Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. If I were relying on your fishing expertise I also would be lining up behind Senator Edwards. On the face of it, isn't it wonderful to be able to stand and actually support some amendments to legislation—in this case, the Fisheries Legislation Amendment Bill (No.1) 2012. So it was with some degree of enthusiasm that I also consulted members of the fishing industry, only to be told by one of them that the best way to describe this Labor government is as a CFZ—a consultation-free zone. Unfortunately, I pick up on the comments of my colleague Senator Edwards. The point he makes and that the fishers have made to me around Western Australia is that there has been a total lack of consultation with people who are highly skilled, who have enormous investment over long periods of time and whose families would normally have been looking to follow them into this industry, but consultation by Minister Ludwig and now Minister Burke really means dictation—being dictated to and picking up the pieces afterwards.

Again, on the face of it, electronic monitoring in relation to Commonwealth fisheries is something to be applauded. When the time is right, when the technology is mature, if we are able to use it to actually improve surveillance and to reduce costs—heaven forbid that that might ever happen under a Labor government, in the sense that it may no longer be necessary to have the actual number of observers on vessels—of course it would be the subject of strong support. As a person who has spent some time working in the electronics industry, particularly in relation to auditing of high-value assets, I know the value of this technology—particularly, linking it to satellite, GPS and other technologies, the potential is there. But when I ask these people, 'To what extent have you been consulted? To what extent are you satisfied with the validity and the accuracy of data?' it all starts to fall apart.

In the time available to me this evening, I would like to reflect, if I may, for a moment on an area of the industry that has been high value but is high risk, and that of course is the subantarctic fishing areas which are so valuable to Australia. It is tremendous to have this evening in the chamber with me my colleague Senator Ian Macdonald, who in his capacity as fisheries minister under the John Howard government actually applied in 2000 and afterwards a high level of protection to the waters fished by Australians in our economic exclusion zone. I also give credit, if I may, to our leader, Senator Abetz, who in his turn, I understand, was also involved here; and my predecessor, the then Customs minister Chris Ellison. Because of the work that they did, we got to the stage where we did actually have a high level of protection, particularly for those of our fishermen involved in the Patagonian toothfish industry. More particularly, listening to Senator Feeney, he is quite right about sustainability, but our government, Senator Feeney, is something unusual, something you would not know too much about: we actually did something about it. We protected our fishing industry and we protected that zone against the rapacious illegal fishing of that high-value product.

I said to my fishing colleagues the other day: 'Give me some idea of the value of this particular fishery.' They said: 'Well, Chris, they fish all year round, regardless of season, and 200 tonnes of Patagonian toothfish yields them some A$4 million.' Isn't that amazing? So of course I went looking and I started to examine whether or not this government had followed the lead of the Howard government and fisheries ministers Abetz and Macdonald to see what level of protection we now had for this economic zone and for our fishermen in the subantarctic area.

I immediately go to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, and it is all good news. The Australian government, it says on the website, 'takes the protection of its sovereign territories and assets very seriously'. It speaks about illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in the Southern Ocean, and it presents a great story about the Southern Ocean patrol vessel, Ocean Protector. I went on to read that, as a result of this excellence by the now Labor government, there is 'a level of surveillance', and 'apprehended vessels operating illegally in this remote area can expect to be apprehended'. Of course it goes on to speak about the involvement with France. And thank heavens France is involved—I will explain why in a moment.

We are then told that in 2009-10 the government committed an additional 80 patrol days per year. It then went on to tell us that the Ocean Protector is available for operations 300 days per annum. Isn't this exciting! And it 'undertakes patrols in the Southern Ocean' and they are 'part of Australia's commitment to intercepting vessels and apprehending people suspected to be illegally fishing in ecologically fragile subantarctic waters'. I do not know whether Senator Feeney was in some way involved in the writing of this. We then went on to learn that they would be undertaking marine patrols for a minimum of 120 days per year in the Southern Ocean. Isn't this wonderful! The 'desired outcomes of the program are the protection of the Patagonian'—

Debate interrupted.