Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Temporary Chairman. The opposition have not spoken on that as far as I know. I think Senator Joyce thought that his last speech was on his amendment, but I do not want to attribute things to Senator Joyce as he can do that himself. Certainly on behalf of the opposition I want to indicate that, with Senator Joyce’s amendment having been defeated, we now come to the government’s amendment on the definition of ‘fishing’. Whilst it is not quite what we wanted, it is better than the original definition in the bill. It was raised in the committee report into the bill. Even the Labor Party members on the committee indicated in their majority report that the definition did require looking at as it was confusing, and I thank Senator Joyce, particularly, and Senator Boswell for raising debate on the issue of the definition. The government’s amendment addresses some of the concerns that opposition speakers had and it is better than it was. So the opposition will be supporting the government’s amendment on the definition.