Ewen Jones (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I agree with a lot of what the member for McEwen said. I heard the member for McEwen talking about fishing in Port Phillip Bay and the great fishing done there. I say to the member for McEwen: you would not know fishing if you fell over it, mate. A friend of mine, Jason Collins, was fishing off the beach in Lucinda, which is just up the road from Townsville. He noticed out of the corner of his eye that there was a family watching him. He had picked up a beautiful winter whiting, put in three hooks and then put it back out there. The husband of the family came up and said, 'You know, mate, I wouldn't mind telling you that we'd have kept that.' And Jason said, 'We don't want that fish, mate. We want what's going to eat that fish.' Thirty-five minutes later he pulled that fish in and it had been sucked dry, gilled and scaled by something that was very, very big, and he did not catch the fish. That is the nature of the recreational fishermen—as the members opposite were saying—they are always prepared to catch the fish out there that is that big.

To get onto the subject of the science behind it. We are very, very lucky in North Queensland that we are surrounded by great scientific organisations. We have the Australian Institute of Marine Science which, although based just south of my electorate, most of what they do comes in through my electorate. If we are talking about the need for science in fishery and the need for science in our oceans, the Australian Institute of Marine Science should be receiving better funding. Under this government, they have received cuts to their operational funding. They have a boat that has been newly commissioned that is sitting at the wharf and cannot be used because the government has cut the operational funding to the Australian Institute of Marine Science. They have not got any extra money for the way the carbon tax will attack the fuel that is being used on the boat. That cuts back the actual science that can be used in what is one of the world's great fisheries.

The role of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, or AIMS, is to work as the honest broker in all things marine. I give you an example, the Montara spill that happened a few years ago. What happened before they drilled there was the Australian Institute of Marine Science were commissioned to do a baseline survey of the entire region. Once the spill happened, they were able to contain the spill and they cleaned up the spill. The Greens groups and everyone were jumping up and down about what was actually going wrong and how it was going to be devastated. The Australian Institute of Marine Science were able to go into the area and do the baseline research again, so that there is no damage. There was no damage to those areas. That is what using scientific research is all about—being able to do those things.

If I was to say anything to this parliament about science it is that across that entire Northwest shelf. If we commissioned the Australian Institute of Marine Science to act as an honest broker and do the proper baseline research there, you would find that before we start doing anything we would have the information that we need before anything happens. That is where the science should go. If we can get that research done before anything happens then you will discover it. I think you will find that companies like Woodside, BHP and Rio Tinto will be very much on the side with that, because no-one wants the bad results any more.

We also have James Cook University, which is a university that has proclaimed for life in the tropical world. If you are talking about fisheries and seaways, you are talking about the tropical realm, because you have places like Vietnam, the Philippines and every place like that where they are severely outfishing their resources. The research that we are doing at James Cook University with the ARC, under the experience and guidance of Dr Terry Hughes, is one of the most published areas of James Cook University. Our marine research out of JCU is second to none worldwide. If we can export that science to places where they can rebuild their fisheries, it would be a great thing for our world. You also have Dr Damian Burrows at JCU who specialises in freshwater research.

Everyone is going on about the north of Australia being the food bowl of the world, and how we need to expand it. But of all the river systems up there, we have actually quantitative baseline research on about 25 per cent of those. Before we start going into the expansion of agriculture, aquaculture, mining, farming and all those things in the north of Australia, we need to get that baseline research to find out what is actually out there. What are the dangers? What things do we risk? Then we can have the proper discussion. Those are the issues that we really have to address, and we have to come to the table with the realisation that we do need to invest in this. Blokes like Damian Burrows and Terry Hughes will be very upfront with you. They are very giving of their time to people like myself who do not—I put this in the nicest possible way for myself—have a science degree, regarding the way that they can explain things to me, the way that they take their time to sit me down and explain what are the risks. Also Mr John Gunn, and before him Dr Ian Poiner, at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, can explain things that way through to you.

We also have the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority based in Townsville. We have the challenges of having Magnetic Island, which is a suburb of Townsville—fully inhabited and one of the most beautiful places in the world—that is inside the marine park precinct. There are massive challenges that we have there. We have ferries coming in and out. There are massive challenges there that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority will always have to deal with. The way that they are able to interact with the general public is a credit to them and the way that the science must go. Dr Russell Reichelt, who was the previous head of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and is now in charge of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. I have heard that just recently he has had his tenure extended. That is a very positive thing, because he is a very pragmatic man and across all the science.

One of the things that we must do, as a nation and as a parliament, is look to lead by example. Senator Bill Heffernan, one of our favourite people and a man known to stick to a point, was sitting in the Parliament House dining room. The fish in the dining room, if you have you ever been to north Queensland, is not that great here. It is labelled as barramundi. He asked the attendant at the time there where the barramundi was from. The attendant said, 'It is from the south coast.' Senator Heffernan said, 'South coast of where?' Senator Heffernan asked the attendant to go get the box. The fish had come from the south coast of Taiwan. We have a real problem when the parliament of Australia cannot even eat Australia fish. The fact that this is being labelled as barramundi in the nation's parliament gives the fish a bad rap. Barramundi is not the greatest fish in the world, but it is a fantastic fish because it keeps in your fridge for an awfully long time. If you Cryopac the fillets, they will last for an awfully long time. They will take on any flavour; they are beautiful fish for that. Mangrove jack, coral trout and those sorts of things are a little bit better eating.

