Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are talking about the government’s amendments to the EPBC Act contained in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Recreational Fishing for Mako and Porbeagle Sharks) Bill 2010, which allow recreational fishers to continue hunting shortfin and longfin mako sharks and the porbeagle shark, despite these being listed as migratory species. The government is saying that the situation in Australian waters is different to that in the Northern Hemisphere and is making what we believe are very significant changes to the EPBC Act to allow the taking of these sharks to continue. The government is saying that the situation in Australia is different and that the situation for the sharks in our waters is not as dire as the situation in other waters or in the Northern Hemisphere. The Greens are extremely concerned about the precedent that the government is setting by amending the EPBC Act prior to the comprehensive amendments that we believe are coming through the Hawke report. We think there has been inadequate information on which to base those decisions, and I will go into some of those issues shortly.

The shortfin and longfin mako sharks and the porbeagle shark have been listed as protected under the convention on migratory species, or the CMS, to which Australia is a signatory. In fact, as we know, Australia has legislation in place to also list and afford protection to these species. Of course, this is where part of the crux of this argument is. The convention on migratory species listing was not based on the conservation status of the three species in the Northern Hemisphere alone, as is argued by many people supporting these amendments. The convention listing is in fact global. There is an opportunity under the convention to do a regional listing, but this was not taken up. This is very important. This aspect of the listing was not taken up. It was decided to do a global listing.

The shortfin and longfin mako sharks are listed by IUCN, which is the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, as vulnerable to extinction globally—not just in the region but globally. The porbeagle is considered near threatened in the Southern Hemisphere. So the conservation status of all three of these species is far from secure in the Southern Hemisphere, as has been argued and as was just argued by the previous speaker, and they are, as we know, subject to commercial and recreational fishing in Australia. We do not know if this is ecologically sustainable.

Prior to this controversy, Minister Garrett had already placed the shortfin mako shark on his priority list for assessment as a potentially threatened species under the EPBC Act, so clearly he and his Threatened Species Scientific Committee do think there is a conservation concern for this species. I am deeply concerned, as are the Greens, that this is a bad precedent. For the first time, something is listed under the EPBC Act and then specific amendments are made to unprotect it. We believe this sends poor messages to those people who seek to use wildlife: that if you lobby hard enough you can get special amendments to unprotect the particular species that you are interested in. I am unaware of this precedent happening under any state threatened species laws.

The Minister for the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts claims that the listing for the mako shark was based around concerns for the Mediterranean stocks and that there is no concern for Australian stocks. This is not the case. We believe there is sufficient concern around the stocks in our waters to raise concerns. As I have previously said, the convention listing was done because there was a global concern for the species, which are listed as vulnerable on the IUCN red list.

There is currently no conclusive evidence to support the view that there is a separation of Northern from Southern Hemisphere stocks or others in other geographic areas. In fact, we heard from Senator Colbeck the large distances that these species can travel. There are many other species that have been split by regional decisions. As I said, this was open for the convention to do, but the decision was made not to split the status of any of these thre species on a regional basis. This option was there and it was not taken.

The federal minister for the environment, Peter Garrett, is required under the legislation as it currently stands, the EPBC Act, to list the species as migratory once a CMS listing occurs. He has decided not to do this or to change legislation in this instance, and we do not believe this is based on any scientific integrity. We believe it is unfortunate that he has decided to take this approach, because we are deeply concerned about the future of these sharks. We are concerned about the precedent if enough attention is given to a particular species because people want to catch it and the government not only do not list the species but also change the act so that they do not have to list the species. The argument made by DEWHA is that the lack of population decline data in the Southern Hemisphere warrants a business-as-usual approach to their management until data is available. However, under the government’s obligations to manage fisheries, we would have thought that the precautionary principle would require the cessation of fishing impacts on listed species while that review is conducted. As I said, bear in mind that we heard a couple of moments ago that the mako shark travels great distances. In fact, one of the species currently being tagged has travelled 4,541 kilometres in a straight line. In other words, we do not think it is possible to separate out distinct populations.

There is a general lack of data as to the conservation status of these three species within Australian waters. Data on the levels of mortality caused by fishers including the landings of and trade in their products is also missing. There is a lack of information to ascertain current levels of catch and we do not know whether these are in any way sustainable. Yes, the culture for recreational fishing has changed and far more fishers are now doing catch and release, but I suggest that there is a lack of evidence on the impact of catch and release on such large species and the survival rates of the sharks that are taken, particularly where game fishing competitions are involved. There is evidence to suggest that significant fatigue and the build-up of toxic acids within the body and the muscles of the shark can prove potentially fatal. This occurs particularly during competition fishing, where quite often fishers will use a lighter line for targeting particular species. We understand this includes the shortfin mako. I understand the intention is to release sharks, but there is a lack of information about the survival data of these species when they have fought for a long time during these game fishing competitions and have been landed and then released.

