Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I was happy to amend the motion to take out the words the environment minister had been belligerent about in his statements about protection of great white sharks and encouraging the Western Australian government to put in place lethal mitigation methods such as drum lines and shark nets. But I understand that Labor also wanted me to amend the motion to take out the words in clause (b) on the sixth and seventh lines, which has 'drum lines which have not proven to make beaches safe for humans', and put in something different. I want to be very clear here today that the evidence in front of the Senate committee and a very exhaustive inquiry made it clear that drum lines and shark nets do not make beaches safe. Technically, they may make them safer, if they kill a single shark. That's a mathematical thing. But they do not make beaches safe. It is 100 per cent accurate. And if you support drum lines and lethal nets then you support the killing—indiscriminate slaughter—of marine life. So forget the bloody protocols. If you support those things you support killing sharks. (Time expired)