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

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bioregional Plans) Bill 2011, reminding myself this morning that we only spoke about this same issue very recently. It is an issue that has been near and dear to my heart over the years—marine protected areas.

I have been involved with marine protected areas through my research at the University of Tasmania over the years, and I volunteered my time to consult with conservation groups such as the ACF and the Wilderness Society. In the rollout of marine protected areas in South Australia, I have briefed both the South Australian Liberal Party and Labor Party over the years on the economics of marine protected areas. And, of course, the economics are closely tied to the science of marine protected areas. But I will get back to that in a minute.

Essentially, what we are debating here this morning is the role of science: the importance of science in policy and decision making, and whether the government should be able to overturn good science for political reasons. Clearly, this has been a big issue in the chamber with the supertrawler debate over the last six months. I and other members of the Greens and, of course, recreational fishers and a large section of the environment movement have been accused of being anti-science in our questioning of the allocation of the quota for a very large fishing vessel with freezing capacity and the potential risks that poses to Australia's marine resources. In this case it was a small pelagic fishery.

The argument has been put very clearly by the Liberals, particularly by Senator Colbeck, who I expect is going to speak next, that the decision to allocate that quota was made on good science. There are a number of scientists from different agencies who were involved in those decision-making processes. It is interesting that the Greens moved to disallow that quota. The argument was very clearly put that parliament should not have the ability to interfere with the good science of that decision. Certainly, it was suggested that we were being populist and politicising a scientific debate.

I find it very hard to reconcile that logic with the Liberals doing exactly the same thing with marine protected areas, which is essentially what this bill is about, because marine protected areas have been based on years of scientific research. I will fill that detail in in a second, but there is over 30 years of research—not just in Australia, in places like South Australia, but all around the world. Thousands of scientific reports have looked at both the science—

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

Thousands!

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

Thousands—and I can give you the source of that quote, Senator Colbeck—have focused on the scientific principles that underlie the benefits of marine protected areas.

Benefits can be increased biomass, increased fecundity and providing buffers against risks in our very complex marine ecosystems; and there can also be, of course, economic benefits and economic costs—which is, no doubt, one of the key reasons that the Liberals are casting concern over the rollout of marine protected areas around the country.

The concept behind a marine protected area is very simple; it is an insurance policy. This is unlike our land-based ecosystems, where we can actually send scientists into places like forests or wetlands and we can actually do science that is visible. We can take samples and we can have easy access to the resource. Of course, that still has a long way to go in terms of how we value our ecosystem services and the science behind that. But when you look at a maritime ecosystem, a lot of what we are focused on is underwater, and it is very difficult, very expensive and very costly to get the exact information that you need.

This has been widely recognised as an issue with marine protected areas over the years. It is not like you can suddenly and easily access the bottom of the ocean floor, potentially kilometres underwater. So with ocean ecosystems we have a much larger uncertainty in our studies and analysis of things such as the biomass of fish species, or the potential risks of extinction of species, or whether the biomasses are at a level where they can be commercially exploited. There is no doubt—and this has come up with the supertrawler debate as well—that it is expensive and costly to do the scientific research that is necessary to understand issues such as biomass and its extraction in our ecosystems. It is expensive, it is difficult and it is complex because marine ecosystems are influenced by thousands of variables.

What is the benefit of having a marine protected area? The benefit of putting aside an area for conservation is really simple. Marine protected areas can be multiple use; they can be no-take zones, which do not allow for activities such as commercial or recreational fisheries; they can exclude other extractive industries such as oil and gas or even tourism; they can leave an area alone. The key reason for doing that is that it provides a risk buffer from what both scientists and economists call exogenous shocks—in other words, things we can put into models for simulation purposes but that we cannot necessarily predict with any certainty.