All commercial fisheries that interact with the three species within the Commonwealth waters currently hold WTO approval that may or may not have conditions relating to the landing of these three species. However, commercial fishers will continue to take the species at the same levels as prior to the convention listing. We do not believe that there is enough data at the moment to show that the current level of catch is sustainable—in other words, you are going to have commercial fishers and recreational fishers continuing to take these species that have been listed under the convention for migratory species. There is no evidence to show that current catches are sustainable and we believe that the approach taken by the department in putting up these amendments affords no additional protection or conservation measure as required by the convention for migratory species listing. We are deeply concerned about the future of these species anyway, we are concerned about the future of these species now that these amendments have been made and we are concerned about the future of these species with these amendments and the fact that precautions have not been put around the changes under the act. In a minute I will get to those changes, how they interact with the recommendations of the Hawke report and why this amendment is pre-empting the broader response to the Hawke report.

According to information from the most recent Indian Ocean Tuna Commission scientific committee report dated December 2009, in its management advice:

There is a paucity of information available on this species and this situation is not expected to improve in the short to medium term. There is no quantitative stock assessment or basic fishery indicators currently available for shortfin mako shark in the Indian Ocean therefore the stock status is highly uncertain.

Shortfin mako sharks are commonly taken by a range of fisheries in the Indian Ocean. Because of their life history characteristics—they are relatively long lived (over 24 years), mature at 7-8 years, and have relativity few offspring (<30 pups every three years), the shortfin mako sharks is vulnerable to overfishing.

The recently released Pacific Islands regional plan of action for sharks states that it has been recognised that the catch rates of mako sharks in the commercial fisheries of the South Pacific Ocean have been in decline, that there are concerns that this represents overfishing, and that hence the WCPFC is looking into the issue to attempt stock assessments. Makos are kept for their meat throughout the fisheries. There is no indication mako sharks caught in Australian waters are isolated from those in the wider Pacific and hence we believe it should be assumed that Australia’s makos are also probably suffering from overfishing.

On page 71 of the regional action plan for the western central Pacific, it says that there is limited information on the status of shortfin mako stocks available. Catches and catch rates have steadily increased in the tropical deep longline fishery since 1998 and, while catches and catch rates have shown large interannual fluctuations in the tropical shallow fishery, increasing catches of species have also been recorded in other fisheries in the area.

Estimates from the combined longline fisheries of the WCPFC show a steady decline in catches and catch rates of combined mako sharks—shortfin, longfin and unidentified mako sharks—since the late 1990s. This suggests that the recent levels of fishing effort on mako sharks may be higher than the stocks can sustain. However, thorough assessments have not been undertaken on shortfin makos in the Pacific Ocean. In other words, the stock assessments are unclear. There is a great degree of uncertainty about the sustainability of current practices. Therefore, if we use the precautionary principle, we should be very careful about how we make amendments to facilitate takes when we know that these species are vulnerable and threatened.

The government claims that the amendments we are currently discussing are consistent with the Hawke report, but we do not believe that that is entirely the case. The Hawke report into the EPBC Act recommended that the EPBC Act be amended to allow the take of appendix 2 migratory species that were—and this is the key part—‘subject to management arrangements demonstrating that the take would not be detrimental to survival of the species’. In other words, in not requiring a management plan this amendment is not consistent with the Hawke review.

As has been stated in estimates, the government at the moment are currently undertaking a whole-of-government response to the Hawke report. When they announced that, they also said that there were three things that they would not be doing—related to climate triggers for one and regional forest agreements for another—but we understood that they would then be bringing a comprehensive approach back to how the EPBC Act would be amended. However, this amendment has been taken outside that review process and, as I said, does not implement one of the key essential areas of that recommendation—being subject to management arrangements demonstrating that the take would not be detrimental to the survival of the species. We are unsure not only about what the species populations are but also about the numbers that are being taken and whether they are vulnerable or threatened. We do not know if the current fishing activity is sustainable.

It is extremely disappointing that the exemption does not require recreational fishers to at least have a management plan in place to ensure that the numbers of mako or porbeagle sharks being taken are ecologically sustainable. That is already the case for commercial fishers. Under the EPBC Act, commercial fishers are exempt from offence provisions when they catch listed migratory species if they are cooperating with a fisheries management plan that ostensibly—because, as I have just said, we are not sure about what the population numbers of these species are—has measures in the plan to mitigate their impact on the protected species.

While we oppose the way these amendments have occurred, and these amendments to the act specifically, one of the ways that this can be improved is, we believe, by putting management plans in place. Contrary to the comments made about AFMA overseeing the overall management of the fishery, we have crafted some amendments that we think actually put in place management plans requiring the involvement, obviously, of the fisheries department but that would then be accredited by the Minister for the Environment. We have, in fact, two amendments to propose. First, I am moving a second reading amendment that relates to the issues around the collection of data and calls on the government to fund a dedicated mako and porbeagle shark research and data collection program.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add “but the Senate calls on the Government to fund a dedicated mako and porbeagle shark research and data collection program, working with recreational fishers to conclusively document the status and trajectory of mako and porbeagle sharks in Australian waters”.

