Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Coming back to the minister’s points about fish stocks: given that the industry have taken the pain of giving up their licences, what is the government going to do about the incursion of illegal fishers into our waters? The industry have taken the pain of giving up their licences and no longer fishing and they are seeing their stock depleted, day in, day out, by the incursions of illegal fishers, particularly from Indonesia, who come into our waters and take our stock. On top of that, there are numerous sightings and reports of these boats landing on the far-flung regions of Australia’s coastline, often bringing livestock with them. There could be birds. Monkeys have been sighted and captured. Avian flu can come in quite easily through that, as well as other fairly devastating diseases that we currently do not have here. So what is the government doing in respect of the illegal fishing industry, which could wipe out our stock more easily than our own fishermen have done?

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