Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Payne does. That is nice to hear. Somebody is listening out there! At the beginning of my remarks I said there are five bioregional areas and I outlined four of them that are under consideration at present. The fifth is the south-east marine reserves network. It is one where the implementation was conducted under the Howard government. In fact, it was conducted and implemented by Senator Colbeck, the author of this bill before us today. Senator Colbeck, as the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, was right there at the coalface working on the development and implementation of the south-east marine reserves network. So nobody in this place, I suspect, has a better appreciation of these issues and of this process than Senator Colbeck, who has been following this issue and working on it. He was intensely involved in it in government for such a long period of time.

Senator Colbeck highlighted his experience in the development of that south-east marine reserves network during his time in government in his second reading speech on this legislation. He highlighted the very thorough process of investigating and subsequently implementing that marine reserves network. In doing so there was extensive and open consultation with each and every stakeholder who felt they had a claim or a vested interest in this process. Senator Colbeck highlighted that the overwhelming success following the consultation with stakeholders on the draft proposal allowed the government to make around 20 changes to boundaries and zoning that act for the protection of marine species in that space. Senator Colbeck said that the result was a network that is both larger and more representative of the region than the original proposal and has far less impact on the fishing industry. It sounds like, as Senator Colbeck described it, a win-win outcome—an outcome that provided for a network of zones that protect marine species covering an area larger than was originally proposed but that does so with minimal impact on the fishing industry. That shows how these processes can be managed, can be undertaken and can be done in a sensible way, but it takes sensible people like Senator Colbeck to be able to do it and implement it. Unfortunately, since the change of government, we have not seen a level of consultation, cooperation and engagement with all stakeholders that has allowed this process to be shepherded through for the remaining four proposed marine bioregional areas. Instead we have seen, as is so often the case under this government, failure to give stakeholders effective input and to ensure that stakeholders have confidence in the outcomes of the process that is being undertaken. It is this loss of confidence, this loss of stakeholder engagement and this loss of faith at the grassroots level that require these changes and necessitate bringing this bill here today.

People will rightly say, 'Why didn't the Howard government provide for this final parliamentary oversight of these marine bioregional plans?' Perhaps the Howard government just had too much faith in the capacity of ministers of the day to exercise that power responsibly and sensibly and come up with sensible, sound outcomes at the end. Sadly, the Howard government had that faith but that faith has been proven, with the change of government and the change of ministerial personnel responsible for the administration of these schemes, to have been misplaced. Unfortunately, that requires us to look and say that perhaps the minister of the day cannot be trusted with open slather. Perhaps we erred way back when the EPBC Act and these processes were first put in place. And perhaps it is better to return the ultimate say to the parliament so that, when you have a bad minister who undertakes bad processes and delivers a bad outcome, the parliament can at least still do something about it. That, of course, is the nub of what this legislation is all about.

There have been real concerns that both the Rudd and Gillard governments have not engaged in appropriate levels of consultation with local communities and have not engaged in appropriate consultation with those commercial fisheries affected, nor have they engaged in appropriate levels of conversation or engagement with the marine recreational fishing interests. Equally, even some environmental groups have highlighted to Senator Colbeck that they have felt left out by the federal government when it comes to genuine consultation.

As I highlighted before, the South-east Commonwealth Marine Reserve Network, the one implemented by the Howard government, the one that Senator Colbeck had the direct engagement and involvement in, was a successful process that achieved bigger areas of protection than initially foreshadowed but still left sustainability and viability for the commercial fishing industry and for the recreational fishing industry. I do want to say, Mr Deputy President—and I know this is something that you in particular would appreciate—that all too often, when people talk about recreational fishing, there is a belief that it is just somebody dangling a line and it is of little consequence. But it is not of little consequence.