Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of government document No. 4 listed in the Notice Paper, titled Northern Territory Fisheries Joint Authority: report for 2002-03. On 17 February, I spent the day with the Bardi community of One Arm Point in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. I went to One Arm Point with a delegation of my colleagues. The task force was in the Kimberley the week before Minister Abetz, and we met with many of the same people Minister Abetz did.

The reason I want to share my experience is that, although the minister was able to find 45 minutes to meet with representatives from One Arm Point while he was in Broome, he did not find time to visit the community itself. In the newfound spirit of friendship and cooperation that Minister Abetz called for in question time on Tuesday, when he kindly asked for the opposition’s assistance to help him do his job, I will share with the Senate what I learnt to help Senator Abetz as he attempts to fix the mess left by his two predecessors.

I was truly inspired by the people I met, who are the traditional owners of what would have to be one of the most beautiful parts of the world. The Bardi are a proud and industrious people. Through their spokesman, Mr Andrew Carter, the Bardi people told us that they do not want sit-down money or to have to rely on the CDEP. The Bardi people want economic independence, real industries and real jobs. And, to their credit, they are getting on with the job of creating these industries, albeit without the assistance of the Howard government.

While I was there I was taken on a tour of the trochus hatchery that the Bardi people have installed adjacent to the township. This aquaculture project is run by members of the community employed through CDEP. A young man by the name of Michael Hunter, who is employed to work on the project, gave us the tour. Michael was proud of the work he was doing and shared in great detail the success he and his community are having at spawning trochus and breeding various species of fish in the hatchery.

As traditional owners and protectors of the trochus fisheries on Brue Reef, the Bardi people collect around 15 tonnes of trochus a year. The community’s licensed pickers are careful to leave small and large trochus to ensure the sustainability of the fishery and they reseed the reef with the trochus they farm in their hatchery. Just to give you an idea of the hard work that is involved in picking trochus, it takes 40 people a whole day to collect around 500 kilograms of legal sized shell. This yearly catch is cleaned and polished by the Bardi people in a workshop on the community. As their highest quality product comes from one of only three trochus fisheries in the whole world, the Bardi have a strong export market for the polished shells, which are sold to the fashion industry in Italy for the manufacture of buttons. This harvest earns the community an income of around $85,000 a year. The money they earn is set aside to pay the next year’s wages for the trochus pickers and the remainder is reinvested back into the community.

The tragedy for the Bardi people is that Brue Reef has been raided a number of times by Indonesian illegal fishermen, which has had a devastating effect on the Bardi’s trochus fishery. To put these raids into context, just one three-tonne raid from an Indonesian illegal fishing boat takes one-fifth of the entire community’s take for a year. And, because the Indonesian illegal fishermen strip the reef bare by taking everything that moves, the reef must be reseeded and allowed to rehabilitate before the Bardi can recommence their harvest. When a reef is stripped bare it takes at least three years to rehabilitate, which represents three years of lost income to the community.

The tragedy is that here is an Indigenous community that is working hard and trying to become economically self-sufficient and create sustainable industries and real jobs for their community so they can get off sit-down money and the CDEP, but they have been let down by the Howard government’s inability to police Commonwealth waters. Luckily for the Bardi people, Jon Ford, the Western Australian fisheries minister, did not sit idle in the face of this onslaught like Senator Abetz’s predecessors did. Minister Ford directed the Western Australian Department of Fisheries to reallocate resources and officers to make the eight-metre patrol vessel, FD10, available to the Bardi community to conduct marine patrols off the reef platforms of King Sound and Brue Reef. This has been necessary because, despite the repeated requests by the Western Australian government for the Howard government to do its job, wave upon wave of illegal fishermen—

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I raise a point of order, Mr Acting Deputy President. This is a very interesting speech, but the document that we are talking about is the report of the Northern Territory Fisheries Joint Authority. This senator is talking about something that is happening in Western Australia and I am not sure of the relevance of this particular issue.

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Macdonald, I think the speech is probably on the border line and I will direct Senator Sterle’s attention to the document.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I was fortunate enough to go out on the patrol in the FD10 with a Western Australian Fisheries officer and a member of the Bardi Sea Rangers by the name of Robert Chulong, who is employed by the Bardi community to work on the vessel. I can understand Senator Macdonald’s interest in this part of the world. I was able to see first-hand the knowledge Robert had of navigating the shallow tidal waters and rocky outcrops off the northern coast of One Arm Point. (Time expired)

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I actually came into the chamber to speak about the Northern Territory Fisheries Joint Authority and I have been delayed five minutes by someone talking about a Western Australian matter. Interesting though it was, it was completely inaccurate—as most of Senator’s Sterle’s contributions are when they relate to fisheries matters. What Senator Sterle clearly indicated in his presentation is that this particular fishery is a Western Australian fishery. If the Hon. Jon Ford, the minister whom he so highly regards, is doing such a great job, why isn’t he out there policing a Western Australian state fishery? Why isn’t he doing that?

