Senate debates

Thursday, 5 March 2015

Bills

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Bill 2014; Second Reading

9:31 am

Photo of Sue LinesSue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment Bill 2014. Most Australians have a love of the ocean, whether we live in our coastal fringes or in more regional and remote communities. Our love of the ocean is legendary. We want our oceans to be pristine and to be protected. Australians also love eating seafood. It is part of the way of our life, and it is also part of our national holidays, particularly the festive season, when our fresh fish outlets often open for 24 to 36 hours straight. Australians consume around 25 kilos of seafood every year. We pride ourselves on the quality of our seafood, yet do many of us stop to think about its sustainability? This is not just a fringe issue for a select group of environmentalists. If we want to continue to consume good-quality seafood then we all have a responsibility to ensure its sustainability and, more broadly, the sustainability of our oceans.

There are fish stocks statistics produced by the United Nations which are alarming and should, whether we consider ourselves to be environmentalists or not, make us stop and take note and force us as parliamentarians to do something positive towards the sustainability of our fish stocks. Fifty-three per cent of the world's fisheries are fully exploited—53 per cent—and 32 per cent are overexploited, depleted or recovering from depletion. Most of our top 10 marine fisheries, accounting for about 30 per cent of all capture fisheries production, are fully exploited or overexploited. Our oceans are not an endless resource. The WWF reports that UN figures indicate that over 85 per cent of the world's fish stocks are now fished up to full capacity or are overfished. In a world—according to the World Wildlife Fund—with an ever-expanding population, the question is how we can balance what we take from the seas and how we keep the oceans healthy so we can ensure that we have fish into the future.

When in government, Labor recognised the importance of a sustainable fishing industry. Labor recognised that our fish stocks needed to be protected, and we recognised that the livelihood of those who work in the industry needed protecting as well. When in government, Labor acted. Now, in opposition, our concern for sustainable fishing, for protecting the industry, for ensuring jobs and for keeping our oceans and our fish stocks sustainable continues.

In 2012 Labor stopped the supertrawler before it started fishing in our oceans. We have seen, in our neighbouring countries, what supertrawlers have done to local fishing industries, and we certainly do not want to see that absolute depletion of fish stocks and livelihood, and a way of life being stopped, in Australia. Labor responded to this threat because of tough new powers that we implemented with the community's support.

I would like to think that the threat of supertrawlers has gone away, but it has not. The powers that Labor used to stop the first supertrawler were opposed by Mr Abbott and the Liberals when in opposition. Australia now needs protection again from supertrawlers. We need to ensure that our oceans, our recreational fishers, fishing businesses and livelihoods are protected and have certainty. Under this private senator's bill, proposed by Labor Senator Ludwig, new supertrawlers will have to face the same tough response that the original supertrawlers faced.

Mr Abbott and the Liberals have had over six months to do something to stop future supertrawlers and to protect our oceans, but they have failed—absolutely failed. Why would we be surprised? We know from the Abbott government that if it has a whiff of environmental about it, if it has a whiff of sustainability about it, if it has a whiff of protecting our environment for the future, it is not something that they are interested in. It is something that they will do whatever is in their power to move against. We know from experience that it is only those at the big end of town that get protection from the Abbott government. On environmental issues, on issues of sustainability, on climate change, the Abbott government just turn their backs.

Labor, with this bill, will not allow the Abbott government to turn its back on the issue of supertrawlers. Certainly, Labor will not be turning our back on ensuring the sustainability of our oceans, their fish stocks or our fishing industry. Senator Ludwig has moved to introduce this bill because the Abbott government has failed to take action to protect the livelihood of businesses in the fishing industry, has failed to take action to protect our oceans and has failed to take action to ensure that fishing and fish are sustainable. It is only Labor who is standing up for our oceans, for local business and for recreational fishers. To date, the government has done nothing.

I would like to reflect back. When Labor introduced these powers in September 2012, they were opposed up hill and down dale by the Liberal and National parties. The then opposition, in their usual Tea Party way, were convinced of a Labor-Greens conspiracy. We hear that in this place day in, day out—some kind of conspiracy. They did not think any more science or research was needed, and they did not want to stop the supertrawler. Yet the Prime Minister recently had the gall to say that it was banned with the support of members on his side of the House. The truth is there in the Hansard, the truth is there in the media, and the truth was there in 2012, when they were opposed to Labor's bill. The Abbott government are yet to do even the most basic work required to implement sensible root-and-branch reform of fisheries management as recommended by the Borthwick review and responded to by Labor in March 2013. Those are the facts.

This Labor private senator's bill, put up by Senator Ludwig, will make the government put their money where their mouth is. Will they stand by their voting record and their convictions, or will they follow the leader, the self-professed weathervane, who has tried to rewrite history?

The bill restores the powers to enable the minister for sustainability, environment, water, population and communities, with the agreement of the Commonwealth fisheries minister, to make an interim declaration that a fishing activity is a prohibited declared commercial fishing activity while an expert panel assesses the potential environmental impacts of the activity. The bill will allow them, with the agreement of the Commonwealth fisheries minister, to make a final declaration for a period no longer than 24 months that a fishing activity is a prohibited declared commercial fishing activity. The bill in all senses protects the Australian industry. It protects our fishing stocks, and it protects the livelihoods of so many people employed in that industry.

As the government has refused to act to protect our fisheries or stand up for recreational fishers, it has left it to Labor to do so. If I think back again to 2012, when Minister Burke was in the chair, some of the National Party—in fact, it was Senator Williams in this instance—accused the minister of jumping at shadows. How could you be so misinformed of all of the data about supertrawlers as to accuse the minister of jumping at shadows? Senator Williams went on to try to convince Australians that the trawler's catch size was no larger than the quota already set for fishers domestically, yet we saw huge community concern not just in Tasmania but right across Australia. Australians were very, very concerned and very opposed to supertrawler activity.

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