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

I was saying just before lunch that the Labor government is destroying the fishing industry and I was explaining how. First, work in a policy vacuum. Then let a department that is wholly and utterly unsympathetic to the industry effectively take over control—that is, the environment department. Then, when we are trading in a global market and the price of our product is critical to sales success overseas, add unnecessary cost burdens at every stage of production, like the carbon tax and renewable energy target. This also makes our own seafood less price competitive against cheap imports on our own domestic market. At the same time, put no facility in place for the industry to easily gather funds from innovation, thus making it even more difficult to run marketing campaigns. Then reduce the area open for fishing by declaring 2.3 million square kilometres of our oceans as marine parks and ban commercial and recreational fishing in these vast areas, reducing the catch even further. At the same time, refuse to compensate many of the businesses directly affected and destroy much onshore infrastructure needed to support the catching sector. After that, override the recommendations of experienced fisheries managers and fisheries scientists for the sake of short-term political expediency, raising doubts in the minds of the community about the management of our commercial fisheries. Finally, to ensure that no-one can make any future investment plans with any confidence whatsoever, launch a root-and-branch examination of fisheries management.

Overall, demonstrate that you do not value the industry as a vital producer of healthy, high-quality food and as a provider of crucial jobs in often remote areas where there is little alternative employment, and demonstrate that you care more about the accolades of overseas, city based environmental activists and the continuing political support of Labor's coalition partners in government, the Greens. That is how to destroy an industry. That is how Labor is destroying the commercial and recreational fishing industry.

The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Joe Ludwig—he is a fine fellow; I get on well with him—is fisheries minister in name only. Everyone in government, everyone in fisheries science and management and everyone in the fishing industry knows that the portfolio is in fact run by the environment department and its minister, the Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Tony Burke. Senator Ludwig's views, advice and recommendations have been ignored or overturned on one major fisheries issue after another. When it comes to real decisions on the big issues affecting the seafood industry, the environment minister has the call. A fishing portfolio run by an environment minister results in a fishing industry offered up as a sacrifice to environmental activists. This makes it impossible for the fishing industry business to predict what access to fisheries resources will be available to them in future and makes forward planning and sensible development of the industry impossible.

The Australian dollar is close to record highs against the US dollar and other international currencies. This makes our exports dearer in overseas markets and makes our imports cheaper in our domestic market. So it is harder than ever before for our fishermen and seafood marketers to make a profit or even sell their product in the first place. It makes our fishing charters relatively more expensive compared with charters in overseas locations.

Despite the fact that the industry is already doing it tough, this government has added more and more costs that fishermen, processors and marketers have tried to absorb. The carbon tax—the renewable energy charge—is a classic example. Of course, the Labor government is not really managing fisheries—not coherently, rationally or predictably. It is moving from one ill-considered, illogical short-term decision to the next, going wherever it is led by the environmental activists.

Take the case of the Abel Tasman, where the government took its lead from Greenpeace. This is the so-called supertrawler. The government invited the trawler to Australia, and its Australian-based operators went through the proper process. And yet the government went to water when the vessel actually arrived. Environmental minister Tony Burke banned it from fishing for the last two years. He did this against the sound advice of the fisheries scientists and fisheries management. His action trashed the reputation of Australian fisheries science and raised unnecessary doubts in the mind of the Australian public about the state of the fish stocks and their management.

Banning the Abel Tasman you can chalk up to Greenpeace. However, their fellow environmental multinational, the Pew foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and others had a far bigger win. This was on 16 November, when the environmental minister, Tony Burke, declared 2.3 million square kilometres of new marine reserves that will lock commercial and recreational fishers out of vast swathes of our ocean. I expect this week that Minister Burke will table in the other place the management plan for these marine reserves. These plans will have enormous impact on the commercial and recreational fishing industries, and on small business and individual rights right around the Australian coast. They should be rejected by parliament. Minister Burke should be made to go away and try again and then bring back proper management plans for the marine zones.

The current plans have not taken proper notice of good science, just what Labor regards as good politics. There has not been proper consultation with recreational or commercial fishermen, just backroom deals with local and international environmental activists. There has not been any proper consideration of the terrible impact the plans will have on the lives and businesses of people in the coastal centres right around Australia. It is just simply to boost Labor's image in the inner-city seats in the federal election.