A really good example is in Tasmania at the moment, with the rock lobster industry on the east coast of Tasmania being shut down because of an exogenous shock—a toxicity impact from algal blooms. We also know in relation to the rock lobster industry and the small pelagic fishery that ocean temperature changes, both at the surface and the subsurface, have been responsible for the productivity of those fisheries. So climate change issues are also exogenous shocks. We have had viruses in our fisheries in species such as abalone. Given the best fisheries management practices in the world—and I am quite happy to accept the argument that Australia has some of the best managed fisheries in the world—we still see declines in species. With all the best intentions and all the best science, we have examples such as the rock lobster industry in Tasmania that show that sometimes we do not get it right. That is no-one's fault. That is because these ecosystems are very complex and the variables that influence them are very difficult to predict. Even the Atlantis model, which CSIRO have constructed and based out of Hobart, cannot possibly accurately predict some of these impacts. So it is really simple: if we accept that we have limitations in our understanding of our ecosystems, that we do not know everything, then we need to put aside some areas that we cannot touch. That is what marine protected areas are designed to do.

A lot of the variables that influence how effective marine protected areas are in rebuilding our marine ecosystems depend on factors such as how denuded they are in the first place, the ocean currents, the bathymetry of ocean floors, the existence of other species, and all these variables need to be modelled. But the studies we have on existing marine protected areas show us that if we put an area aside and leave it alone, then over a period of time—it does not happen straight away—we observe what both scientists and economists call spillover effects. We see a build-up of biomass as we do not fish the area, as we take that pressure off it. Clearly, fishing is a man-made activity that puts pressure on ecosystems. We know that overfishing all round the world has been one of the most significant causes of species decline and loss of biomass. There are some really famous examples, not necessarily in Australia but certainly internationally, that no-one in this chamber would dispute have led to species collapse in commercial fisheries.

If we take the human element out of it, we have to assume that other impacts will occur in our marine protected areas such as from climate change. Agricultural run-off is another really good example of a man-made influence that negatively impacts on our marine ecosystems. We have also seen nutrient changes. We can see issues with shipping and pollution from oil and gas. What we saw recently with the BP spill in the US is a very good example of where the externalities posed by commercial activities in marine protected areas can cause extensive damage to marine ecosystems. So, again, if you put aside an area in the ocean, which is a really simple concept, then that is an insurance policy for future generations to allow marine species to grow in numbers. If you take a lot of that pressure off, you clearly have at least the ability to recoup some of what you have already lost. Over time, these spillover effects, which will include the building of biomass and will vary depending on what species you are discussing, will produce benefits in the areas surrounding the marine protected areas.

I mentioned in the chamber a month ago that the first marine protected area was discovered by accident. It was not protected because people wanted more fish or wanted to leave an exploited resource alone. It was protected because the Space Shuttle and, before that, the Saturn rockets needed a security exclusion zone at Cape Kennedy, which used to be called Cape Canaveral. That exclusion zone varies between 50 and 30 miles, or up to 40 or 50 kilometres. People started noticing that areas surrounding that exclusion zone were very abundant in fish life and other marine species, and that was where the first studies occurred. So marine protected areas were discovered by accident, thanks to the Cape Kennedy space station. That was the birth of the application of science to marine protected areas and the benefits they may have.

I mentioned earlier that there have been a number of studies, and I want to read a quick version of a report put together by Dr Melissa Nursey-Bray at the University of Adelaide. She summarised 48 recent scientific reports on the science of marine protected areas, outlining all their recommendations in terms of the positive impact they have had on fisheries and, in some cases, where the evidence has not shown that. There have been some examples where marine protected areas have not necessarily increased the fecundity or the biomass of fish species, and there are good reasons for that.

These studies were from right across the world: from Arabia, Spain, South Africa, the Philippines, New Zealand, South Australia, Tasmania—including off Maria Island which is a very small marine reserve—Great Britain, the USA—and that includes Florida, California and Maine—Kenya, Fiji, Western Australia and the Bahamas. Wherever marine protected areas have been scientifically studied they have been shown to have benefits to fisheries. One specific report actually summarised 89 separate studies dating back to 1992, and that was just one of the reports that Dr Nursey-Bray aggregated in her report. That was what the Los Angeles Times recently focused on when they wrote a story on the science behind marine protected areas. They said:

In a survey of 89 scientific papers, UC Santa Barbara researchers found that 90% of marine reserves around the world had more fish, 84% had much larger fish and shellfish and 59% had a far greater variety of marine life than did adjacent waters—

that were not protected. They went on:

So far, the spillover effect hasn't won many converts among anglers, who disdain it as "junk science," and fear new limits on where they can fish.

