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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to the Western Australian Government’s shark catch-and-kill policy.

That the Senate take note of the answer by Senator Cormann to my question on the shark capture and kill policy of Western Australia.

The government are obviously not monitoring the impact of their decision to exempt the shark cull from the assessment under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. Senator Cormann persistently failed to get to the point and answer my question about monitoring the impact. It is obvious from his answers, also, that the WA government is not reporting to the Minister for the Environment on the implementation of the catch and kill policy. He was unable to tell me the number of animals that have been caught, have been destroyed, have died or have been released. Nor was he able to tell me what species have been caught.

We are not just referring to the targeted species under the exemption, we are also talking about other marine life. I was just looking at a media report that three more undersized sharks have been caught in Western Australia and released. I will come back to that in a minute. A tiger shark of over three metres has been destroyed off Perth. That is the first that I have been aware of that has been destroyed off Perth. The others have been destroyed off the south-west coast.

In other words, by the failure of the federal government to require monitoring, including the failure to require an independent observer so that there is an independent person looking at what is happening to these sharks, and by failing to record this data, the government will not be able to get an independent view of the impact of this policy. They will not get an independent view of what animals are being harmed—what marine life is being harmed. This is irresponsible. It was irresponsible to grant this exemption in the first place, but this government has essentially washed its hands of responsibility for marine life, including sharks—the great white shark for which they have a direct responsibility because it is a threatened species.

They have responsibility not only under domestic legislation—Australian legislation—but under the many international conventions which cover great white sharks, protected and vulnerable species, and migratory species. The minister has a direct responsibility under the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals to protect species that are listed. And the great white shark is listed. Only under extraordinary circumstances should they be exempted from this protection. Those extraordinary circumstances have not been demonstrated. This government has a responsibility, yet they have washed their hands.

Senator Cormann stood in this chamber and said, 'No, we won't revoke this exemption.' He said that his government takes responsibility for the decision. In other words, they are just as culpable as the WA Barnett government for the slaughter of sharks that is going on off the coast of Western Australia.

The community is aware that close to 40 sharks have now been caught through this process. The federal government is unaware of what is going on. It is unaware of the impact of its decision. The state government is failing to report what is going on, so we have to go on what people observe. There have been at least 40 sharks captured. Some have been directly shot. Others have died on the lines. Others have been released.

The problem is that the techniques that have been used on the drum lines damage the sharks quite extensively. We do not know the fate of those sharks that have been released—again, because there is no monitoring. This government has not adequately reviewed the information. It has not sought international expertise. The secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species has offered to convene a forum to provide expert advice, because the government are clearly operating in the absence of advice and in the absence of science. They have offered to convene a forum to provide that expert advice to the federal government. I wonder if that has been taken up. It is clear that they need this sort of advice to enable them to adequately deal with this problem in a way that does not involve slaughtering the sharks off the Western Australia coast.

Question agreed to.