What Minister Burke has put in these management plans is bad policy development, for the wrong reasons. They are not about protecting the marine environment; they are about protecting Labor votes and preferences. They are shoddy—absolutely shoddy. Quite apart from the terrible impact these marine reserves will have on regional economies, there is the question of how these vast areas of soon-to-be-empty oceans will be policed.

What Minister Burke described as the 'jewel in the crown' of the marine reserve network is almost one million square kilometres of the Coral Sea. Much of this vast area will be completely closed to all fishing. Effectively, what this means is that the commercial fishermen and charter boat fishermen, who are the eyes and ears of enforcement there, will be banned. These are the very people who are in a position to spot any illegal fishing vessel operating in the waters hundreds of kilometres from the Australian mainland, and they will not be allowed in there.

How does this Labor government intend to police this area of almost one million square kilometres? No-one is prepared to say. I heard someone say that scuba divers will keep their eyes open on their way to their dive trips. Maybe we can ask the French to send some patrol boat from New Caledonia. This is a very serious question. The government is bringing in this Maritime Powers (Consequential Amendments) Bill, but how will it enforce these marine powers? How will it enforce the protection of our fisheries in the huge new marine reserves and the huge new zones where Australian commercial and recreational fishermen will no longer be allowed to fish?

It is really just creating protected fishing zones for illegal foreign fishing vessels—places where foreign fishing operators will no longer have to worry about being spotted by Australian commercial and recreational fishermen. Australia has the largest area of marine parks of any country in the world—more than three million square kilometres. Sadly, that is not a proud boast; it simply means that we have locked away more of our seafood, more of our exports and more of our recreational fishing areas than any other country in the world.

It is no wonder that we now have to import more than 70 per cent of the seafood we eat in this country every year and that international anglers are choosing alternative fishing destinations—when they look at the map all they see is green—before they make a decision to come to Australia or not to come to Australia. How ironic that a major report released by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Joe Ludwig, in December demonstrates that Australian key wildlife fish species are well managed. Over 80 of the country's leading fisheries researchers collaborated to produce a report on 49 species contributing over 80 per cent of the value and 70 per cent of the volume of Australian wildcatch fisheries. They found that fisheries are operating sustainably and our seafood stocks are in good shape—they are in great shape.

This government has demonstrated more than once it cares nothing for the opinions of the commercial and recreational fishing industries and all the families involved in fishing for sport or business. What matters is that it maintains the support of the Greens and the international environmentalists. As far as consultation with the industry is concerned on things like new marine reserves, the government is just ticking the boxes. It does nothing more than the minimum it is required to do. For example, the government released its draft management plans for new marine reserves with just the minimum 30 days of consultation in the middle of the Christmas school holidays. Of course, many of the people most interested in commenting on these very complex plans for the future of fishing in vast areas of ocean around Australia's coastline were on holidays—they had literally gone fishing. Both recreational and commercial fishing representatives requested the government extend the period for consultation from 30 days to 90 days. This very reasonable request by these representatives and others was totally disregarded. Now Minister Burke is rushing these plans through parliament just as quickly as he can.

In relation to the fishing bans to be imposed by the new marine reserves, the government has said professional fishers directly impacted will be able to apply for some compensation. However, charter boat operators will miss out entirely and so will related businesses such as tackle shops, seafood processors, seafood wholesalers, ship chandlers, providores, repair facilities and other suppliers of goods and services. At the same time, just to further muddy the waters and make sure the seafood industry cannot plan ahead with any uncertainty as to what the rules will be, fisheries minister, Senator Ludwig, announced a major review of Australian fishing policy and legislation, so the industry will have to continue treading water while the review is completed, his recommendations considered and then any changes to the legislation are framed, tabled and debated—more uncertainty for the seafood industry.

