Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Declared Fishing Activities) Bill 2012. Like the rest of the coalition, I oppose this bill because it is a bad bill and it has been poorly thought through. Not only that, we have seen chaos and confusion reigning over this bill. As I understand it, less than 24 hours after its introduction and a little over an hour ago the government foreshadowed several amendments to its own bill. But this bill has nothing to do with protecting Australia's fish stocks. It has nothing to do with large trawlers. It is simply about increasing the arbitrary powers of government.

This bill is simply policy on the run. It is a knee-jerk reaction to a social media campaign that does not dealt with the issues. It is all about appeasing a scare campaign from the Greens, who we know are completely anti-fishing and would happily see the entire Australian fisheries industry shut down. When you look through the detail of this bill, it should terrify every small family fishing operation in our nation. Now, at the stroke of the minister's pen, they can be driven out of business and lose everything. They would have no right of appeal, no court that they could turn to.

When we see such knee-jerk reactions and such backflipping legislation as this introduced into the House, is it any wonder that only last week we saw that Australia has slipped down the global rankings in the recently released World Economic Forum's Global competitiveness report? Under this Labor government, in just about every single measure, including our international rankings for reliability and wastefulness of government spending, we are slipping down the ladder. We are going backwards as a nation.

This legislation is bad for many reasons. It is bad because of its ill-defined terms. This legislation provides:

(3)   The Minister must not make an interim declaration unless the Minister and the Fisheries Minister agree that:

(a)   there is uncertainty about the environmental, social or economic impacts of the fishing activity …

Can anyone on the other side start to give us a definition of what is meant by social uncertainty? Can just one member give us a small explanation of what social uncertainty means? Unlikely. The legislation also provides:

(2)   When making an interim declaration, the Minister may identify a fishing activity by reference to all or any of the following:

(a)   a method of fishing;

(b)   a type of vessel used for fishing;

(c)   a method of processing, carrying or transhipping of fish that have been taken;

(d)   an area of waters or of seabed.

These are very broad-ranging powers. Typically, this government has not thought through any of the unintended consequences. Let us just for a minute look at some of the unintended consequences of this poorly thought through legislation and this government's making policy on the run. This legislation gives the minister unlimited powers which go way beyond addressing the current issues and concerns. Every family fishing operator around our nation will be impacted by this. It is simply a Trojan Horse. It has put a cloud over our entire fishing industry. If this legislation passes, the minister can, at the stroke of a pen—without consultation, without warning, simply because he wakes up one morning and considers there is social uncertainty—close down any fishing business in the nation.

In fact, it is this legislation that creates massive economic uncertainty for every small, medium and large fishing business and their employees. They are now faced with great uncertainty, with no right of appeal and no court that they can go to. This legislation itself creates massive social uncertainty for every small, medium and large fishing business and their employees. If this legislation is passed, what happens next time when these small businesses in the fishing industry sit down with their bank for a review? The bank will see that the risk and uncertainty for those businesses has increased simply because of this government's legislation. The business risk has increased, so what will the banks do? Will they ask the small businesses for extra security? What if the businesses do not have the extra security to put in? Will the banks withdraw their facility because of the increased risk created by this government? This is something the government simply has not thought through.

But it is not only businesses currently operating in the fishing sector that are exposed to this ill-thought-out legislation. This legislation sends a message to every potential investor in Australia, in every sector: 'Be afraid, be very afraid, of this Labor government.' This legislation sends out the message: 'If you have met all the rules, requirements and requests of government, if you have worked for years and spent millions of dollars to set up a business here, under this Labor government there is a sovereign risk, for without warning and without consultation, at the last minute, after having done everything that has been asked of you, after having complied with every regulation, this government, on nothing less than a social media campaign, can shut you down and change the rules, after the money has been committed.'

Sadly, this is not a one-off. This Labor government already has form on spooking investors by abrupt decisions and reversals on mining taxes, the carbon tax and live cattle exports. No-one will ever know what investment dollars have been scared off from our country. No-one will ever know what jobs have failed to be created because of the risks that this government has created. Talking of jobs, this legislation is going to kill off jobs directly. This legislation means that 50 Australians, including 45 people engaged in work in Devonport, will lose their jobs. The minister should today, after parliament finishes, jump on a plane, fly down to Devonport, look these people in the eye and apologise to them for costing them their jobs. What other jobs are these people going to find when we close industries down like this? We can only finance Public Service jobs from Commonwealth revenue. Next year could we give these 50 people alternative jobs in the Public Service? It would be great if we could. But next year we need to find, from government revenue, $7 billion to pay interest on the debt that this government has created with its reckless spending. That $7 billion, which we will spend from government revenue to pay off the debt, could have employed 100,000 public servants at $70,000 each. But we cannot do that, because that money instead will go to pay the interest on the debt created by the government's reckless spending.

What is also very concerning about this legislation is how it has been brought about by a misinformation campaign by the Greens. When I first read about this and looked at the papers, the story that came across in the media was that this giant foreign supertrawler was going to come to Australia and vacuum out our entire fish stocks. But the truth could not be further from that misinformation campaign. Simply, there is a strict quota that this trawler will be allowed to take. That quota is the same, whether it is taken by one, two, three, four or more boats. That quota is just 10 per cent of those fish stocks.

It is worthwhile looking at just how well managed our fish stocks are and just how little Australia takes as a nation. We have one of the largest coastlines in the world, yet in Australia we import 70 per cent of the seafood we eat. Only 30 per cent of the seafood we consume here comes from Australian waters. The rest comes from overseas. If you look at marine catches from around the world, you see how little we take and how well protected Australia's fish stocks are. It is quite amazing. China, with a coastline smaller than Australia's, takes over 11 million tons of marine catch every year. Our northern neighbour Indonesia takes close to 3½ million tons of marine catch every year. Thailand takes close to 2½ million tons of marine catch every year. Australia takes less than 200,000 tons. We take less than one-tenth the sea catch that Thailand does. This is how well our fish stocks are protected. This bill has absolutely nothing to do with those fish stocks.

I will conclude with a comment that shows how bad this legislation is. Around the world, people need protein. There are many ways that we can get protein. Our fish stocks are the most efficient way, especially in measurements of greenhouse gas emissions. Our seafood is our most sustainable, best, ecologically proven way of providing that protein. For example, the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide emitted per ton of live weight of poultry meat versus wild-harvest fisheries is worth noting. For beef operations, it is 11.3 to 18.3 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per live tonne of meat, yet for herring and sardine fisheries—what we are talking about here—it is 0.07 to 0.36 tonnes. Our fisheries are one of the most sustainable industries that we have. This is simply bad legislation. It should be opposed. It should cause great concern to every business and every Australian out there. I cannot support this legislation.

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