'Junk science' is the issue that we started with and no doubt it is the Liberals' point here in the Senate when they dispute the benefits of marine protected areas. It is probably the underlying reason they want the ability for parliament to disallow the science behind marine protected areas, because that is essentially what we are doing in here today. We are giving us as senators and as MPs the ability to disallow over 30 years of scientific research on the benefits of marine protected areas.

The economics is slightly different. It is not black and white, and I admit that. Marine protected areas are not a silver bullet solution to providing benefits, because there are costs associated with protecting and conserving parts of the ocean. That is purely from an economic point of view. If there is displaced fishing effort, then that fishing effort should potentially be compensated, and that is certainly something that has been dealt with in the bioregional plans, though no doubt they will dispute that and say that not enough compensation is being paid.

But we do not just look at costs in terms of financial or economic costs. We have a duty to look at a much larger array of costs when we look at our environment and the importance that it plays in our daily lives. We need to look at social costs and of course those costs need to be assessed in relation to impacts on communities, and we can look at cultural aspects there as well. But we also need to look at environmental costs and ecological costs in areas of overfishing. And, as any first-year economics student should be able to tell you, once you include those extra environmental and social costs into, for example, the price of fish, then that market is suddenly efficient because the price of those goods factors in all the costs.

I would argue that the externalities that we see in areas such as fisheries—and they are just one example—show that markets have often failed to price those costs into the goods that we buy and sell on markets. It is the role of government, in my opinion and certainly the opinion of the Greens and no doubt Labor on this issue, that the government has a very important role to play in making sure that these externalities are priced into markets. The carbon tax is a very good example of that, and the bioregional plans that provide conservation outcomes reduce the risks of increased costs in the future. If we do deplete our fish stocks—and as I mentioned earlier there are numerous examples of that occurring—then the costs in the future to future generations such as the kids in the chamber here today, are going to much larger. We have a role and responsibility to play in putting aside contingency plans to make sure that we have resources for the future.

That is what marine protected areas are designed to do. That is what thousands of research reports into marine protected areas have shown. The science has been going on for a long time and it has been funded all around the world. The science has shown that marine protected areas have positive spillover effects and positive benefits not just for fish stocks or other marine species, which further down the chain predate and feed on other types of fish species, but there are also positive benefits for communities in the area. If we do get recovery particularly into depleted and endangered or threatened species, then we have the ability to access those fisheries resources into the future.

Marine protected areas are not perfect because of that complexity that we see in our marine ecosystems and they are only one of the fisheries management tools. I agree that they are a fisheries management tool as well as a conservation outcome.

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

It is not a fisheries management tool.

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

It is a fisheries management tool—I will take that interjection. It has to be a fisheries management tool if you believe the science. The science says that fish stocks will recover.

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

You misrepresent the science.

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

You will get your chance in 16 seconds. Do I get 16 seconds back, Mr Acting Deputy President Marshall?

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you make your sentence last.

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

Thank you. They are a fisheries management tool because the science says very clearly that they will have a positive impact on fish stocks. (Time expired)

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

I rise to make my contribution to my private senator's bill: the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Bioregional Plans) Bill 2011. This is a very simple piece of legislation. It does one thing. It gives the parliament the opportunity to have oversight over the declaration of marine protected areas. It is a very simple piece of legislation.

