Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, it is interesting, isn't it? The Labor government were obsessed with the politics. You are right, Senator Lines. You are absolutely right. The Labor Party in government were obsessed with the politics. They were obsessed with opinion polls. And that is one of the reasons they were such a shocking government, such an absolutely shocking government. In the end, their obsession with those things—instead of being good managers, instead of actually looking after the country, instead of showing good leadership—their obsession with those internal matters and their obsession with focus groups and opinion polls did not help them to be a good government and did not help them to maintain the support of the Australian people. So I thank Senator Lines for her contribution. She is absolutely right. They were obsessed with those kinds of things rather than good policy.

Senator Lines interjecting—

Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—

I am very much enjoying this because I enjoy any time we can get political advice from the Greens party, because the Greens party, with their eight per cent of the vote—their eight per cent of the vote that they consistently attract—show just how much they represent mainstream Australia.

Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—

Sorry, what was that? I missed that from the eight per cent party. I could not quite hear. But, unlike the Labor Party, we will not take our policy advice or our political advice from the Greens.

That is at the heart of this issue. What Senator Ludwig said when he was in government was right: we should rely on the science; we should not go for cheap politics on this issue; and the way we have managed our fisheries over a long period of time is world's best practice. It is world's best practice. You could look at instances where we have gotten things wrong, of course, but, if you compare our record to that of most nations around the world, we do a great job of maintaining a sustainable industry, of feeding millions of people right around the world through our fisheries and of having the highest environmental standards. Ask yourself. I often think about this when we discuss the issue of fisheries. We saw attempts by the former government to really scale back the amount of fishing that could take place in our waters. You often say to yourself: well, we are still going to be getting fish, but if we are not getting it from Australian waters, if we are not doing it with the best environmental standards here in Australia, we will be getting it from other places that have far lower environmental standards than we do in this country. I think we fundamentally have to ask ourselves the question about what would happen if we were to take the Greens view of the world and part of the Labor Party view of the world and say, 'Look, we're just going to ban it more and more and make it more and more restrictive for commercial fishing.'

We understand the need for balance. We absolutely support recreational fishing and we know that, if you overfish, that is negative in the long term for commercial fishing, it is negative for recreational fishing and it is not sustainable. So we have always taken a scientific approach to this, but you ask yourself: if you ban it more and more, it will happen in other places where there will not be the same kinds of environmental standards. We will not have the jobs in this country that flow from the industry. We will not have the ability to feed not just ourselves but the world, as we should. What will happen is that we will be importing more and more of the stuff, with no real knowledge of the environmental standards that apply in other places. That, to me, is the fundamental when we look at these issues.

Regarding this bill, let us go to the expert panel report. The independent expert scientific panel has completed its assessment of the potential impacts of supertrawlers, boats greater than 130 metres, on our marine environment. The panel focused on assessing the potential impact of supertrawlers on the marine environment and protected species, including seals, dolphins and seabirds, and the potential for localised depletion of target species. The panel provided the Minister for the Environment with a report on its findings in mid-October, which was published on the Department of the Environment's website on 19 November. The report gave a big tick to the existing risk based fisheries management framework used in Australian fisheries management. It is this framework that has resulted in Australia's fisheries being recognised as among the best managed anywhere in the world. This risk based management framework is already in action in the Small Pelagic Fishery. The harvest strategy exceeds internationally recommended standards such as those made by the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force in the report Little Fish, Big Impact. The report also highlighted that there are risks from the proposed fishing operation, as there are with all fishing, be that commercial or recreational. The government believes that scientific evidence must continue to underpin the management of our fisheries.

That sums up our objections here to what is being driven, and is consistently driven, by the Greens—and that is that we will do it in a scientific way, not in an emotive way and not based on whatever scare might be out there at the time. It is based on the best scientific evidence around how we can continue to have a vibrant fishing industry, which we on this side of the parliament certainly want to see. We want to see a commercial fishing industry in this country that is viable, creates jobs, feeds Australians and creates an export market. That is a great thing for Australia. We also want to manage threatened species. We also want to make sure that it is commercially sustainable, which means that overfishing is not only bad for the environment; it is not commercially sustainable in the long term. We also want to see strong Indigenous recreational fishing opportunities.

All of those things do operate in this country. In large part, they operate quite well. We believe in taking a scientific approach, accepting the expert advice, rather than having this ad hoc approach that we are seeing in this kind of legislation. For all of those reasons, the coalition will not be supporting the bill.