Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I indicated earlier that the coalition will be supporting this amendment. In saying that, I want to congratulate Mr Peter Lindsay, the Liberal member for Herbert, for his campaign to ensure that this particular amendment was included in the bill. Way back on 25 June 2008, when the matter was dealt with in the House of Representatives, Mr Lindsay raised the issue of carbon sequestration underneath the Great Barrier Reef. He said that the bill that was presented to parliament did not rule out allowing carbon sequestration under the marine park. As Mr Lindsay said:

I am very pleased that the government has since said, ‘No, it’s not our intention to allow that.’

Mr Lindsay had been publicly campaigning for that. He indicated that he would move an amendment to the bill, which I am sure that the government would support, and he referred to an article in the Australian that included a map showing that there could be carbon sequestration under the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. I am pleased that the government has introduced this amendment in the Senate to allay the fears of Mr Lindsay and other members of the coalition, who are concerned that at all costs the Great Barrier Reef be protected and looked after. It is one of the great natural icons of the world.

As well as being a great natural asset and something that has brought pleasure to many people over eons, it is also, as I mentioned in speaking to an earlier amendment, a great revenue earner for Australia. Marine tourism in the Great Barrier Reef region is worth $5.1 billion annually and employs some 54,000 people. That information was provided by Access Economics, which did a study in the area just recently. A study commissioned in 2001 by tourism organisations, including Tourism Queensland, and the Cairns City Council and conducted by Hassall & Associates showed that the value of the marine tourism industry in the Cairns-Port Douglas area alone was some $736 million in the previous year. A further study by Hassall & Associates commissioned by Tourism Queensland showed that the marine tourism industry in 2001 paid the following major taxes: $17.5 million in income tax; some $8 million in the environmental management charge; and some $19.9 million in company tax, making a total of $215 million in revenue for the Commonwealth, which then pays out only about $30 million to GBRMPA. Not only is the Great Barrier Reef a great natural asset and great for tourism and employment; it is a real cash cow for the government. The Queensland government receives approximately $124 million of federal revenue through the GST and collects another $19 million in other taxes paid by the marine tourism industry. According to my figures, the Queensland government spends only about $23 million on the Great Barrier Reef.

Through the payment of the environmental management charge, industry contributes some $8 million per year to the GBRMPA budget, of which $1.2 million was payed to the CRC Reef Research Centre. There are over two million visitors to the Great Barrier Reef each year, and research shows that the Great Barrier Reef is the most significant attraction for tourism within the North Queensland region, with about 80 per cent of tourists visiting the Great Barrier Reef at least once. Quite clearly this is a great natural asset; it is also a great commercial asset for Australia, for Australians and for the Queensland government. That is why we have to protect it at all costs, and that is why the opposition will be supporting the government’s amendment to an issue that was rightly raised by Mr Lindsay some time ago.

Question agreed to.

I, and also on behalf of Senator Boswell, move opposition amendment (1) on sheet 5550 revised:

(1)    Schedule 6, item 24, page 126 (after line 13), after Division 3, insert:

        (1)    Despite any other Commonwealth law or any State law or Territory law, if a person was convicted for an offence under section 38CA of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975:

             (a)    that occurred during the period 1 July 2004 to 14 December 2006; and

             (b)    that did not attract a monetary penalty exceeding $5,000;

that conviction is for all purposes to be treated as a spent conviction under Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914.

        (2)    For the avoidance of doubt, a conviction referred to in subsection (1) is to be treated as a spent conviction whether or not the waiting period for the offence under Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914 has ended.

        (3)    Despite Division 3 of Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914, the exclusions provided by Division 6 of Part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914 do not apply in relation to a conviction referred to in subsection (1).