We are, as I have said, deeply concerned about the impact these amendments may have on these species. It is not clear that the fishing levels are sustainable and what population numbers are. We believe that, if these amendments go ahead, it is essential that additional resources be made available to ensure that we do have a research and data collection program in place that allows us to get a better handle on the numbers of these three shark species because, as I have articulated, it was clear that the convention considered that these species should be listed globally. There was a key decision made not to list these species regionally. We therefore believe it is essential that the government put more money into the issues around data collection. Secondly, we believe that the issue around the establishment of a management plan is critical. I will be moving amendments in the Committee of the Whole relating to that issue as well.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to congratulate Senator Colbeck, the shadow parliamentary secretary for agriculture, fisheries and forestry, who has done a fantastic job in relation to this issue. I know that, in his speech on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Recreational Fishing for Mako and Porbeagle Sharks) Bill 2010, Richard mentioned a number of people that he also thanked for their involvement and I would like to associate myself with those remarks.

I understand from Senator Colbeck that the issue here is that this listing was category 2 under the IUCN, which actually allows for continued fishing under a management plan, but that the Australian legislation does not cater for this in that it does not have any differential in categories. Is that correct, Senator Colbeck?

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s correct, Senator.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And indeed that recommendation 17 of the Hawke review would resolve this issue. So in fact this legislation is only putting a temporary fix in place.

Senator Colbeck very kindly talked about Corangamite and the hard work of Sarah Henderson, the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite. I will talk more about her hard work and what little work was done by the current member for Corangamite.

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

You’re wasting time.

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am disappointed that Senator O’Brien made that interjection. I was going to keep my comments short but, with this sort of interjection when we are trying to get through things quickly, for Senator O’Brien to be doing this I think is bitterly, bitterly disappointing. I hope that he admonishes himself because he is after all a whip. That was a very disappointing interjection.

I will talk about the public meeting that Senator Colbeck talked about in Torquay on 19 January this year. There were, on my estimate, about 600 people at this public meeting. As Senator Colbeck said, it started in a very small hall and finished with a fantastic, old-fashioned public meeting with a ute, the loudspeaker on the back and 600 people expressing their anger at what had occurred—an old-fashioned town hall meeting which was very exciting for those who were there.

Where was Mr Cheeseman? Was Mr Cheeseman, the current member for Corangamite, there? Was he there to stand up and say: ‘I’m going to do something for the fishers in Corangamite. Am I going to fight; am I taking the government on.’ No, of course he was not. Typical behaviour—there, slinking around at the back of the meeting, was one of his staff members. Slinking at the back of the meeting while the member did not have the intestinal fortitude to front up to those 600 fishers and make it work. That staff member, who is known to me but will remain nameless, then rang the local newspaper, the Geelong Advertiser, and said, ‘There are 100 people there, all there for political reasons’—100 hundred people when 600 were there.

Senator Colbeck and others, including Sarah Henderson, the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite, put together petitions. There were some 8½ thousand signatures on petitions from all over the country and Sarah Henderson did a marvellous job in getting those signatures. I have read some remarkable things in my 16-some years in the Senate and the other place, but nothing compares with the speech from the member for Corangamite in the other place on Monday, 15 March. In this speech there was some remarkable gilding of the lily in relation to the work that he had done in engaging with the local community. He did not engage with anyone. The only time he engaged was when Sarah Henderson, the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite, started meeting with the fishers and the charter boat operators and talking about this. He then became remotely interested.

It was fascinating. I have never at a public meeting or working with community groups bowled up to someone and said, ‘How do you vote?’ As an elected representative you are not there to ascertain how someone votes; you are there to ascertain whether you can assist in matters of concern to them. In this remarkable speech—and I do suggest that honourable senators get hold of a copy of it because it is quite remarkable—we have Mr Cheeseman talking about his work with Steve Burton, who is the commodore of the Torquay Angling club, and Shane Korth, the secretary of the club. I met both of those gentlemen. I can assure you that I did not ask them how they voted. I said, ‘What can we do to address the issues that you have?’ I did not say ‘How do you vote?’ During this speech Mr Cheeseman was waxing lyrical about the amount of consultation that he had had. Just listen to this:

Today I would particularly like to thank and acknowledge Steve and Shane for their efforts.

Steve and Shane worked, I can tell you, but Mr Cheeseman did absolutely nothing.

Mark Arbib (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for Government Service Delivery) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Arbib interjecting—

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Minister, even you will cringe when you hear this. Hot off the back of Penrith, even you will cringe when you hear this. The speech goes on:

They have made it clear to me that they are diehard Labor voters, as is the recreational and charter boat fishing community.

Oh yeah, they might have been; I can assure you, they are not now. The speech goes on:

It was important that government took these decisions as quickly as we could to ensure—

listen to this—

that Labor voters in those fishing communities could get back to recreational fishing.

