Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

as do millions of Australians, Senator Brandis, through you, Chair. This issue has touched a never like no other environmental issue in recent history in this country. Today it has become very clear, through Senator McKenzie, that the coalition are prepared to let supertrawlers come back into Australian waters.

This bill, if it is passed, gives discretion back to the environment minister. It does not ban supertrawlers, and nor does it stop them. We need to be very clear about that. The reason I raise this issue is that I have seen a number of emails, media releases and even pamphlets mailed in my home state of Tasmania, saying that Labor is banning supertrawlers. Let us be very clear about that—it is not. In fact, based on what Senator Ludwig said earlier, it is doing almost exactly what it did two years ago, when the supertrawler arrived—it is saying, 'We will leave it to the experts. We will leave it to AFMA. We will leave it to the science.' The problem was that scientific work was not done. Even the resource assessment group, the RAG, at AFMA agreed that not enough scientific work had been done. It was not about the quality of the science that had been done. It was the fact that this fishery, which is highly sensitive to ecosystems, had not been studied for 12 years. That work is being done now, thanks to the Greens, thanks to recreational fishers and thanks to the conservation movement. We pushed and pushed to get that work done. Now, we have the two old parties in this chamber claiming that they have got this work done, and that somehow this is a victory. It is not. The work has not been finished, there is still considerable uncertainty in the science to this point. There is still a very real chance that these large fishing vessels, which have depleted oceans all around the world—no-one disputes that—are going to come back to Australian waters, because we will have an environment minister and a government in charge of policy who brought the supertrawler here in the first place and are very happy to look after their mates by bringing new trawlers to Australian waters, boats that Australians do not want. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.