Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I oppose Senator Ludwig's private senator's bill, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Bill 2014. What the bill attempts to do is amend the EPBC Act to repeal a sunset provision and enable the minister to establish an independent expert panel to conduct an assessment of the potential environmental impacts of a declared commercial fishing activity and to prohibit that declared fishing activity while the assessment is undertaken. Like the mover of the bill, Senator Ludwig, it is redundant. It is, like Senator Ludwig, superfluous. In the words of the Oxford dictionary, it—and Senator Ludwig, for that matter—can be omitted without any loss of significance.

So let us go to what we are dealing with in this particular bill. Senator Lines was not around, so she can be excused for her relative ignorance in the area. But I want to place on record, if I may, the history of this whole sad debacle and the fact that the coalition, in opposition and then in government, had to help the Labor Party out and help the country out, as we so often do. It goes to the failed Mr Burke. Mr Burke was then Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. When we are speaking about supertrawlers, Senator Lines might not be aware but I would like to remind those who are that it was indeed Mr Burke, the failed then minister, who in his role as agriculture minister created the issue. What did he do in 2009? Senator Colbeck will remember. He invited these types of vessels as part of his 2009 small pelagic harvest strategy. I am going to quote from Mr Burke, if I can, just to embarrass him a bit further, if that is possible. He said:

That was in AFMA's Small Pelagic Fishery Harvest Strategy of 2009, page 2, in case Senator Lines wants to have a look at it. Indeed, he went on to trumpet further:

This is the first time a trawler with a storage capacity of 2000 tonne or more—

get these words, Deputy President—

is likely to operate in an Australian fishery …

Subsequently, we had an environment minister in the Labor government who put a different position. Who do you think that environment minister might have been? Could it have been Mr Shorten? No. Was it Ms Gillard? No. It was none other than Mr Tony Burke—the same person, now with a different hat. He had taken his agriculture and fisheries hat off, he had put his environment hat on, and what did he say to Senator Colbeck? He completely bungled the development and introduction of the declared fishing activities bill in 2012. It is amazing what three years does. It is a long time in politics, isn't it, really?

In fact this legislation, as Senator Colbeck pointed out to him at the time, was so bad it needed amendment within hours of its introduction. Why? Because, as Senator Colbeck said at the time, Labor did not understand fisheries or fisheries management. Their bill initially banned, if you do not mind, recreational charter boats! That is how much Mr Burke understood. That was the guy who encouraged the Dutch at that time to come into our waters, but of course he did not understand the difference between recreational and commercial fishing. Needless to say, the declared fishing activities amendment bill was so bad there was a 12-month sunset clause to kill it off.

So there was Senator Ludwig, once upon a time, standing up for Australian fishers. And who was the agriculture and fisheries minister when his colleague reversed what he had done in 2009? It was Senator Ludwig, the very man who then subsequently failed to protect the very industry of which he was the minister. But he has plenty of form in that because, as we know, as agriculture minister he failed to stand up to Ms Gillard when she went ahead and banned the live export trade of cattle to Indonesia and subsequently to other markets. So he has form in his failure to stand up for anything or anybody.

I will come in a few moments to an explanation of why this particular bill is redundant and superfluous. It can be omitted from the statute without any loss of significance. At the time, there were Greens amendments—and I am sure Senator Whish-Wilson will speak to his amendment again this morning—but just let me put on the record what the then minister, Senator Ludwig, said in August 2012 in response to a Greens motion in this area. Again I quote Minister Ludwig, then the minister, now the redundant, irrelevant senator who has introduced this bill. This is what he said about a disallowance motion moved by the Greens political party:

This disallowance motion is a message that the Greens political party—

his words, not mine—

do not support sustainable catch limits based on science. It is a message that says the Greens want fisheries managed by politics, not qualified fisheries managers. And it says that the Greens do not support the commercial operators who fish in some of—

listen to this, Senator Lines—through you, Deputy President—

the world's best managed fisheries.

He is actually talking about Australian commercial fisheries. Isn't it amazing? He went on to talk about the fact that:

… the same disregard—

that the Greens would have—

for the science and management of our commercial fisheries will be extended to the legitimate pursuit of recreational fishing.

Do you remember that it was Minister Burke who could not get it right between commercial and recreational boats of certain distances, certain lengths and certain tonnages? But Minister Ludwig at the time then stood up and said:

… I will not allow the emotive politics of the Greens political party to run fisheries management policy in this country. We will ensure that the Australian Fisheries Management Authority is independent, that it makes independent decisions based on the science through its expert commissioners—

and on he went.

It begs the question: why is Senator Ludwig bringing this bill back in? Indeed, you would not believe it; despite all that 'failure' that we have heard of from Senator Lines, do you know what the Abbott government has done? It has done what Labor failed to do. It has done what Labor could not do. It has actually banned these supertrawlers.

So what does Senator Ludwig want in this particular bill? What he wants is for taxpayers to pay for reviews of more scientific reviews. How unusual would that be for the Labor Party? Use taxpayers' funds frivolously to actually review the scientific reviews. He wants the creation of a panel to review every declared activity. It is a waste of taxpayers' money, a deliberate step to try and politicise fisheries management. After his own failure and that of his colleague Mr Burke, you would think that the last thing he would want to do is introduce a bill like this to give the wider Australian community the opportunity to expose Labor for what it was in government.

We already have the world's leading fisheries management. It is in place. We already have the assessments under the EPBC Act. We have said before and we will go on saying it through our minister, Minister Colbeck: the coalition have confidence in the sustainability of Australian fisheries managed by AFMA. The only thing that this bill will do is introduce more red tape.

Let me go to what the coalition is doing and has done in government. We oppose the bill and we oppose the Greens' amendment. Senator Ludwig, of course, is left lamenting what is now a redundant and superfluous bill. We did what they could not do: we banned the supertrawlers. We are bringing in regulation under the Fisheries Management Act, where it belongs and where it should always have remained, had the Labor Party not tried to fiddle with it. We support and will continue to support commercial, recreational and Indigenous fishers, and we are committed to the continuation of Australia's well-managed fishery. We have confidence in AFMA. We have confidence—I certainly have confidence—in the minister because of his deep knowledge of and association with the industry. I have had the privilege and pleasure of being with him and working with him and watching him as he interacts around Australia with both commercial and recreational fishers. I recall—