Senator Ludwig announced the terms of reference for the review on 13 September last year and said the review would be conducted within three months, yet six months later we have still not seen the review. Industry has to wait. Not once has this government stood up for the Australian primary producers and defended them against the outrageous claims and demands of the environmental multinationals. It is a valid question to ask whether this Labor government really has the will to protect Australian fisheries and the Australian fishing industry from a range of threats. We know the government has already caved in to pressure from the international environmentalists and their local franchises and is banning fishing from vast areas of Australian waters. Does the government have the will to genuinely protect our fish stocks from illegal fishing vessels? I do not believe so. Many senators will remember under the Howard government in 2003 the pursuit of the Uruguayan flagged vessel Viarsa by the Australian Customs and Fisheries patrol vessel Southern Supporter. The Viarsa was spotted in the Australian waters near Heard Island, suspected of illegally catching toothfish. The vessel fled when the Southern Supporter approached and so began a 7,000-kilometre, 21-day pursuit through stormy seas and icebergs in the Southern Ocean, until Viarsa was finally stopped in South Africa and escorted back to Australia. There it was forfeited and scrapped.

Of course, that was under a coalition government. Now we know that Australia has not conducted a single patrol in the Southern Ocean for over a year. The difference is simple: the Labor government is providing for the protection of our Australian Fishing Zone on paper. In government, the coalition will enforce fishing laws where it really matters—out on the water. When Tony Burke announced the proclamation of Labor's 2.3 million square kilometres of marine reserves he declared that Australia's precious marine environment has been permanently protected. He should have added it had been protected on paper. It has certainly not been protected out on the water.

All Labor has done is ban commercial and recreational fishing and left our offshore waters more vulnerable than ever to illegal foreign fishing vessels. The government does not have a policy for the fishing industry and it does not have a policy for protection of our fish from illegal foreign boats. Worse still, it does not have the will to protect our fishing zones. The only way to see a policy developed for our valuable seafood industry and to genuinely protect our Australian fishing zone from illegal foreign operators is to change the mindset of the government—and the only way to do this is to change the government itself. Fishermen will get their chance to help do that later this year, and I know they will respond accordingly.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is my pleasure to rise to speak on the Maritime Powers Bill 2012 and to indicate that I see in this legislation the reinforcement of a pattern of behaviour on the part of the Labor government, a government which, all too often, has set out with a grand vision of reforming a particular area of the law and an intention to make clear what was characterised by a series of disparate and sometimes disjunctive pieces of legislation and bring it all forward. That is the intention. To cite some recent examples, it was the intention of the privacy legislation amendments, it was the intention of the human rights legislation that was discussed recently and it was the intention of the Maritime Powers Bill in each case to bring together, codify and make clear the position with respect to that particular area of law in a comprehensive way.

But I regret to say that, like the privacy bill and like the human rights bill, the Maritime Powers Bill is grand in conception but in some respects fails to deliver what it promises—although I would not go so far as to describe the Maritime Powers Bill as being as grand a fiasco as those other two pieces of legislation. If I might cut in there, those of us who were involved in the inquiry conducted by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee into that piece of legislation know that almost every witness who came before the committee from every sector criticised the legislation as being unclear, as muddying the waters, as creating confusion and as leaving so many questions unresolved that it caused considerable concern in the broader community, who rely on that legislation.

In this case the level of confusion is not as severe or as widespread, but it is deficient in one very key respect, and I think it is impossible for this chamber to walk past this issue without it being comprehensively settled and resolved. The question is, very simply, whether this legislation preserves the ability of the Commonwealth, through those who operate our naval vessels and other vessels on the sea, to exercise a power to turn back vessels that are in or approaching Australian territorial waters. That is the critical question. It is a matter on which there has been considerable public policy debate in recent years. It is a matter where, in the past at least, public policy has been applied to exercise such a power to ensure that boats have been turned around and sent away. This is not a moot question; it is a question of what powers the Commonwealth actually might exercise in a maritime setting. It is reprehensible that the Commonwealth government has brought to the Senate for passage a piece of legislation, in the form of the Maritime Powers Bill, without a clear answer to the question: does the bill preserve the power of the Commonwealth, the prerogative power of the Crown, to turn boats around?

I say that that is a question which is not answered because, when the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee considered the legislation, it was unable to obtain a clear answer from officers of the Attorney-General's Department as to whether that power was preserved. To, I think not unfairly, paraphrase those who gave evidence before the committee, there was a suggestion that perhaps the prerogative power was still preserved in the legislation.

