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

because all we will talk about is Mr Graeme Wood and the Triabunna mill in Tasmania. Senator Whish-Wilson would be wise to not start going down that path, Deputy President, I can assure you. It is interesting in Tasmania. I will get to Tasmania in a few minutes because the Tasmanian commercial fishing industry were a very significant client of mine when I had a business in Tasmania, and what a tragedy it is today to see where that industry has landed itself as a result of the efforts of the Greens. But of course, through the agency of the minister, it is trying to re-establish and recreate itself.

Let me go to the excellence of the Australian industry. We have heard commentary this morning about the UN and all its protestations. I heard a few protestations by the UN when I was there in 2013. I heard an absolutely nonsensical statement made by a woman in the UN. She made the observation that bushfires in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales were due to climate change! It sat down with those people and explained to them what a Mediterranean climate, eucalypt-dominated forest in a summer dry season creates—and it was not climate change. But it does remind me that I want to draw attention to the excellence of Australia's and particularly Western Australia's commercial fishing operations. I want to go to the Marine Stewardship Council, which is the international body that is actually the final arbiter of excellence or otherwise of the management of fisheries.

What do you think was the first fishery in the world to be certified under the MSC standards? It was, of course, Western Australia's western rock lobster industry. It is the most significant, single species fishery in Australia. It was in the year 2000—Senator Sterle would know this from being familiar with it all—that it became the first fishery in the world to be so certified as a well-managed and sustainable fishery, and it earned the right to market its product internationally under the MSC eco label. As a result of the wonderful work of Mr Robb, in his capacity to negotiate a free trade agreement between Australia and China—something that the Labor government were not able to do in six years—that we are now going to see an improvement and an increase in the export of western rock lobsters directly into the Chinese market. The species of crustacean will go into that market live and fresh and will go straight onto the tables—demonstrating again not only the excellence of our industry but also the demand for the freshness of our product.

The management of that fishery began in 1963. It has one of the longest-running management plans of any fishery in Australia and probably in the world. It has collected accurate data over time. It was in July 2010, following approaches from industry, that the then minister for fisheries announced that the western rock lobster fishery would be managed under an individual quota management system. Those of us associated with that fishery know what the improvement has been of allowing fishing 365 days of the year and a fishing quota so that the fishermen can decide on market demand and their capacity to maximise their returns, maximise the value and maximise the supply into our target markets.

But let me stay, if I may, with the Marine Stewardship Council, particularly in terms of the comments made only recently in this chamber about the supposed failed management of our fisheries. What is another Australian fishery that is certified under the Marine Stewardship Council? It is the patagonian toothfish fishery. An interesting point about it is that the product is frozen at sea and retains and remains the highest quality. I know Senator Urquhart and Senator Whish-Wilson would also be very interested in this, because it is Tasmanian fishers who are active in the patagonian toothfish fishery. It is another one that has been certified. It is another one that has an international certification of excellence.

Another fishery, which I think Senator Ruston would be interested in, with an international certification is the Northern Prawn Fishery—an Australian fishery. Do you knowing something else about it, Madam Acting Deputy President? It also has product that is frozen at sea, which retains the highest quality, so that it comes back to customers in Australia and overseas at the absolute best level. I do not know why it is that there are people in this place who have to run down our commercial fisheries.

But let me now come to the small pelagic fishery, because at this time it is undergoing a certification process by the Marine Stewardship Council. Geographically, where does the small pelagic fishery operate? It is everywhere from the New South Wales border right around to my home state of Western Australia. As I said, it is undergoing a certification process at this very time.

Before I move on, I want to remind those who are listening to this particular contribution that the MSC certified Patagonian toothfish fishery and the Northern Prawn Fishery are both fisheries which rely on the product being frozen at sea and retaining the highest quality prior to its consumption. So let us not demonise the processing of a product, as so many people seem so willing to do, or say that allowing it to be frozen in some way deteriorates it or in some way adversely impacts on the fishery itself.

To answer some of the questions that have been asked, the coalition, in government, commissioned the expert panel, and the expert panel has reported. It responded to the commercial fishing activity declaration that was made on 19 November 2012 under the EPBC Act. It defined the Small Pelagic Fishery and said that the activity was in such a fishery using midwater trawl methods. It specified the length of vessels and has reported. This independent Australian expert scientific panel has now completed its assessment of the potential impact of supertrawlers—that is, boats greater than 130 metres—in this fishery. It focused its attention on assessing the potential impact of these trawlers 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 environment minister with its report in mid-October. It was published, as we always do because of the demand for transparency, on 19 November 2014. The report gave a big tick to the existing risk based fisheries management framework used in the Australian fisheries management. If you had been listening to some of the earlier contributions, they would not have appeared to have been consistent with that advice and that report.

It is this framework that has resulted in Australia's fisheries being recognised as amongst the best managed anywhere in the world. The risk based management framework is already in place and, as I say, the Marine Stewardship Council is currently undertaking an assessment for certification. The harvest strategy exceeds—not meets but exceeds—internationally recommended standards such as those made by the Lenfest Forage Fish Task Force in its report Little fish, big impact. The report also highlighted that there are risks from the proposed fishing operations, be they commercial or recreational. Of course, the coalition, as it always does, widely consulted before it took the decision that it took. We know what that was. That was to place a ban on those vessels greater than 130 metres in size.

What additional research has been undertaken? It is science that must underpin fisheries management. There is a $1½ million research program well underway. We know that, for the current season, the total catch limit was set at 7.5 per cent of the estimated total fish population, leaving 92½ per cent remaining. I come back to where I started: like the person who moved this motion, it is redundant. The work has been done. It is superfluous. It can be omitted without any loss of significance to the community or to commercial fishing.