This amendment deals with a matter that has been of great concern to the coalition for a number of years now. As I indicated this morning—and I will not repeat a lot of what I said this morning—the former coalition government legislated in relation to green zones. The penalties for fishing in the green zones were very severe. Between 1 July 2004 and 14 December 2006, there were a large number of convictions which imposed very heavy fines but also gave those convicted a criminal record. This was never intended; it was an unintended consequence. Senator Boswell and I gave examples of that this morning and of the impact that criminal records have had on ordinary Australians who liked to go out fishing and who made a mistake and went into the wrong zone. As a result of a lot of good work done by Senator Boswell and others, including me, this was highlighted. The previous government recognised that this was an unintended consequence and promised before the last election that, if returned, the coalition would introduce legislation to legislatively overturn the criminal records of people convicted during the period 1 July 2004 to 14 December 2006.

On 14 December 2006, the previous government, understanding the problems, changed the arrangements so that, from that date onwards, people fishing in the green zones could be served with an infringement notice—an on-the-spot fine, almost—instead of being taken to court and, upon conviction, having a criminal record. With the infringement notices, there are still very substantial fines but no conviction is on the person’s record. What we want to do with this amendment before the chair is to put those who were convicted between 1 July 2004 and 14 December 2006 in the same position as they would have been had they been given an infringement notice after 14 December 2006.

This has been the subject of a lot of anxiety by those convicted, for the reasons that Senator Boswell and I mentioned earlier today. This amendment, if it is passed—and I am delighted to hear that both Senator Fielding and Senator Xenophon have indicated that they will be supporting the amendment, which means that it will pass—will put to an end this very unhappy period in relation to the Great Barrier Reef. I want to emphasise again that the Labor Party when in opposition, before the last election, also indicated that they would be supporting this form of activity. The then shadow spokesperson in the area of agriculture, fisheries and forestry, Senator O’Brien, quite clearly said in response to a newspaper inquiry that this needed to be a bipartisan approach and he gave every indication that the Labor Party would be supporting it.

Initially we looked at a pardon, but it became clear to us on investigation that a pardon would be difficult to do, as it would create an unfortunate precedent and in fact would be a unique action in Australian legislative history. So, on further reflection, the coalition decided to propose that these convictions between 1 July 2004 and 14 December 2006 be treated as spent convictions under part VIIC of the Crimes Act 1914. The Crimes Act actually has an automatic spending of convictions after a period of 10 years. What this amendment does for these 100 or so people who now have this criminal record is bring forward the ‘spending’ of their convictions. So, to all intents and purposes, if this amendment is adopted, those who were fined in that period that we talk about will, of course, still pay the fine—there will still be that very substantial penalty—but they will not have a conviction on their personal record for what amounted to, in most instances, fairly innocent fishing breaches.

It is important to understand that that new regime was a huge step forward by the coalition—from about five per cent reserved away in green zones, it went up to something like 30 or 32 per cent in green zones. So there was a major rearrangement of what people had done on the Great Barrier Reef for many, many years. There was a lot of anxiety about it and a lot of anger and concern at the time the green zones were introduced—however, it went ahead. As a result, people who fished in a certain area where they had been fishing for decades suddenly found themselves in breach of the law and, as a result, faced very substantial penalties and this criminal conviction—which was not intended. What we are doing with this amendment is using the Crimes Act and the provision about spent convictions to say that these convictions in that period are deemed to be treated as spent convictions under the Crimes Act. And the balance of the amendment is to clarify what it refers to.

I am pleased that there has been an indication that there will be majority support for this amendment. I certainly hope that the Labor Party will honour its election commitment and also support the amendment. I went to the Labor Party at the committee hearings and I had written to the minister explaining the problem. If there was a better way of doing this, I was hoping that the government might come forward and say: ‘We understand what you want to do. We agree, as we agreed before the election, that this situation should not continue, and this is a way we can get rid of it.’ But, whilst I got tacit support, one might say, from officials at estimates committee hearings, I could never get their political masters to actually come to the party. I am hoping that, by now, the government will accept that this is an appropriate amendment. It is a very fair amendment and it rights a wrong—an unintended consequence of very strong legislation to protect the Great Barrier Reef.

I would certainly urge all senators to support this amendment. It does not create any undue precedent—which I see the government raised in their majority committee report. That is a facetious argument. It will right a wrong. It will be a great day, I might say, for those who are impacted upon by this and it will clean their slates in a way that will bring closure to this particular incident in Australia’s history. So I urge senators to support this amendment.