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

Senator Ruston, I agree with you that the size of the boats is not the important factor in this. But I am a little bit confused, because it was your government that put the 130-metre length on your ban for supertrawlers. Your ban is actually based on the size of a boat, so I am not quite sure what you are getting at there. But, if you are saying that it is actually about the operations of the boats and how they operate, I totally agree with you. We certainly have that in common on this issue.

The independent scientific panel that looked at this fishing activity warned that there were risks around potential bycatch issues. Unfortunately, those risks were borne out in a very in-your-face way in the first few weeks after this vessel arrived in this country. This is a really important point: AFMA, the Australian Fisheries Management Authority, signed off on the Geelong Star when it arrived in Western Australia. They checked the seal excluder device on the net and they gave it the okay to go fishing. We know that it immediately caught seals and dolphins and had to return to port. They then checked it again and allowed the boat to go fishing a second time, and the same thing happened—and it happened a third time. So the Australian Fisheries Management Authority oversaw those seal and dolphin deaths. And now you are asking us to put faith in the fact that you have got it right now and there will not be any more mortalities of protected species—dolphins and seals. That is what you are asking us to take into account here. Senator Ruston, you also mentioned that the night ban was a knee-jerk reaction. They were the words you used.