Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Action, Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Let me come to the last thing and the most important here, and that is the work which has been done on precisely this issue of the proximity of these marine parks to local communities. Let me run through some names. Mindarieand Two Rocks are within seven kilometres offshore. Busselton and Geographe Bay are nine kilometres. You travel around and you have other names: Fremantle, Karratha, Kalbarri; in Queensland, Karumba, Cooktown and Mackay; in South Australia, Ceduna and Streaky Bay; in the Northern Territory, Nhulunbuy; in Tasmania, Bicheno and St Helens; in New South Wales, Port Macquarie, Yamba and Byron Bay. These are all within 12 kilometres. These are all, according to the Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation, places where up to tens of thousands of people would otherwise have visited for recreational fishing purposes each and every year.

Let me just read the number of groups that are involved here. We have AFTA, ANSA, the Australian Underwater Federation, the Game Fishing Association Australia, Keep Australia Fishing, the PFIGA, Recfish Australia, the Recreational Fishing Alliance of New South Wales, Recfishwest, Sunfish Queensland and TARFish from Tasmania. We have USFA and VRFish. That is a summary of the groups which are involved. That is a summary of the places which have been affected.

So, very simply, this has a real impact on recreational fishing. This has a real impact on fisherfolk, on families, on the ability of people to do what they have normally done. Tens of thousands of people in each of these places, according to the advice of the Australian Recreational Fishing Foundation, will have their ability to carry on one of life's simple pleasures impaired. That is why these boundaries on this day in this form should be rejected. We will continue with the process. We will make sure that there is real protection, but not in this way and not in this form.

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