I asked specifically where I could find it referred to in the legislation and I was told that it was not necessarily contained in the words of the legislation, that in fact the power as a prerogative power of the Crown is a power which inherently lies with a nation state to be able to exercise with respect to the regulation of its borders. I thought that was a good answer, but not a complete answer. What the Maritime Powers Bill and its sister legislation, the Maritime Powers (Consequential Amendments) Bill, purport to do is to codify the powers of the Commonwealth that it might exercise in a maritime setting; to describe comprehensively what a person exercising such powers may or may not do—what the captain of a naval vessel or a Customs vessel, or some such person, might do—in the setting where they were confronted with a vessel attempting unlawfully to enter Australian waters. They might wish not to allow that to occur, and might wish to know whether the powers were there for them to turn that boat back. They might understandably make reference to, either personally or through some commanding authority back on the mainland, the place where such powers are enumerated and codified—namely, the Maritime Powers Act, as it would then be.

If they looked in that place—if this legislation were to pass in the form that is before the Senate today—they would not find such a power. There is not in the legislation anywhere a clear description of the power of the Commonwealth or its servants and agents to be able to turn back boats, in the circumstances where indeed Australian maritime powers have in the past turned back boats—in circumstances that were considered appropriate—in ensuring that unauthorised arrivals did not reach Australia's shores.

The answers to those questions to officers of the department were, with great respect to them, unclear and unconvincing. But I would be very assured if the minister at the table were able to assure the Senate categorically that this legislation does preserve the power of the Commonwealth to turn back boats in circumstances where that course of action is warranted. If that assurance can be given to us, I think it would go a long way towards mollifying the concerns we have had about this legislation.

As a belts-and-braces matter, however, I think we would proceed with the amendment which is before the Senate at the moment. Senator Brandis is moving it to make it clear that that power does rest with this legislation, which of course is meant to be a comprehensive enumeration of the powers of the Commonwealth in a maritime setting.

Why do we talk about this? Why is this a consideration, given that it has not been a power that has been exercised, apparently, for some time? The answer of course is that it must be available as a possible response if the circumstances warrant that being the case. No-one is suggesting that it would be an everyday occurrence for Australian naval vessels to turn boats around on the high seas. It would not be an everyday occurrence. We would hope it would not be an everyday occurrence, and it was not an everyday occurrence during the years of the previous government when this power was indeed exercised. Obviously, it is a power which is to be exercised only in very special circumstances. But it is important to have such a power available in the armoury of responses by Australia as a nation state to the circumstances where people choose to make journeys to this country and seek to enter its territorial waters, and for which there is no lawful reason for that to occur.

The suggestion that officers of the Royal Australian Navy have said that the exercise of such power either is inappropriate or not legally possible is a suggestion which has no foundation. I have sat in meetings of the estimates committee—as I know Senator Feeney, the parliamentary secretary at the table, has—and I have heard officers at the table answer questions about the circumstances in which such powers might be exercised. It is true that they have said that it is very dangerous to exercise those powers, that there are risks associated with the exercise of those powers and that there are all sorts of reasons why it needs to be done with great care, but I have heard nobody in that setting say either that the power does not and should not exist or that it could never be exercised. The fact that such a power until now has existed, does exist and might be exercised in circumstances where it is in Australia's interest to do so in my view means that we should be careful today to make sure that this legislation does not pass through the Senate without that power being preserved.

If it is the government's view that the power should be preserved, it may not wish to exercise the power. I gather that, although the previous Prime Minister thought that it should, the present Prime Minister does not—fair enough. Whatever the views of the government of the day, it would be unfortunate if the power were to be wiped from the statute books or from the common law by virtue of the passing of a piece of legislation which had the effect of repealing the power or removing the power from Australian authorities. Obviously, if the Australian people see fit at an election later this year to have a new government—

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is unthinkable!

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A fanciful suggestion, I am sure you would think, Senator Feeney! If they happen to do that, I imagine that a new government would be very much of a mind to make sure that a strong signal was sent to people smugglers that Australia's borders were no longer open borders and that Australia would take every measure it possibly could to ensure that their business of smuggling people was smashed. If the threat, or perhaps the actual use, of a power to turn boats around in circumstances where it was safe to do so added to that policy and made that policy real and effective then it would be employed by an incoming government.

