Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to take note of the answer given by the Minister for Justice and Customs, Senator Ellison, in question time today in relation to the ghost ship that has been drifting in the Gulf of Carpentaria, the Jian Seng. I have to say in response to the previous speaker in this chamber that this is not a superb example of how this government is handling the illegal fishing situation in this country. In fact, this is another example in a string of incidents in the last year or so of the total incompetence of this government.

I note that Minister Bailey is roaming around the world trying to defend the Tourism Australia slogan ‘where the bloody hell are you’. Let me tell you that people in the north of this country, particularly people in the Northern Territory, are wondering exactly where this government is. Where the bloody hell is this government when it comes to protecting our coastline, when it comes to protecting our fishing stocks and, today, when it comes to protecting our turtles? Today on the front page of the Northern Territory News there is a large headline and a graphic photograph of a group of illegal fishers dragging their net up an Australian beach which contains two green turtles, as my colleague Senator Ludwig mentioned before. So we have not only illegal fishing but also illegal hunting happening in the north of Australia, and the government is nowhere to be seen in terms of trying to tackle the situation.

Let us have a look at what we have here. We have a minister who says that an abandoned tanker floating in the Gulf of Carpentaria was actually doing nothing illegal. How would you know that? How do you know that unless you actually respond to a warning, get on board and find out exactly what is going on? We have a tanker that we believe was probably a resupply ship for foreign fishing boats, so the question is: was that the case? Was this in fact a boat that contained rice, other food supplies and stock to replenish the mother ship in an illegal fishing chain, one of many that are operating in the north of Australia? And, if that is the case, why don’t we know what it was doing? Why don’t we know where it came from? Why don’t we know what it was doing floating aimlessly around the Gulf of Carpentaria, only 40 kilometres from the coast? So much for this government’s claim that it is strong on border protection. What a joke. This government is extremely weak on border protection—very weak, in fact—and the holes in this particular policy position are slowly being uncovered, incident by incident.

The ship was in the zone for two weeks, nearly 17 days, before the authorities even intercepted it. Senator Ellison said yesterday that it was spotted by Coastwatch on 8 March. We now know that that was not true. It was actually spotted by a barge captain. So we now have barge companies in northern Australia playing the role of protectors and keepers of our coastline. A barge captain tips off this government that there is some ship floating around there in the Gulf of Carpentaria on 8 March; that was when Coastwatch were first alerted to this and first knew about it. But then it takes them until last Thursday or Friday to get out there and have a really good look at what this tanker or ship is supposed to be. Is it in fact the same vessel? We still do not know the answer to that. Is the vessel that the barge captain saw back in early March the same vessel that Coastwatch spotted last Friday and then bothered to board on Saturday?

The truth of the matter is that under this government our coastline is extremely vulnerable. The policy that this government has is not working. Authorities are unable to track illegal vessels. Last year alone, we had 13,000 illegal vessels sighted in Australian waters—and only 609 of those were apprehended or detained—let alone those that get right in close to our shores, in the mangroves and up the rivers, or, as in the case of this ship and its people, park on a beach near Milingimbi, actually slashing and killing turtles for their own game. So when is this government going to get serious about tackling the invasion of our coastline and the pilfering of our fishing stocks and step on board and do something about it? One hundred thousand dollars to the Amateur Fishermen’s Association of the Northern Territory might be a start, but it is a very meagre contribution to tackling this situation. The government needs to put together a policy that coordinates all of the agencies concerned—(Time expired)

Question agreed to.