What turns this man on? What a remarkable contribution! What about the people who actually do not vote Labor—what about their rights? Where is the absent member for Corangamite when it comes to people who do not vote Labor or people who are not sure how they are going to vote? What is he going to do for them? Nothing at all. He is only there for those people who apparently commit themselves to the cause. Is it any wonder that this man has probably two to five months left in this parliament? He is a blow-in to Corangamite. He is actually from my home town. He has no association with Corangamite. He is a man who in 2½ years has constantly proved that he has no association with Corangamite at all.

Again there is all the flapping around, but guess who delivered on the Winchelsea to Colac section of the Princes Highway on Friday? It was Tony Abbott and Sarah Henderson, the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite. Sarah Henderson, the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite, has put on the map the Princes Highway from Waurn Ponds to Colac and that will be duplicated after the current section is completed. There is $20 million of real money there to make sure that the planning and the acquisition is dealt with. I have a bit more to say on this after 6.30 because this story is yet to unfold and it is still to be told.

I am not too sure whether I mentioned before the dinner break that Sarah Henderson is the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite. If I did not, it was most remiss of me. She most certainly is. I am not too sure whether I mentioned that the current member for Corangamite, Mr Cheeseman, only makes decisions for Labor voters. If I did not mention those things it was most remiss of me and I am sure that Sarah Henderson would not be happy if I did not mention her name. I was a bit distracted by the intervention of Senator O’Brien before the break. I did get off script a little bit in relation to this matter, but I had to thank Senator Colbeck for his fantastic work on behalf of the recreational and commercial fishers.

This bill is the perfect microcosm of this government’s ineptitude and inconsistency. This is a piece of legislation for which there should never have been any need. We are now debating an unnecessary fix to an unnecessary problem created by an unnecessary regulation imposed by an unnecessary minister of a useless government. It is the product of a government that runs on theory over reality, a government that values the hypothetical over the practical, a government so detached from the everyday concerns of everyday people that it just keeps mucking things up. Again, when you look at someone like Sarah Henderson, the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite, versus Mr Darren Cheeseman, the incumbent, again you see that very much in play.

Let’s look at how this whole sorry business began. Late last year, the unnecessary Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts announced an unnecessary ban on the fishing of mako and porbeagle sharks. Why did the minister take such action? It seems these sharks were placed on a list of endangered species by the United Nations. There was very good reason to protect the mako and the porbeagle in the Northern Hemisphere. According to my friend and colleague Senator Colbeck, in the Mediterranean and the North Atlantic these species of shark are indeed under threat. But in Australia these mako and porbeagle sharks are not in short supply. As a matter of fact, in Australian waters they are found in abundance.

There was no consultation with the recreational fishing industry, which generates over $100 million and hundreds of jobs in coastal Victorian communities; there was no consultation with the charter operators whose livelihoods depend on shark fishing; and there was no consultation with the anglers for whom fishing is an important part of life. The shark ban was behaviour in the classic Rudd government mould—arbitrary action taken at the behest of radical interest groups by a minister showing little understanding of and even less concern about how this decision will impact on local communities.

Even worse was the initial response to the first signs of disquiet and discontent from Australia’s recreational fishing community—a dismissive response reeking of all the arrogance that we have come to expect from this out-of-touch government. My contacts in the fishing community inform me that the fisheries minister refused to answer shark related inquiries one would think were within his portfolio responsibilities. He is the fishing minister. One would have thought the mako and the porbeagle were probably—at a pinch, I would suspect—within his portfolio. But no, instead of that the office of Mr Burke fobbed off callers to Mr Garrett. That reminds me: I do not know whether honourable senators are aware of it, but Mr Burke actually wrote to Sarah Henderson, the Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite, and said to her: ‘Ms Sarah Henderson, the member for Corangamite.’ This fellow might not know much about fish but, I tell you what, he has channelled the election result. He has picked this four months out. ‘Dear Ms Henderson’—this was to Sarah Henderson, the member for Corangamite.

I know it was deeply embarrassing for Mr Burke but not as embarrassing as this performance was. His office fobbed off callers to Mr Garrett where, not surprisingly, the response was only slightly less obnoxious. Mr Garrett’s office said the minister was ‘too busy’ to take calls from people whose livelihoods were at stake because of his decision. The minister’s staff demanded that all inquiries be submitted in writing, but Victoria’s recreational fishing industry was not put off that easily by the minister’s circle-the-wagons tactics. With the aid of the actual Liberal Party candidate for Corangamite, Sarah Henderson, we organised a public forum to ensure the voices of those concerned by the mako shark ban would be too loud to be ignored.