It goes without saying that the policy this government has pursued generally on the protection of the borders and on ensuring that people, wherever possible, seek asylum in this country through lawful means has been a spectacular and unmitigated failure. I think that barely needs to be stated. The government has had, on my reckoning, five different positions on how to deal with the flow of boats across the Timor Sea, and no doubt before the election there is time for a sixth version if it decides that the policy is just too malodorous for the Australian people to be able to support.

So we will see what comes out of the coming election campaign, but what I do know is that the Australian people want a policy which is effective. They want our immigration policy to be strong and resilient and to have support across the entire community. They want the policy on the treatment and handling of refugees to be one which maximises Australia's generosity towards those who are deemed to be genuine refugees and ensures that, wherever possible, a person applies to Australia for asylum in a way which ensures that their processing is done in an orderly fashion and, if possible, offshore through application in such places as refugee camps under the auspices of bodies like the United Nations High Commission for Refugees or the International Organization for Migration so that once again Australians can have confidence that we are, as one of the most generous nations in housing and offering refuge to refugees, able to process such applications in a fair, merit-based arrangement where the cost to the Australian taxpayer is not prohibitive. None of those things can be said at this point in time.

We make it very clear that, if we are the government that is elected later this year, we will radically alter the policies which have been by applied so ineffectively by this government. We will ensure that we have a policy which strongly discourages people from using unseaworthy boats to enter Australia's waters in order to obtain status as an asylum seeker, processed by Australian authorities. We will do our best to make sure that this vile business is brought to an unceremonious end. Of course we can only do that if we have the full suite of powers available to us that were available to the Howard government. It is very clear that the judicious use of that policy was an effective tool in the hands of the previous government to ensure that boats did not arrive in anything like the numbers that have arrived since 2008.

For those who have a vision in their mind of the circumstances of a boat being turned back that might conjure images of chaos on the sea or of something being done which is extremely unsafe, which is unsatisfactory from a humanitarian point of view, I want to make the point to senators that Australia has exercised this power in the past in a way which did not produce those sorts of outcomes and which were an aid to effective public policy in preventing and discouraging people from using that device to enter this country. If we take the example of an Indonesian fishing boat captained by an Indonesian captain with an Indonesian crew having departed from an Indonesian port perhaps a couple of hundred kilometres off the coast of Indonesia, which an Australian naval vessel decides to turn around, one could hardly say that was a particularly onerous or unfair arrangement to enter into if that resulted in that presumably unseaworthy vessel being forced to return to an Indonesian port.

Senator Feeney interjecting—

That may be the case, Senator Feeney, or it may not. But until we apply the policy we will not know. Let us see what happens. It was not the case in the past. We know how to do this. We have done it before. If you are not confident in exercising a power in those circumstances, let somebody who has done it before exercise such a power. I predict that it will not take long for these businesses—that is what they are—designed to exploit the misery of human beings who are seeking refuge to very quickly get a message about what it is that Australia is prepared to do to protect the integrity of its borders and to ensure that an orderly process for processing refugees is applied once again, one that creates a system which Australians and others around the world can respect for the way in which it is operated.

I urge the Senate to consider very carefully the powers that are in this legislation but even more carefully consider what is not necessarily in the legislation. I look forward to the minister clarifying what the status of that power is. As I said, I would be greatly mollified by an assurance that the power is absolutely preserved. Perhaps it does require the authority of a minister to make the statement that we are seeking.

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are stuck with me.

Gary Humphries (ACT, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are close enough, Senator Feeney. It was not an assurance we got from officers of the department. But we would be greatly reassured if the minister at the table were to make that assurance in the course of this debate.

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank honourable members for their contribution to this debate. I will do my very best to mollify your points, Senator Humphries. I am sure by the end of my eloquent address, you and I will be seeing eye-to-eye on these questions and voting side-by-side. Before I make such bold predictions, let me roll on.

This government is committed to supporting the hard-working Australians who work on our behalf to uphold Australia's maritime laws. These men and women are required to operate in a difficult, dangerous and quickly changing maritime environment, an environment which regularly presents risks often unknown. This environment poses particular challenges to the effective enforcement of laws. Enforcement operations in maritime areas frequently occur in remote locations, isolated from the support normally available to land-based operations and constrained by the practicalities of sea-based work.