We have just heard from the Greens what we continuously hear from the Greens—a whole heap of mind-reading. I love it that the Greens think that they know what we are thinking. They attribute thoughts to us. They attribute motives to us. They misrepresent what we say and what we think, even though I do not think they really do know what we think. We have just seen that again today. The representation from the Greens is that the coalition does not believe in marine protected areas. That is patently not true. If you look at our record with respect to marine protected areas, you will see that the areas we implemented in 2006 in the south-east around Tasmania, which is our home state, Senator Whish-Wilson—

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

What? One per cent of state waters, Senator.

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

Again, you have no idea what you are talking about. There is danger in coming into this place and not knowing what you are talking about. The marine protected area in Commonwealth waters around Tasmania that we delivered was 20 per cent larger than the area that was proposed by the government in the initial round. What we implemented in those waters in the south-east was 20 per cent larger than what was initially proposed. The Greens were running around Tasmania saying that the coalition wants to shrink it. The initial boundaries were proposed by us. They were not good, I have to say. They had seriously bad impacts on the fishing industry in Tasmania.

There was a cooperative process that allowed negotiation between the fishing industry and the environment groups. We put everybody in the tent. We did not do what this government has done, which is silo the negotiations and play parties off against each other and basically take the line being run by giant environmental groups from not just Australia but the United States. Thousands of emails have come into Australia from overseas trying to push the government into implementing these marine protected areas. Through that negotiation process we changed the boundaries, provided the environmental values and provided the representative areas that were required under this process. We reduced the impact on the fishing industry in Tasmania by 90 per cent and increased the area by 20 per cent. So, Senator, do not come in here talking rubbish. You have no idea what you are talking about, and you have demonstrated that again here today.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senators will address their remarks through the chair.

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

Let us go to what a globally recognised expert says in respect of marine protected areas. The senator has just gone through that process here yet again in his representations this morning. Professor Ray Hilborn is one of the most globally recognised marine scientists in the world.

Senator Whish-Wilson interjecting—

You say he is paid for by the fishing industry, but when he went to find out what was going on he put together a group of people from across the spectrum. He did not just go and science shop; he put together a group of peers from across the spectrum—from those directly opposed to his view of the world to those who have a more extreme view in the other direction. He did not just go and science shop. He did not find somebody who did not know anything or did not have any expertise in the area, which is what the Greens quite often do, and get them to comment on a scientific area in which they have no expertise and attack scientists who do have expertise.

He got a full spectrum of people to provide a report that put a very different picture than what one of the scientists, Dr Boris Worm, had initially indicated. He went to the person involved in that piece of science that said that the oceans could be empty of fish by 2047. That was the science that Dr Boris Worm had put together. Professor Hilborn went to Dr Worm. A group of 23 scientists put together a report that caused Dr Worm to step back from his initial statement. That was the work he was prepared to do. Senator, you should not just science shop and pick out a few people who will provide the answer that you want. You should go to the direct science, the real science and the credible science. Do not come in here with your claims.

I am proud of the record that the coalition has with respect to marine protected areas. Our record stands. The people who have been involved in working with us know that that is the case. Why are we taking the stand that we are taking right now? Not because we do not believe in marine protected areas but because in the development of these marine protected areas the science has not been used. That is why we have a concern about this current process. How do we know the science has not been used? Because the government has admitted it.

The Greens are happy to go along with lockups, because that is what they do. They live in the past. Before the EPBC Act came into being and before a whole range of other management tools came into being, the only way to protect some areas was to lock them up. I am happy to concede that that was the case. We in Australia have done some pretty average things to our environment—to our marine areas and our land areas—but we have learnt. As Senator Whish-Wilson has conceded, we do have among the best fisheries management systems in the world. We need to continue to improve those.

Rather than just lock up bits of the environment, which is what the environmental groups who still live in the 19th century would like us to do, we need to look after all of our marine environment. We should not just lock up huge swathes of the ocean and say, 'You can't go there.' That is not what we ought to be doing. We ought to be looking after it all. So do not come in here and tell us that we do not have any desire to look after our marine environment and we do not have any desire to protect areas. We believe that if there are areas that deserve to be protected then we should protect them, but we should not be making decisions based on representations by, for example, the Pew Foundation, which has run a campaign to lock up pretty much the entire Coral Sea.

