Marine Parks, Sanctuary Zones

Dr CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Deputy Leader of the Opposition) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Environment and Water. Why has the minister ignored the EconSearch review findings on marine park sanctuary zones? With your leave and that of the house, sir, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Dr CLOSE: The EconSearch review states, and I quote, 'Modifying the activities or zoning arrangements…will reduce the effectiveness of the marine park network in protecting and conserving marine biodiversity and habitats,' yet the minister is proposing to reduce three sanctuary zones.

Mr Malinauskas interjecting:

The SPEAKER: The leader is called to order and warned.

The Hon. D.J. SPEIRS (Black—Minister for Environment and Water) (14:59): The deputy leader is right to highlight the commentary from the EconSearch report. For members' information, this was part of an election commitment undertaken by our government from opposition that we would undertake a risk-based assessment of our sanctuary zones throughout South Australia.

Members would be aware that the creation of our marine parks and sanctuary zones was one of the most traumatic, difficult and divisive episodes of the former Labor government's time in office, really causing a huge amount of pain across particularly regional South Australia as communities were ridden roughshod over and ignored in their desire to get that balance right between economic development and the importance of conserving our unique marine life. The situation was such that we ended up with a range of sanctuary zones that really didn't have support across the state, and certainly not from the fishing community.

It was strongly felt by the fishing sector that there was a better way, that there was a better balance that could be achieved, and the Marshall Liberal government went into the last election making a commitment that we would take a good look at this. We undertook the EconSearch report, and that report has a central conclusion that there is absolutely no doubt that the livelihoods of those involved in fishing across South Australia have been impacted by the presence of sanctuary zones. There is no doubt about that. That is why a range of compensation measures has been worked through over the last couple of years with the impact to fishers.

One of the great disappointments of the marine parks legislation brought in by the previous Labor administration was that it did not set up an appropriate compensation regime. It was completely bereft of that framework and required a huge amount of effort by legal advisers from the government side of things, and also from the fishing sector, to actually strike those agreements going forward. That added more pain, more suffering, more uncertainty and more economic suffering on the part of our regional communities across the state.

Over the last few months, the fishing sector and conservation sector have worked really well collaboratively. They have sat down without my involvement and worked very efficiently, carefully, methodically through our sanctuary zones and have come up with a range of suggestions. Many of these suggestions were codesigned by both the fishing sector and the conservation sector.

I was immensely proud to see those two sectors, where there has been a huge amount of bad blood in the past, come together, work together and come up with a range of suggestions. They agreed on most of the changes that we are taking forward. There were a few that we could not quite land. Notwithstanding that, the Marshall Liberal government is moving forward with reform of marine sanctuary zones, seeing a number of these change slightly.

Of course, overall, the area of protection in sanctuary zones across the state's waters is actually increased, so we are going to end up with more of our marine area protected within sanctuary zones than we had before. We have seen a couple of tweaks here and there, which will benefit fishers absolutely, but I strongly believe that fishers working together with conservationists have been able to come up with a range of suggestions that the government can move forward with which, combined with our marine scale fishery reform, will see a more sustainable environment and economy here in South Australia.