Under the current maritime enforcement regime, operational agencies use powers contained in at least 35 separate Commonwealth acts. This structure is inefficient and can lead to operational difficulties for the primary on-water enforcement agencies. The government has developed the Maritime Powers Bill 2012 and the Maritime Powers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2012 to address these challenges. They provide a smarter and simpler approach to maritime enforcement by streamlining the operational framework for our on-water enforcement agencies.

The Maritime Powers Bill establishes a system of authorisations under which a maritime officer may exercise enforcement powers in the maritime domain. The powers contained in these bills are modelled on and preserve the suite of powers currently available to agencies to conduct maritime enforcement operations—a key point to which I shall return. In particular, the bills consolidate all maritime powers in the customs, fisheries and migration regimes, constituting a large majority of Australia's maritime enforcement operations. The bills will, therefore, effect a substantial consolidation of Australia's maritime enforcement regime in relation to areas of highest priority.

The bills also include a range of safeguards to make sure maritime enforcement powers are authorised and exercised appropriately and for a proper purpose. A key safeguard is the requirement for the exercise of powers to be authorised on specific grounds by a senior maritime officer or member of the Australian Federal Police. This provides clarity around who must make decisions to take enforcement action and ensures appropriate oversight in relation to the exercise of powers. The Maritime Powers (Consequential Amendments) Bill repeals maritime enforcement powers in a number of other acts where they overlap with powers in the Maritime Powers Bill.

I will turn for a moment to some of the specific comments made by Senator Humphries regarding the opposition's concern about this legislation and in particular speak to their amendments. Senator Humphries sought what might be called an undertaking about the impact of these bills and how they will change or bend the regime as it exists. He used the phrase 'have previous powers wiped from the statute books'. Let me see if I can give him some comfort in this important respect. These bills do not change the powers of maritime authorities, so to the extent that it was possible previously to turn back boats it remains possible. Let me provide a little more meat on that proposition.

The Maritime Powers Bill will not affect the legality of tow-backs or turnarounds. Currently, to the extent that the power resides in legislation, it is in section 245F of the Migration Act. To the extent that it will reside in the proposed legislation, it sits primarily in clauses 69 and 72, together with clauses 21, 32 and 41 concerning jurisdiction and clauses 52 and 54(1) concerning the exercise of power. To the extent that the power exercised is the prerogative power of a government to control its borders, that prerogative power is preserved by clause 5 of this bill. The government has no plans to reinstitute tow-backs or turnarounds at this time, as you are well familiar with, but this legislation does not change the powers available to a government and, so to the extent that it was previously possible, it remains possible.

We would make the point—and I am sure Senator Humphries would be disappointed if we did not make the point—that this debate and the amendments in this debate are in our view something of a furphy. You are, in our judgement, making amendments that have no practical effect. You are not strengthening the prerogatives or powers of a government in the way that you say you want to, because you are simply adding words that do nothing to add power.

But you are doing this: you are making the political point and highlighting the political point that you want to turn back the boats. I suppose on that partisan point we say that the expert panel that dealt with some of these issues found that the conditions necessary for the safe and lawful enforcement of tow-backs did not presently exist. Senator Humphries, the government's position is that turn-backs and turnarounds are obviously not going to become a tool deployed by this government. We say—and perhaps I will go further into this in committee, if it is desired—that the expert panel report raised a number of questions, including treaty obligations for Australia about why that particular methodology of turning back boats is inappropriate, that it breaches safety of life at sea conventions and the like. But the critical point for you, I say, is this: your policy, notwithstanding the fact that we say it is crazed, is not defeated or undermined by this legislation. This legislation does not constrain this government or any future government from undertaking the sorts of powers that you describe the Howard government exerting.

While we do not agree about the substantive policy point and while I think the government is making its point that this amendment is about political posturing not about strengthening the legislation—

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, it's about reforming the law actually.

David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am sure we will debate this in committee, Senator Brandis. To the extent that towing back the boats was possible under previous legislation, it remains possible under this.

The unique aspects of the maritime domain pose particular challenges to the effective enforcement of laws. This warrants a tailored approach to maritime powers. The Maritime Powers Bill ensures flexibility in the exercise of these powers, allowing maritime officers to deal with quickly changing circumstances in often difficult and dangerous situations. These bills will streamline and modernise Australia's legal framework for maritime enforcement. They are another aspect of the government's work to provide Australia with a modern legal framework. I commend the bills to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.