Senator Whish-Wilson talked about economics. What really gets up the nose of my constituents, your constituents and other people here in Australia is that the Pew Foundation then admit that it is not going to pursue the same scale of lockups in the United States because it does not stack up economically, because of the negative economic impact on the American economy. So they are happy to come and lock ours up but they will not do it in the United States because of the economic impact.

Here we have Minister Burke admitting that there are fewer marine protected areas off New South Wales because he has locked so much up in the Coral Sea. Tell me that is based on science. What a load of baloney. Here we have an area that has huge potential in respect of meeting our future seafood needs—and they are significant as 25 per cent of the globe's protein currently comes from seafood. If you were to replace that with terrestrially based protein, you would have to clear the world's remaining rainforests 23 times over—so talk about a small picture view of the world from the Greens and talk about a small picture view of the world from the government!

Let us have a look at the broader picture. Let us look at the requirements to look after our environment and also to feed ourselves and those of us on the planet. Let us not lock ourselves out of a huge swathes of the ocean when we have a whole series of other management tools. Let us not lock ourselves out of our oceans and our fisheries because somebody else is raping and pillaging theirs. What a sensible move that is! How ridiculous to suggest that, because fisheries management is unsustainable in other parts of the world, we should close down ours. Give me a break!

What we should be doing—and, in fact, this is what Australia is doing—is participating in improving fisheries management in other parts of the world. We are acting in a whole range of fisheries, through a number of fisheries management systems and through a number of international agreements, to improve fisheries management in those regions. You talk about small pelagics; we are involved in looking at the South Pacific small pelagic fishery and improving that, an area where the fish stocks have collapsed because of overfishing, not because of supertrawlers—as would be implied by the Greens and their environmental group friends—but because the fishery has been overfished for years long before the advent of large freezer vessels. The fishery has been overfished for years and it has not been improved by the fact that there have been no fisheries management systems in place and there have been no quotas in place, but fortunately there now will be. That fishery will have the opportunity to recover because there will be fisheries management put in place and there will be quotas put in place. The decision to do that is already having an effect on the amount of effort that is put into that fishery.

So for Senator Whish-Wilson to come in here and misrepresent where the coalition sits in respect of fisheries management of marine parks is quite dishonest because we have a strong view about utilising the science and about believing the science. And this was coming from a person who said, 'We don't care about the science. We just don't want the boat.' I have to say it is quite hypocritical of him to come in here and lecture us about science.

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

Where is your evidence of that?

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

Well, you repeated it in this chamber—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President. In fact, questions to the minister in question time here this week confirm they are not interested in the science around the small pelagic fishery, because the weight of the science—the credible science—supports the quota that was set in all of those fisheries.

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

Credible science?

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

So here they go bashing scientists again. If it does not agree with what they say, they will attack the scientists. That is the process that they run through, and if you do not believe me have a chat in Tasmania to Nigel Forteath, who was hounded out of the state by the Greens because he dared to disagree with Bob Brown. Death threats, phone calls in the middle of the night and he had to take his family out of the state—an absolute disgrace what the Greens did to that man.

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

Where is your evidence?

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

I will bring the evidence in here, Senator, and I will table it. I sat down and had conversations with Professor Forteath so I can tell you that very well. In fact, the Greens were censured in this place for what they did to him, so go back and have a look at the Hansard and you will find your own history.

This is a very simple piece of legislation. We know because the government has admitted that these zones that are being proposed by Minister Burke at the moment are not based on science. I have already given an indication as to the zones that were declared off New South Wales. I was in Queensland at the beginning of the year. I went up to have a talk to some of the fishermen in that region about the proposed declaration of the Coral Sea. Unfortunately, they could not meet with me on the day because they were meeting with the department to talk about the proposals for declaring the Coral Sea. One of the questions that they went into the meeting and asked of the department was: can you put on the table for us the science that supports declaring the entire Coral Sea a marine zone? When I met with them at morning tea directly after they had had that conversation with the department, I found the answer was: 'There is none.' The only thing that there was was a campaign by the Pew Foundation and environmental groups here in Australia. That is the basis on which Tony Burke has closed off the Coral Sea.

