Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

tell us that we need to take action on global warming. Yet Senator McKenzie's party full of climate change deniers has the audacity, the nerve to lecture the Greens about not listening to scientists. We are the only party that wants to protect the environment in this country. We are the only party that wants to protect the environment.

This bill, if it is passed, will give the environment minister discretion as to whether they will allow supertrawlers to come into this country. This is an environment minister who has allowed dredging in the Great Barrier Reef, who has backflipped and broken promises on the Renewable Energy Target, on a price on carbon, and on his No. 1 darling issue: whaling in the Southern Ocean. Every year Minister Hunt—the same person who will have discretion if this bill gets up—berated and grandstanded against Peter Garrett, around his lack of action on whaling. But what happened when he became the environment minister? He rolled over and had his tummy tickled by the rest of his party room. He did nothing to prevent whaling in the Southern Ocean this summer. So, what is to say that he is going to prevent the arrival of a supertrawler and take action? And, by the way, if he does not, that would be just one of many broken promises from the coalition. I have the quote here from the Prime Minister saying that supertrawlers would be banned, but what Senator McKenzie outlined here today sounded nothing like the coalition were prepared to ban supertrawlers in these waters.

Let us get back to the Labor Party. I sat in this chamber and I debated that more work needed to be done on the science around the Small Pelagic Fishery and the very fishy business of the arrival of this boat, the Margiris, whose name was later changed to Abel Tasmana very fishy business. It was done through campaigning in Tasmania and around the country—and there is absolutely no doubt that the recreational fishing community in this country and the Greens are not common bedfellows, but we were on this campaign, because the number one issue we both felt needed to be addressed was the issue of local depletion. It was the fact that a supertrawler can sit out to sea for long periods of time, follow large schools of small pelagic fish and deplete areas of fish. As far as I know from asking questions at recent estimates, there still has not been a definition of what constitutes local depletion. The Greens have been very clear in our policy on supertrawlers. We do want to see them banned. Two years ago we proposed an amendment that would have banned supertrawlers, with the onus of proof being on the proponents of new supertrawlers to prove that they would not damage the ocean. We want to see a ban on these boats put in place—