totally disregarded. Now Minister Burke is rushing these plans through parliament just as quickly as he can.

In relation to the fishing bans to be imposed by the new marine reserves, the government has said professional fishers directly impacted will be able to apply for some compensation. However, charter boat operators will miss out entirely and so will related businesses such as tackle shops, seafood processors, seafood wholesalers, ship chandlers, providores, repair facilities and other suppliers of goods and services. At the same time, just to further muddy the waters and make sure the seafood industry cannot plan ahead with any uncertainty as to what the rules will be, fisheries minister, Senator Ludwig, announced a major review of Australian fishing policy and legislation, so the industry will have to continue treading water while the review is completed, his recommendations considered and then any changes to the legislation are framed, tabled and debated—more uncertainty for the seafood industry.

Senator Ludwig announced the terms of reference for the review on 13 September last year and said the review would be conducted within three months, yet six months later we have still not seen the review. Industry has to wait. Not once has this government stood up for the Australian primary producers and defended them against the outrageous claims and demands of the environmental multinationals. It is a valid question to ask whether this Labor government really has the will to protect Australian fisheries and the Australian fishing industry from a range of threats. We know the government has already caved in to pressure from the international environmentalists and their local franchises and is banning fishing from vast areas of Australian waters. Does the government have the will to genuinely protect our fish stocks from illegal fishing vessels? I do not believe so. Many senators will remember under the Howard government in 2003 the pursuit of the Uruguayan flagged vessel Viarsa by the Australian Customs and Fisheries patrol vessel Southern Supporter. The Viarsa was spotted in the Australian waters near Heard Island, suspected of illegally catching toothfish. The vessel fled when the Southern Supporter approached and so began a 7,000-kilometre, 21-day pursuit through stormy seas and icebergs in the Southern Ocean, until Viarsa was finally stopped in South Africa and escorted back to Australia. There it was forfeited and scrapped.

Of course, that was under a coalition government. Now we know that Australia has not conducted a single patrol in the Southern Ocean for over a year. The difference is simple: the Labor government is providing for the protection of our Australian Fishing Zone on paper. In government, the coalition will enforce fishing laws where it really matters—out on the water. When Tony Burke announced the proclamation of Labor's 2.3 million square kilometres of marine reserves he declared that Australia's precious marine environment has been permanently protected. He should have added it had been protected on paper. It has certainly not been protected out on the water.

All Labor has done is ban commercial and recreational fishing and left our offshore waters more vulnerable than ever to illegal foreign fishing vessels. The government does not have a policy for the fishing industry and it does not have a policy for protection of our fish from illegal foreign boats. Worse still, it does not have the will to protect our fishing zones. The only way to see a policy developed for our valuable seafood industry and to genuinely protect our Australian fishing zone from illegal foreign operators is to change the mindset of the government—and the only way to do this is to change the government itself. Fishermen will get their chance to help do that later this year, and I know they will respond accordingly.