For those honourable senators who were otherwise detained before dinner, we talked about the fact that there was a massive public meeting of 600 people. Just like in the old days, as I said, a ute pulled up with a loudspeaker on the back and there were 600 very excited people, not one of whom—Sarah Henderson will know—was asked what their voting preferences were. Of course we know that that is the modus operandi of Mr Cheeseman and he only supports those who vote Labor. Those voices were heard thankfully as far away as Canberra and the rising backlash over the mako shark ban finally registered with the mindless ministers and the faceless bureaucrats in this capital city of ours.

Was it a new-found desire to protect the recreational fishing industry from being ravaged by this ban, was it highbrow concern for the public interest, or was it lowbrow concern for partisan political interests? I strongly suspect the latter. I strongly suspect this reversal of course on the mako shark ban was undertaken to try to minimise the political damage it was causing to one of Labor’s most marginal electorates. That brings me again to Mr Cheeseman, the member for Corangamite, who has aided and abetted the unnecessary environment minister in his unnecessary folly.

Honourable senators may not be aware that Mr Cheeseman has a long track record of complete and utter subservience to the Labor Party apparatus at the expense of people of the electorate he is supposed to represent. When push comes to shove, Mr Cheeseman has always placed selfishness above selflessness, placing his own personal political interests above the public interests of Corangamite, and the misguided mako shark ban is no exception. When the unnecessary minister for environment protection issued his unnecessary ban on shark fishing, the member for Corangamite was silent. This is of course Canberra’s representative in Corangamite as opposed to Corangamite’s representative in Canberra and as always, as we have come to expect time after time, he said nothing. He was silent at the rising tide of discontent that arose from angling clubs, from the charter boat operators and from the recreational fishing industry. It was only later, when the voices of protest became loud enough to penetrate even Mr Cheeseman’s insular bubble, when they became too loud for even the politically tone-deaf member for Corangamite to ignore, that he decided to react. Again: too little, too late. At that stage he tried to hedge his bets.

I know that there are a number of my colleagues who want to speak, so I will just finish on this note. If ever there were an issue that showed how completely incompetent the current member for Corangamite is, it is this mako shark ban. Rather than getting out and doing something about that, he sat on his haunches until it became too much for him, and at that stage he did something about it.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Seriously! If you want to talk about incompetence: two days you sat in front of him and you forgot to ask the real question!

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hark! I hear an intervention from the minister for freebies who has just come in to make some comments.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State and Scrutiny of Government Waste) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister for freebies can interrupt as much as he likes. If he wants to go out and protect the member for Corangamite, I am afraid that is a reflection on the minister and not on anyone on this side of the House. What we need to see in Corangamite is the election of Ms Sarah Henderson, who has the wherewithal, the background and the interest in the electorate to properly represent the people of Corangamite.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure Sarah Henderson will be a worthy member of parliament, and I wish her all the best.

The government’s respect for the EPBC Act, which we are amending tonight, is nil. The government’s respect for the fishing industry and fishing communities is nil—notwithstanding the intent of this bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Recreational Fishing for Mako and Porbeagle Sharks) Bill 2010, which I acknowledge is a very small mercy. The proof of both points is in the minister’s outright abuse of the EPBC Act to curry political favour with the Greens at the expense of the wider community and especially at the expense of fishermen, their families and their communities.

In May 2009, the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts declared the Coral Sea Conservation Zone. The zone is one million square kilometres of ocean abutting the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park right out to the 200-mile limit. The minister used section 390D of the act, which provides for interim protection of an area pending longer term protection. Its use implies a threat to the region so great and so imminent as to warrant use of the emergency protection provisions of the act. But, since all existing uses were allowed to continue, a threat that would justify proper ministerial use of the act was not something that was then happening in the Coral Sea. That leaves only a suddenly emerging threat as justification. None was cited, none was mentioned, because none exists. No massive fishing fleet was about to be unleashed into the Coral Sea. No oil exploration program was afoot, planned or even hinted at. So why would the minister do it, especially when you consider the wider context of the marine bioregional planning process that was in train?

The basis of the process was an assessment of biodiversity in Australia’s territorial waters. An assessment of the values of the Coral Sea was therefore already happening. So why would the minister do it? Why would he also abuse the EPBC Act? It was yet another stunt to get the Greens’ preferences. The minister wanted to curry political favour in exchange for green votes.

The Pew foundation—an organisation with American roots and American money—and the Australian Conservation Foundation had called for the establishment of what they named the Coral Sea Heritage Park, with a 100 per cent no-take zone. We should look at the Pew organisation. It is an American organisation and it is coming out here and putting its snout right into the affairs of Australia. I would have thought that Americans would have had enough environmental problems of their own to look after, but no. We have got Pew out here interfering with a lot of our marine parks. The park they wanted matched perfectly the boundaries of the minister’s Coral Sea Conservation Zone. Very few people knew about the impending declaration. Fishermen did not. Their communities did not. The wider public did not. But the Greens did. They were in the loop. The ACF met the minister’s officials on 19 March last year. Pew met with them on 14 April last year. No other interest group was given the same consideration. And they got the Coral Sea Conservation Zone, mirroring their Coral Sea Heritage Park. In March this year, they were given further encouragement. The minister declared areas for further assessment in the marine bioregional planning process right up and down the coast. The areas represent the government’s distillation of specific parts of our territorial waters that they want to examine more closely. They are the areas where future marine protected areas will be established. In the process, the minister declared the entire Coral Sea Conservation Zone an area for further assessment.