Those are the challenges that we should be facing as a parliament. It should be realised that the greatest protector of all our seas and waterways, especially in north Queensland, is the weather. You will go eight to 10 weeks at a time where you will be not be able to get out the front at all. If it is blowing five to 10 knots, as the member for McEwen was saying before, you have got 400 people trying to get out. You will go out and have a fish. I have a friend of mine who moved up from Sydney; they moved up for the fishing. They got themselves a very good boat, a very big boat. In the 18 months that they have been in Townsville, they have been able to go out and fish eight times. In those times, never once have they achieved a bag limit. Even when you do get out there, if the moon is not right and if the tides are not right, you will not get the run you want. The weather is the biggest protector of everything when it comes to fishing in north Queensland.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority established green zones. They were very unpopular at the time and they were established by the Howard government. More important was the way that they were established. The Howard government went out to the fishers of north Queensland and said, 'We are just doing research out there.' We got everyone to come in and say where they fished. Where they fished was pretty much where the green zones went. You will have fishermen now tell you bluntly until they are blue in the face that they will never, ever share that information with anyone ever again from an official point of view. What north Queenslanders will tell you, though, is that the green zones are successful, that the green zones have been able to get that breeding stock up and the migratory species will move off those reefs.

We have yellow zones. For those people who do not understand what a yellow zone is, it is one line, one hook and one angler. If you have four people on your boat, you are allowed four rods or Alvey reels and four hooks. You can fish as much as you want until you get to the bag limit there, but you cannot do multiple lines. You cannot drag those things there and you have serious bag limits.

The perception that north Queenslanders fight all the time is that we are abusers of our environment. The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is about to launch the Sea Country Guardians. No-one understands that North Queenslanders do care about their environment. We are not throwing sticks of gelignite over the bow of the ship or the boat to catch fish. It is the North Queenslanders who set the size and bag limits. You cannot take home a barramundi under 58 centimetres. You cannot take it home over 120 centimetres. The reason for that is we are guided by the science. The barramundi is a hermaphrodite and at 120 centimetres and will change sex to a female. It will drop its eggs once they get to that age where they are over 120 centimetres. That is the key: putting them back at over 120 centimetres. They are also great catching over that. My record is 110 centimetres, but I have been in a boat when we pulled in on that was 134 centimetres. You could almost get your head inside its mouth. It was a massive fish. We put it back in the water and went from there.

The most caught species in North Queensland is the mud crab. It was the Queenslanders who brought in that you cannot catch jennies, you cannot catch the females, because they are the egg layers. In the Northern Territory, you can still eat jennies. They say they are supposed to be very tasty. I have never had one. To get a mud crab you must have a basic size and you do get billed quite severely if you do not do that.

In relation to the Protect Our Coral Sea campaign, I bitterly opposed to the way Minister Burke has run this campaign. The draft plan that has come out. We campaigned very hard in 2010 to say that a vote for Labor was a vote to close down the Coral Sea, and that has been proved correct. Political expediency and the populist politics have gone hand in hand with this campaign. The research by the Pew Foundation saw them in North Queensland for nearly two or three days. They did not speak to anyone from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, they did not speak to anyone of any academic qualification at Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and they spent about an hour and a half with the people of James Cook University. That is what we have based this thing on. I held a fishing forum of the recreational fishing public on this that passed a series of resolutions:

Recreational fishing is a lifestyle issue for north Queensland. It is a right that should be protected.

Science should be the guide to the establishment of a marine reserve off the north coast of Australia. If a marine park is designated—

without using the science—

that decision should be overturned by subsequent government until Australian scientific case for closure can be made.

Artificial reefs should be established in yellow zones.

The resolution even went as far as saying we would not even bother anchoring to protect it even further. The further resolutions state:

A science based review of green zones should be undertaken—

including the recreational and commercial fishermen, to make sure that they are exactly what they are and that we have that quantifiable research from the fishing public. Finally:

Work needs to be done to change the negative perception of North Queensland fishers.

Those are the key issues for us. Those are the issues that Richard Colbeck, the shadow parliamentary secretary for agriculture, fisheries and forestry,has told me that he will work for. Those are the issues that I will continue to fight for. These are the things that we need to do. We should use science in everything we do.

We have a problem with the Murray-Darling Basin because we did not use the science when it was set up in the 1800s. The science was not available. The science is available now. We must use it. We must be prepared to abide by it and we cannot be risking people's lifestyles and people's jobs. Already GetUp!is asking for more closures of the Coral Sea. They are asking for extensions to it. I think that is wrong that they are using those sorts of things and getting people in Sydney and Melbourne to sign up for these campaigns when they have no knowledge of what is actually going on there. I thank the House.

Debate adjourned.

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