I go back to the discussion I had a moment ago about our seafood needs. As I said, 25 per cent of the globe's protein comes from seafood—a full quarter. The broader environmental impacts of having to replace that with terrestrially based protein do not bear thinking about. As I said, if you were to replace it with grass-fed protein, you would have to clear the globe's rainforests 23 times over. It just does not add up. The health of our marine environment and the capacity to achieve and maintain a level of protein from wild catch fisheries is absolutely vital. In fact, if you look at the wild catch fishery you will find that it is the most environmentally friendly form of gathering protein of the lot. It is much more environmentally friendly than any form of terrestrial farming. It is the most environmentally friendly because you can take out your quota, based on sustainably set quotas with proper management tools, and the natural environment does the rest for you. It is the most environmentally friendly form, so it is vitally important that we maintain it as part of our overall protein task.

Australia's potential demand for seafood will grow by 850,000 tonnes by 2020. I am not talking out to 2030 or 2040 or 2050 but by 2020—that is, in eight years we will need an extra 850,000 tonnes. The potential fishery in the Coral Sea alone is of that magnitude in two species.

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

You'd better start protecting it, then.

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

So that is the answer from the Greens: shut down a potential fishery and import from unsustainable sources. Let us offshore our environmental responsibilities. Let us calm our conscience by offshoring. Let us take it somewhere else where they do not have the fisheries management tools in place.

What the coalition would like to see is marine protected areas based on science, not based on campaigns by environmental groups from the United States, not based on, 'Let's move it away from this Labor seat and put it up here next to this coalition seat.' Let us have marine protected areas based on science. Let us put everybody in the room together. Let us put the science on the table. Let us have the conversation between everyone. Let us not play groups off against each other, which is what the government has done in this particular process, because the groups come in and tell me what has just happened to them. Let us have a genuine consultation. Let us not just have show-and-tell, where the government turns up and says, 'Here's the maps; that's what's going to occur.' Let us have a consultation process where the final maps—the maps were put out 60 days ago or a bit longer and the minister said, 'This is not about the boundaries; this is about whether we do it or not.' That is not a consultation. That is a take it or leave it process.

That is what the coalition is concerned about. The coalition is concerned about the process. We are not contesting the science, as the Greens contend we are. We have said we believe in the science. If something needs to be protected, we should protect it. But we need to look after it all, not just bits of it. Let us not salve our conscience by saying that we have locked up 30 per cent of our marine environment, that we have locked out our fishing industry from all of those areas. Let us not salve our conscience by thinking that we have done our job. Let us look after it all. Let us ensure that we have strong fisheries management.

Senator Whish-Wilson indicated that this is a fisheries management tool. Not even the scientists contend that it is a fisheries management tool. The government does not contend that it is a fisheries management tool. It is not a fisheries management tool. The process around the marine protected areas is about looking after important parts of our environment. One of the issues around that is that fish tend to congregate around formations in the ocean. That is just the nature of things, and that is where the contest comes into place as part of the development of these marine protected areas. That is where the difficulty is.

This process also has not compensated people. There is $100 million sitting on the table for the fishing industry, but what about the downstream businesses and communities? There is absolutely nothing there for them. What about the recreational fishing sector, which is something like a $10 billion a year industry? There is nothing there for them. There is no recognition of the bait shops, the boat sellers and the charter operators, so any argument about proper compensation as part of this process is completely and utterly out of order. There is not proper consultation. The process that was put in place in the south-east put up $220 million, just for the south-east. In this process, we have $100 million for the rest of the country. We have a very simple proposition here: allow this declaration process to be scrutinised by the parliament. That is all we say, and that is what this bill does.

Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the bill be read a second time.