These two big concessions to the Greens were far from the only big concessions from Labor in the region. I have a map of what I call ‘Greensland’, not Queensland. It shows that the Coral Sea Conservation Zone is just the beginning of the way the Labor Party is courting the green movement and the green vote in Queensland. Starting from the east, on this map of Queensland—or Greensland—you have the Coral Sea Conservation Zone. That meets the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, which in turn meets the Queensland coast. Then you virtually have the entirety of the Cape York landmass—east to west, north to south—under the wild rivers declaration, which, as the Wilderness Society has noted, will preserve the World Heritage values of the cape. Just as well the Aboriginals are very strong on this issue. The government is committed to putting forward Cape York for World Heritage listing. On the western side of the cape you are back in the water the Gulf of Carpentaria. There you hit the vast areas of the gulf, rich in prawns and mackerel. That is another area up for special examination and inclusion in the marine protected areas. Add the vast area of south-western Queensland that is now slated for wild rivers declarations, and the MPA becomes a map of Queensland.

Labor—state and federal—is providing a never-ending flow of concessions to the Greens. The legislation as a concession to a very small band of recreational fishers is meaningless in the wider context of this government’s approach to non-Green interests. The minister is setting up to dud all the fishermen and all the communities who are going to be impacted by the marine protected areas, which will now emerge sometime after the election. Those MPAs for the eastern and northern bioregions were to have been public in the middle of this year—around about now—but they have been delayed until next year. The minister was obviously hedging his bets about when the election would be so that he could keep his intentions secret, at least from the non-Greens. That is because the government is set to dud fishermen and their communities—based on a report from a consultancy called Maximus Solutions. I will table that report.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Are you seeking leave to table that, Senator Boswell?

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will, Madam Acting Deputy President, but I will have to show it to the minister first. The government has had it since last August. It has not been publicly released and it has only recently been provided to a stakeholders advisory group which has very limited access to the government. The guts of the report is that it recommends against compensation or structural adjustment for the vast majority of fishermen and associated businesses that will be affected by the establishment of marine protected areas—right around the Australian coastline. The report suggests there may be a constitutional requirement, under the ‘just terms’ provisions, to provide compensation to native title holders and mining interests. But the only category of fishers likely to get any support—if the government accepts the consultants’ conclusions—are those who hold statutory fishing rights. That basically means compensation will be restricted to holders of quotas in Commonwealth fisheries. No other fishers or associated industries will get anything if the government accepts the advice.

If you compare that with the way that the former government supported fishers, associated businesses and communities in the wake of the extension of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the meanness of the government is exposed. The bill for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park extension is in excess of $220 million. I know, because I worked very hard to get it. This mean-spirited and sneaky government looks set to provide very little, and to keep its meanness secret until after the election. And that is unconscionable. The government needs to come clean before the election. It needs to give the fishing industry—commercial and recreational—several key undertakings. It needs to tell fishers clearly that it will engage them in risk assessments to determine what the impact of fishing is in the areas the government is most interested in. It needs to guarantee fishers that once the risk assessments have been done it will then engage in consultation and negotiation about the form of compensation or structural adjustment that will be needed. Above all, it needs to be open and accountable before the election.

In Cairns recently I met a number of fishermen and people associated with the industry from the Queensland sector of the northern marine region, the gulf. The people I met highlighted that what the government is contemplating on this issue is going to have the same sort of flow-on impacts that its mining tax is having. Just as it is not only miners who are being hit by the government’s proposed profits tax, it is not only fishers who will be hit by no-take zones in marine protected areas. In Cairns I met a young mechanic. He employs 12 tradesmen and three apprentices. Eighty per cent of his work is in maintaining the fishing fleet. He does it locally; he flies to Karumba. Closures, no-take zones—even a reduction in effort—could cost his business jobs. I met another fisherman who distributes the mackerel that comes out of the gulf. He is supplying 150 outlets. You are very lucky in Cairns when you go to a fish and chip shop, because you are likely to get fresh Spanish mackerel with your chips. If the mackerel fishing in the gulf is curtailed or reduced significantly, there goes that fisherman, there goes the distributor and there goes the fish and chips. Then there is the fuel, the chandlers, the truck drivers. The multiplier effect is huge. In a city with a huge unemployment rate of 12 per cent—and I think that is conservative—Queensland and Cairns need that like a hole in the head.

