Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I rise to speak in support of Western Australian commercial and recreational fishermen and against the demersal fishing ban in Western Australia. It's a decision that has devastated coastal communities, crippled small businesses and exposed yet again the breathtaking mismanagement of the Western Australian Labor government.

The fishing ban came out of the blue for fishermen who have invested their lives in creating multigenerational businesses that provide fresh fish for Western Australians. One Nation has been fighting this fishing ban from the day Labor dropped it on Western Australian families without warning and without consultation. Without warning, the Labor government imposed restrictions on demersal fishing across huge stretches of our coastline. These bans were announced with no warning, no consultation and no credible transition plan for the people whose livelihoods depend on the fishing industry. For generations, commercial, charter and recreational fishers have worked responsibly under regulated quotas and have invested millions in boats, equipment and local supply chains, and overnight the state Labor government pulled the rug out from under them. Along our coastline, fishing is not a hobby; it is the backbone of the local economy. Families who built their lives around the ocean and on supplying Western Australians with fresh local fish are now staring down the barrel of financial ruin.

My friend the Hon. Rod Caddies, member of the Legislative Council of Western Australia representing One Nation, has been on the road supporting these families. These are some of the stories he heard. In Geraldton, shark fisherman John Higham climbed onto the roof of the fisheries office on 16 February and chained himself there. He swallowed the keys and said he was going broke and that the government just hangs up on him. In Kalbarri, Phil de Grauw has supplied fresh fish to restaurants for four decades and now sits idle while his business bleeds. Steve Eley bought a new tackle shop in Kalbarri just days before the ban. That Fishing Shop in Waroona and the owners, Glen and Michelle Field, have been majorly affected. In Bunbury, Sam at Wollaston Fish and Chips grew the number of his employees from seven to 18, providing local jobs, and now stares at empty fridges wondering how to pay wages. Also in Bunbury is Rod Vanoosten from Millard Marine. There's also Phil Clarke from Fins Seafood, who employs 50 people in Hamilton Hill. He's now having to import four to five tonnes of fish per week from New Zealand. This has led to a 30 to 40 per cent wholesale price rise and to people no longer choosing to put fish on the menu. These are only a few stories of the people affected.

The flow-on effects are enormous. In fishing towns, the local bakery is closing and the local pub is struggling. How can you run a small business close to this industry without being affected? How does Labor think these shops and towns are going to survive? And for what? The WA Labor government claims this is about sustainability, yet the fishermen themselves have been calling for measured, science based management for years. What they received instead was a blunt-force ban, which is the policy equivalent of using a sledgehammer against an industry that feeds the people of Western Australia. The irony is staggering.

WA is blessed with one of the largest and best managed fisheries systems in the world. For decades, we've balanced environmental protection and economic sustainability. Yet the WA Labor government chose to ignore that history and impose a ban so extreme that it shut down the fishing industry overnight. They were given less than one month's notice. We're talking about family owned businesses. We're talking about deckhands that are now unemployed. We're talking about young families reconsidering whether there is a future in the industry at all. We're talking about coastal towns already battling rising costs, housing shortages and workforce pressures.

Our state government has shown more urgency and virtue signalling to inner-city activists than it has stood up for local businesses. What our state government delivered was chaos and economic damage that could have been avoided with competent leadership. The people of Western Australia deserve so much better. They deserve transparency about the science. They deserve a genuine seat at the table. They deserve compensation that reflects the real financial impact. Instead, under this state Labor government, we have seen ideology triumph over practicality. The fishing ban has become a symbol of a broader problem: a state Labor government that governs from Perth's inner suburbs without listening to the regions that feed our state, fuel our state and sustain our state. We're seeing charters cancelled, tackle shops quiet and families destroyed.

It's the same story in every coastal town. And, while commercial fishers are locked out, seismic blasting gets approved in the same spawning grounds. The Geographe Bay windfarm gets approved without restriction in waters supposedly called protected. It's no coincidence that there now won't be any commercial fishing boats on the water to report the destruction of our pristine ocean. These foreign owned wind turbine companies have been given licence by the Albanese government to destroy the ocean floor and use sound levels that are known to kill our marine life, in the middle of a whale superhighway and the nursing grounds of many endangered marine species, all while our own fishermen have been locked out of the water. The hypocrisy is mind blowing.

One Nation calls that out for exactly what it is: a war on the Western Australian family, so that turbines can go in—wind turbines that we don't need and that won't feed us, wind turbines that will weaken our national defence by creating radar clutter. One Nation will back every Western Australian who just wants a fair go in the water. These decisions will not be forgotten by the thousands of Western Australians who feel abandoned by the very government that claims to represent them. The ocean has sustained our communities for generations. I urge our state government to go back to the drawing board. Western Australia can have sustainable fisheries and thriving regional communities. What we cannot afford is continued mismanagement by a state Labor government that refuses to listen to the people. Once these fishing families are gone, they won't be coming back. Enjoy your imported fish, WA Labor.

Senate adjourned at 21:12