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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the Minister for the Environment's response to the resolution of the Senate of 14 May 2015 concerning the protection of cetaceans.

Cetaceans are protected in Australia for a good reason—cetaceans primarily being dolphins and whales. They are protected because they are highly valued by Australians. We feel like we have a close affinity with the creatures of the ocean, and dolphins are protected in this country. It is a concern—a significant concern—for a number of Australians that the onset of industrial fishing with a large factory floating freezer, which we call trawlers or supertrawlers, has come to this country. It is a new fishing activity. I want to put this in context. When that boat arrived we had already had a very big national campaign against the arrival of a supertrawler back in 2012, the Abel Tasman. Although there was significant community concern about the impacts of these large floating factory freezer vessels, a new supertrawler was able to come to Australian waters, the Geelong Star. When it arrived it was given the tick of approval by the Australian Fisheries Management Authority to go fishing. This happened on Good Friday, on Easter Friday, with very little public scrutiny—a media release was put out over the weekend—and in its first week fishing in Australian waters it killed four dolphins and two seals. This was announced by AFMA—they let the Australian public know that these dolphins had been killed, and the boat returned to port. Upon returning to port, apparently, this situation was resolved, and for a second time AFMA gave the Geelong Star the approval to go fishing. The first night that the trawler threw its nets it killed another four dolphins and two fur seals. So within its first couple of weeks of operation it killed eight dolphins. Dolphins are protected under Australian law, but the fishing industry has exemptions. They do not call them deaths; they call them 'interactions' to avoid the used of that emotive word. But death is exactly what it is. It is a totally unacceptable situation.

I have the response of Minister Greg Hunt here in front of me, and I notice he talks about an escalating management response depending on the number of interactions—let's call them deaths. I wanted to make it very clear here today that we have had significant stakeholder feedback around the arrival of this boat to Australian waters, and there is a very deep concern in the community that their concerns are being ignored by this government. In fact, people are bewildered as to why we are seeing another factory freezer vessel and industrial fishing coming back into our small pelagic fisheries. I note in Minister Hunt's letter that he says the Australian government wants to ensure that our fisheries remain world class but sustainably managed, and that decisions are made using the best available science. It was made public this weekend that in the resource assessment group for the small pelagic fisheries—this is one of AFMAs committees that looks at the risks and discusses the issues around quota management and setting quotas for the small pelagic fisheries—the national chair of the committee, a well-respected scientist, resigned from her position. She resigned from her position due to unacceptable conflicts of interest within the resource assessment group process.

The reason this is very significant and very serious is that in 2012, when the Abel Tasman arrived, this issue blew up and was investigated by the ombudsman. What they said in relation to the resource assessment group was that AFMA needed to get its processes right, and they needed to have a system in place that addressed concerns around conflicts of interest. Then the Borthwick review was released. The Borthwick review was supposed to bring Minister Hunt's department in closer contact with AFMA so that ecosystem impacts were looked that. That also dealt with conflicts of interest within fisheries management processes. Here we have the proponent of a supertrawler within an AFMA committee and the chair of the group reigns because of political interference. This has a very serious implication not just for the small pelagic fishery, and the way we manage that fishery—and the number of Australians that are very concerned about the arrival of factory freezer vessels—but it has implications for how we assess resource management in the broader sphere across AFMAs fisheries. There are some fisheries that AFMA does a very good job in, so it is a real shame that the third scandal—the third public relations disaster—for this supertrawler, which has occurred within the first month that it has been in Australia, is making life so difficult for AFMA. Australians want to see this boat leave. They do not want industrial fishing in Australian waters. It is time that we accepted that.