There will be similar impacts in other areas that have been tagged for further assessment. In the eastern zone there is a 13,000 square kilometre area off Fraser Island in Queensland that is not only an important recreational fishery but also an important area for spanner crabs, trawling and line fishing. Going down the coast, there are large areas off the Clarence and Tweed rivers in New South Wales that will also impact on both recreational and commercial fishers. There are areas for further assessment in the northern region covering both Northern Territory and Western Australian fishing interests. The government has indicated that in marine protected areas there will be no-take zones.

A very minor set of amendments that provide an opportunity for continued recreational fishing of mako and porbeagle sharks is welcome, but it does not help the overall situation of the wider restrictions on both recreational and commercial fishing that would emerge after the rapidly approaching election if Labor were to win it. For many reasons, but particularly for the fate of fishers, their families and their communities, I sincerely hope that they do not. I support the very minor concession to recreational fishing in this bill, but I bell the cat on where this government really stands.

Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Education and School Curriculum Standards) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I begin by saluting Senator Boswell for all he has done for both recreational and commercial fishermen for many years throughout our country. Madam Acting Deputy President, as you know, the opposition supports the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Recreational Fishing for Mako and Porbeagle Sharks) Bill 2010. It does so after having worked with fishermen throughout Australia to ensure that it is no longer a criminal offence under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act for recreational fishermen to catch mako and porbeagle sharks.

You might very sensibly ask why any government would wish to make criminal the taking of highly prized sportfish where, as the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, Mr Garrett conceded, ‘there is no evidence to suggest that mako or porbeagle populations in Australian waters are threatened’. Why would you make it a criminal offence for recreational fishermen to take sportfish that are not threatened in Australian waters? Why would you do that? The reason is pretty simple. The minister, whose passion for the environment I do respect, simply endorsed the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. His uncritical endorsement of that convention’s priorities, primarily worked out in the Northern Hemisphere, paid no regard to the very different conditions in Australia. Why did this happen? Why were recreational fishermen made criminals for catching popular sportfish which are not threatened? I will tell you why: because the minister did not listen, did not consult and, fundamentally, did not understand. ‘Okay,’ you might say, ‘we all make mistakes.’ But mistakes made without consultation are careless, if not callous. Remember that this mistake to criminalise recreational fishermen for taking sportfish which are not threatened was made without consultation. That is the fundamental point here and it is a fundamental point that I suspect fishermen throughout Australia will not forget.

As my friend Senator Boswell mentioned, what we have here is the same pattern of behaviour again from the Rudd government as with the recent Coral Sea Conservation Zone declaration fiasco. Again, there was no proper consultation with stakeholders and local communities, including fishermen, local businesses and Indigenous people, and no thought given to the potential economic impact. Again, all of these problems could have dissipated and been resolved if there had been consultation, but there was not. In the case of the Coral Sea Conservation Zone declaration, the government did not even follow the established processes in arriving at their decision. Instead of simply declaring another conservation zone, the government should have followed the process of the Eastern Marine Bioregional Plan, which includes consultation with stakeholders on specific issues and activities, workshops and public meetings to provide updates on progress and to discuss and seek feedback on planning approaches. In addition to these workshops, targeted consultation should be undertaken on specific aspects of the planning process. That is the process under the Eastern Marine Bioregional Plan that the government should have followed. If they had done that, the problems outlined by Senator Boswell before would not have emerged. You would not have the community outcries in Northern Queensland that Senator Boswell has outlined if the government had consulted. Did they consult? No, they did not. Why didn’t they?

It is a good question. The reason the government did not consult had nothing to do with the fishermen, the Indigenous communities or the stakeholders in North Queensland because we now know that the impact on the Coral Sea Conservation Zone was virtually nil. The fish taken was minute. There was no impact on the environmental zone at all. That is all the evidence. So why did the government do it? You might scratch your head, Madam Acting Deputy President. They were not concerned about the voters in Far North Queensland. They were prepared to sacrifice the voters of Far North Queensland to secure Green preferences in Brisbane, in Melbourne and in Sydney. That is why the Coral Sea Conservation Zone was declared—to tie up Green preferences. No-one gave a damn about the voters in Leichhardt, Dawson or Herbert. That was not in contention. It was about sewing up Green preferences in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. What happened? The concerns of the fishermen and others were sacrificed in the unseemly scramble for Green preferences. It is, as my friend Senator Boswell said, a disgrace. All of their interests were ditched in the scramble for Green preferences. The interests of the charter industry, fishermen, marine enterprises and Indigenous Australians were all ditched in the mad scramble for Green preferences.

The current issue before the Senate this evening, exempting recreational fishermen from criminal sanctions, has had a happy outcome tonight, but only because the coalition has consistently applied pressure on the government—and this does not happen too often—and the government has seen common sense; hence, the exemption in the legislation before us that finally gives recreational fishermen a fair go. As my friend Senator Colbeck said, recreational fishermen are an important part of the Australian economy and indeed the Queensland economy, especially in the north. Whether it is the demand for boats, fishing tackle or accommodation, recreational fishers add billions to the Australian economy each year.

