Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to put on the record that the Australian government supports a robust management system for our fisheries to ensure that our fisheries are sustainable and available for everyone who wants to share in this resource. I would like to emphasise the comment about it being a shared resource. This is not a resource for any one member of our community or one sector in our community. There are a number of people who have every right to have access to our fisheries, as long as they are sustainably managed and appropriately managed. We have recreational fishers who like to go and throw a line over the side. We have game fishers who have a commercial stake in the fishery. We have commercial fishers who catch fish. We also have the public, and I think it is my responsibility, as much as anything, to stand here and represent the public of Australia who would like to go into a shop at night and buy fish that they can serve their children for dinner. We need to ensure that everybody who has a stake in this fishery has the opportunity to participate.

Tonight, the debate is not about whether this boat should fish or not fish. The debate tonight is about the removal of a temporary ban that was put on the boat as a precautionary measure following a number of our sea mammals being caught by this boat when it first began to fish. I want to make sure that we are very clear about this: we are here tonight because there is a direction before this parliament to allow the lifting of the ban of night-time fishing on the Geelong Star.

I want to put some facts on the record without the spin and the misinterpretation and the emotion that have been put into it by one of the previous speakers. There was no doubt that there was an unacceptable catch of dolphins when the boat first began fishing in the Small Pelagic Fishery of Australia earlier this year. There were eight dolphins caught. It was considered by the government and considered by AFMA, the independent regulator, that that was an unacceptable level and that something needed to be done immediately.

As a precautionary measure, two things were put in place. Firstly, there was a ban put on night-time fishing because it was believed that it was more likely they would catch the dolphins at night. This was not based on science. This was a knee-jerk, precautionary action taken because we believed that the level of dolphins that were being caught was unacceptable. Subsequent to that, there was also a new condition placed on the boat that if it caught a dolphin in any of the fishing zones around Australia there would be an immediate six-month ban on the boat fishing within that fishery. It did not matter whether the dolphin was caught during the day or whether it was caught at night—exclusion from that zone would exist for a six-month period. Subsequent to this being put in place, one dolphin has been caught. That dolphin was caught and that triggered the immediate exclusion of the Geelong Star from that zone, and it has not been able to fish in that zone for six months. It will not be allowed to fish there again until the middle of December, when the six-month period is up.

At the time, because it was a quick-reaction, precautionary activity that was undertaken, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority sought to take some in-depth research and analysis into why these dolphins were being caught. Subsequent to that, the Geelong Star has had a number of other regulations, actions and requirements put onto it. We need to remember that this boat is the most heavily regulated boat in the Australian fishery. There is no other boat in the whole of the Australian fishery that has more regulation than this boat. At all times, it carries two observers from AFMA, and I can assure Senator Whish-Wilson that there is no intention for those observers to no longer be required to stay on the boat.

But I also should point out that the Geelong Star themselves have an observer. They also have cameras on the boat and on the nets. These are monitored at all times. There is absolutely no capacity for this boat to catch a dolphin and for no-one to know about it. That is just an unreasonable proposition. The other really good thing is that these observers are also undertaking scientific research while they are out on the boat so that we can make sure that we understand better, at firsthand and with close observation, what this fishery is doing. In addition, there was a requirement undertaken at great expense by the boat to increase the level of excluding devices that are on the nets—they have changed nets—to make sure that the boat has the least possible chance of being able to interact with a sea mammal.

As Senator Whish-Wilson rightly pointed out, since 17 September when the ban was lifted on the operation of the boat there has not been an interaction with a dolphin. So, quite clearly, the decision for the ban to be lifted has not resulted in any adverse reaction in relation to any dolphins being killed.

The overwhelming majority of the evidence that was gathered by the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation and AFMA in analysing whether this ban was something that was necessary suggested that, because the boat fished largely at night, the interaction with the dolphins was likely to happen at night. It is a little hard to catch a dolphin during the day when you are not fishing during the day. But I do point out that the dolphin that was caught in June was caught during the day.

We believe that the exclusion from a zone and the punitive action put on this boat should it catch a dolphin in any fishery is very severe. It is probably the most severe punitive action you could possibly take on any fishing vessel. To say that if it had an interaction with but one of these mammals it cannot fish there for another six months is a very significant action. As I said, it is a massively regulated boat. It has observers. It has the most up-to-date, state-of-the-art devices on it to prevent these dolphins from being caught. I repeat again: this boat has not caught or had an interaction with a dolphin since it has been fishing at night again for the last couple of months.

The other thing I would also point out is that the length of the boat has nothing to do with how it catches fish. This obsession with how long a boat is seems a little silly, because whether a boat has a freezer is completely irrelevant to how it catches fish. The most important thing is the quotas that are put in place to make sure that we maintain the sustainability of our fishery. I point out that the quota that is allocated for the Small Pelagic Fishery is an extraordinarily conservative quota. It is believed that the quota allowed to be caught is somewhere between six and seven per cent of the biomass. It is a very small number.

This particular boat has a quota within the broader total allowable catch within this fishery. The boat cannot catch any more fish than its quota. If I sent out 17 little boats that caught 1/17th of the quota, as opposed to sending out one big boat that catches the quota, there would be no less fish caught by the little boats and there would be no more fish caught by the big boats. So it is not the size of the boat that matters; it is how the boat fishes and the conditions under which it fishes. I think we just have to get off the table any suggestion that the length of the boat has anything to do with it. It is the size of the nets, the method of the nets, where it fishes, what its quotas are and a whole heap of other things that go towards it.

We are very proud of having one of the world's best-managed fisheries. We are recognised around the world for how we manage our fisheries. If we now start attacking what is recognised as one of the most highly regulated, best-managed fisheries in the world, what sort of message are we sending to the rest of the world about our fisheries? We are sending this scaremongering message to the world, to say: 'It doesn't matter how good you are; we're quite happy not to worry about the science; we're not going to worry about whether the fishery is sustainable; we're just going to go on with an emotive argument.'

I take all of the issues that Senator Whish-Wilson has put on the table and accept that there is definitely a very strong public sentiment that the public out there do not want to see our dolphins harmed or killed. I do not think there is anyone amongst us who would not agree with that. But, if we can put in place conditions and regulations that almost entirely prevent any of these unfortunate deaths of dolphins occurring, then surely we should be seeking to maximise the opportunity for Australia and our wonderful fisheries so that we can feed not just ourselves but the world and we can have a fishing industry that is free from the sovereign risk that constantly gets placed on us as a country if we make decisions that are not based on science.

Obviously I am very keen for the directive that is before this place at the moment to be upheld and to allow the ongoing night fishing of the Geelong Star. I say so for a number of reasons but most particularly because I think that there is the opportunity for us to go forward and operate our fisheries in a collegiate way with all the people who have every right to participate in the shared resource which is our fisheries. They should be allowed to do so. If we take these sorts of actions without basing them on science, without looking at how the boat catches and how much the boat catches instead of worrying about how long the thing is, I think that we are actually making very bad policy decisions.

I am very keen to see this disallowance motion overturned so that we can get on with managing our fisheries in the best possible way and can continue to manage our fisheries based on science, sustainability and access for everybody who has a right to have part of this fishery. I would like to formally put on the record that the government will, obviously, be opposing this disallowance motion.