But I am distracted from the issue before the Senate by the previous speaker, who did not refer to it once—that is, the Northern Territory Fisheries Joint Authority: report for 2002-03. That report does make interesting reading, but it highlights some of the problems to which Senator Sterle was adverting—that is, the illegal Indonesian fishermen. It raises with me the thought of the Indigenous rangers in the Northern Territory who have for some time been seeking some assistance from the government to join in the fight against the illegal fishing by Indonesian fishermen. That is a very worthwhile offer by the Indigenous people, and it is one which the government will be seriously considering. We have for some time been waiting for a submission from the Northern Territory minister. I understand that subsequent to my departure from the portfolio that submission has arrived. Of course, at the moment it is nothing that I will be able to directly have an influence on, but it is certainly something that I would urge the government to seriously consider.

I think the Indigenous rangers do have an ability to help in the fight against the illegal fishing. The Howard government has put massive resources into the fight against illegal fishing. I made a prediction a few months ago that we would win that fight within a couple of years—the same as we have won the fight in the Southern Ocean against the pirates of the Patagonian toothfish. It will take time and a lot of effort and we will need some more resources—and I will speak about that at some other opportune time. But the groundwork and the framework are there to win that battle. Most importantly, the work that has been done with Indonesia, I think, will be very useful in winning that battle in the months and years ahead.

I was delighted to read in the newspaper that Mr Downer has again been to Indonesia—that is twice in as many months or perhaps twice in three months—to talk to the Indonesian government about getting them on board to help resolve this issue. People like Jon Ford and Senator Sterle get up and make political points about these issues but never have any real solutions. The real solutions are being put in place by the Howard government, and the most prominent and most important amongst them is the cooperation of the Indonesian government.

It is a problem for Indonesia. Senator Sterle and Mr Ford would not have a clue about international diplomacy or the way international matters work, nor would they realise the difficulties the Indonesian central government has in addressing this particular problem. It involves provincial governments and local governments and it is a problem which in the past the central government, with whom the Australian government deals, has not focused upon. I have to say that has now changed, and both the foreign minister and the fisheries minister, a Papuan, are very focused on this issue. Their joint work with the Australian government will see us win that battle—and I have predicted within two years. I am very confident that we will do that. People laughed at us when I predicted that we could win the battle against the Patagonian toothfish pirates: that has now been achieved. Within two years, we will achieve the same success in the north of Australia.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know this is about the Northern Territory fisheries but I wanted to share some material that I received in an answer to a question on notice. It talks about identification of fish types intercepted on illegal foreign fishing vessels fishing in the Australian fishing zone along the coasts of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland. I think they demonstrate the magnitude of the problem. In 2002-03, according to the answer that I have just received from the minister, there were 60,471 kilograms of fish and 290 sharks identified in the vessels which had been intercepted. It is interesting to wonder how many kilograms or tonnes of fish were on the vessels that were not intercepted and how many sharks were captured by those vessels.

In 2003-04, there is a significant decline in the amount of fish found on intercepted vessels: 1,929 kilograms, a dramatic reduction—a 30th of the amount discovered the year before; but the number of sharks found to have been taken by those vessels rose from 290 to 1,415. When we come to 2004-05—and remember that it has been estimated that we were intercepting only one vessel in 10 that was spotted by Coastwatch in the Australian fishing zone in that time—the fish intercepted rose back up to 52,953 kilograms, that is, nearly 53 tonnes of fish; and the number of shark had risen to 1,789. It does not take much imagination to extrapolate that, if we are intercepting only one vessel in 10, then statistically it is probable that 500 tonnes plus of fish were being taken from the Australian fishing zone in those northern Australian waters and nearly 18,000 sharks were being taken from that fishing zone in that year alone.

They are very alarming figures. The department could not make that extrapolation and they gave me a lengthy answer as to the work they are attempting to do to put in place measures which will allow them to make the extrapolation. Looking at the material they have provided, I would be surprised if they could make an accurate extrapolation any time soon. I wonder, given Senator Macdonald’s intervention, whether the diplomatic efforts that he spoke about will be of any greater assistance in discovering the magnitude of the catch landed in Indonesia, for example, taken from Australian waters. If the figures are anywhere near the numbers that I extrapolated from those given to me in the answer provided by the minister, something in excess of 500 tonnes of fish and somewhere in the vicinity of 18,000 sharks were taken from the Australian fishing zone in those northern waters in the year 2004-05 alone.

We are seeing, on all of the evidence, an increase in effort and the discovery of larger vessels which are almost mother ships for smaller fishing operations, indicating a dramatic increase in the level of the catch taken. We see those figures bounce around, but 500 tonnes of fish and 18,000 sharks taken from those waters, I suggest, will have a dramatic effect on the fishery. It is no surprise that the fishing industry in northern Australian waters is so alarmed by the predation on the fishery and that it has taken this government so long to do anything about it. It is time not to project that we are going to have a result in two years but to talk about getting a result sooner. If these figures continue, there will not be much to take from the fishery in the future. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.