Recreational fishermen and their representatives are to be applauded for bringing the government to its senses. In particular, I would like to applaud my friend Senator Colbeck for his consistent advocacy, for his organisation and for his redemption of recreational fishermen from potential criminal sanctions in this parliament. He has done a wonderful job in pursuing this issue and I think the coalition and all recreational fishermen throughout Australia are very grateful. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Recreational Fishing for Mako and Porbeagle Sharks) Bill 2010 is a win for common sense. It is an overdue win because this problem should never have arisen in the first place, and when it did arise it should never have taken so long to fix. The government’s reckless and hasty decision to ban recreational angling of mako and porbeagle sharks demonstrates the importance of having a check and balance on the government’s decisions. The government decided to go out and ban fishing of these sharks without doing any of their homework. If they had done their homework and worked with the recreational fishing sector, they would have realised there was absolutely no scientific evidence that this action was needed.

The government did not bother to actually check to see whether these sharks were facing extinction in Australia. If they had, they would have seen that, while under threat in the Northern Hemisphere, the mako and porbeagle sharks are under no such threat here in the Southern Hemisphere. Perhaps it is time to buy the government a globe and teach them the difference between the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere, because they seem to have muddled that up good and proper on this issue. The government did not bother to consult anyone. They did not bother to ask the experts any questions. They just went out and banned the fishing of these sharks and then said, ‘We’ll deal with these consequences later.’

The recreational fishing sector have a good reputation for acting responsibly and ensuring sustainability is at the forefront. It is unacceptable that they were not consulted on this issue prior to the government imposing a sweeping ban on these sharks. Thank god for people like Daron Proudlock and other members of the Game Fishing Association, as well as organisations such as VRFish, Recfish, TARFish and the Fishing and Boating Council. Without these people and their commitment to getting this ban overturned, this legislation would never have come about.

The Rudd government has taken the sword to the fishing sector on a number of issues since taking office, including over the Coral Sea issue last year. Family First did not support the government on that decision and we did not support the government on its original ban on the taking of mako and porbeagle sharks. Family First have always been a party willing to stand up for fishing folk and will continue to do so when they are getting the rough end of the stick from this government. Family First support this bill and hope we can now let ordinary fishing folk get back to what they enjoy without the threat of government sanctions.

Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On 29 January this year, the Minister for Environment Protection, Heritage and the Arts, the Hon. Peter Garrett, announced the government would be acting to address the disproportionate impacts on recreational fishers that have resulted from the inflexible relationship between a national environmental law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, the CMS. The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Recreational Fishing for Mako and Porbeagle Sharks) Bill 2010 specifically addresses those impacts. As required by legislation, Minister Garrett listed shortfin mako, longfin mako and porbeagle sharks as migratory species under the EPBC Act. The listing became effective on 29 January 2010. This is a legal requirement following inclusion of these sharks on appendix II of the CMS, a decision driven primarily by concern for Northern Hemisphere populations of these species.

The government is aware that the domestic listing of mako and porbeagle sharks has implications for recreational fishers in Australia. The government recognises the social and cultural importance of recreational fishing to many Australians. We also appreciate that much recreational fishing activity is carried out in a sustainable manner—for example, using catch-and-release methods. This bill will address those disproportionate impacts on recreational fishers by providing a narrow exception for recreational fishing of longfin mako, shortfin mako and porbeagle sharks to the offence provisions of division 2, part 13 of the EPBC Act. This means that it will not be an offence to kill, injure, take, trade, keep or move mako or porbeagle sharks in or from Commonwealth waters where that action is taken in the course of recreational fishing.

This bill will not affect state regulation of recreational fishing of these species. The bill does not apply to commercial fisheries, which will continue to be the subject of the ongoing accreditation processes under part 13 of the EPBC Act. The bill does not affect the offences under part 3 of the EPBC Act nor will it affect prohibitions under division 1, part 13 of the EPBC Act relating to listed threatened species should mako or porbeagle sharks be listed as threatened species at any time in the future.

The recently completed independent review of the EPBC Act identified the inflexibility of the legislation when it comes to the listing of species included in appendix II of the CMS, and the limited exceptions to offences is a problem that needed to be fixed. While the government will be responding in full to the recommendations of that review, we think it is important to act separately on this matter because the listing of makos impacts disproportionately on recreational fishers in a way that exceeds our obligations under the convention on migratory species.

The Australian government is committed to and is actively implementing its international obligations under the convention. We recognise that by virtue of their inclusion in appendix II these species require collaborative international efforts to aid their conservation. The changes to the EPBC Act proposed by this bill will ensure that, consistent with our international obligations, international changes to the status of mako and porbeagle sharks will not affect recreational fishing activities in Australia.

The government remains committed to shark conservation measures both domestically and internationally and will continue its active engagement in efforts under the convention on migratory species and in other fora. I thank all of those who have contributed to the debate.

Question agreed to.

Original question, as amended, agreed to.

Bill read a second time.