Rick Wilson (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Fremantle for raising his 14 points, but I point out that they are nothing but an effort to hijack the outcomes and recommendations of the recently completed Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review as an achievement of the previous Labor government. I would like to point out that this current government is proud of its record, which builds on the achievements of the Howard government, in extending the protection of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and creating the world's first network of representative marine protected areas in the southeast.

Speaking specifically of my electorate of O'Connor, I am extremely proud to see the outcomes of the recent review process which will see more targeted and greater protection of marine parks along the entire southern coastline of Western Australia. I would like to refer specifically to the Bremer Commonwealth Marine Reserve, which, under the previous government, offered marine national park zone protection status only to a small portion, that being the inshore leg of a vast marine reserve extending to depths of greater than 1,000 metres. With due respect to the member for Fremantle's claim that the 2012 declarations followed a comprehensive and rigorous process, I query how then have the bioregional panel and scientific expert panel both reached the conclusion that the protection should be expanded by some 70 per cent, giving greater protection to an extra 3,000 square kilometres of the Bremer Commonwealth Marine Reserve.

I also refer to the same Labor declaration that relocated another marine park in my electorate some 70 kilometres to the east and, on the basis of their 'comprehensive and rigorous process', placed parts of the new reserve over nothing but sand. In fact, the consultations leading to the 2012 declarations appear to be anything but comprehensive and rigorous, with some key stakeholders completely omitted from the process. I have documentation from one key stakeholder stating that, when the draft marine park boundaries were announced in 2011, they did not affect their fishing enterprise, so they relaxed and got on with business as usual, fishing sustainably off the south coast of my electorate. However, in July 2012, the boundaries were changed, new maps were released and this key stakeholder, the only fishing enterprise in this newly impacted area, had not been involved in any consultations, nor were they advised of the process. They related to me:

We were never contacted by the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities.

They asserted:

… the consultations were rushed ... It was like a rubber-stamping exercise.

This is a truly modern fishing enterprise, one that fishes sustainably and provides valuable data to both the state Department of Fisheries and the Western Australian Museum. In fact, when questioned by Senator Richard Colbeck at Senate estimates in 2013, SEWPaC representative Stephen Oxley acknowledged the department:

… did not have the capacity to go, and identify and make communication with every individual fisher.

SEWPaC also admitted they had done very little research on the marine environment to the southwest corner of Western Australia. The recent Commonwealth marine review independent bioregional panel, on the other hand, did consult extensively with stakeholders to arrive at the management plans that would support the biodiversity values of the area better than those previously gazetted in 2012 and better support fish stocks into the future. I am proud to have conducted my own extensive consultations within my electorate of O'Connor and have fed back the views of my communities, stakeholders and conservation interests to the federal government. My outcomes concur largely with those reached by the independent investigations of the bioregional advisory panel and the expert scientific panel.

I note that the member for Fremantle acknowledged the economic value of marine based tourism but pointedly avoided mentioning the fantastic outcomes that this Commonwealth marine review process will have for the Bremer area of my electorate. This is possibly because it does not fit with rhetoric peddled by the Labor Party and organisations like GetUp! who refuse to acknowledge that the coalition government is committed not only to reviewing the science around previous declarations but to responding, as it has done in the instance of the Bremer Commonwealth Marine Reserve, to the recommendations and actually increasing the protection of this marine reserve by over 70 per cent compared to the previous government's recommendations.

The Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review recommendations have also taken that unprecedented step of locking out all possible oil and gas exploration. On top of this, Ministers Hunt and Frydenberg have committed an additional $100,000 to exploring the recommendations made by the bioregional advisory panel to consider expanding the protections to the west of the marine park.

In closing, I dispel the myth proposed by the member for Fremantle that the current Commonwealth Marine Reserves Review recommendations only underpin the findings of the previous government and note that the process towards these enhanced protections, based on thorough stakeholder consultation and sound science, is on track for completion by mid-2017.

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