Ministerial Statement

Marine Scalefish Fishery

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:20): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement. On 1 July 2021, the former Liberal government implemented a new management system within the marine scalefish fishery that included the imposition of catch quotas for four priority species: King George whiting, snapper, garfish and calamari. Under then Minister for Primary Industries and member for Finniss, the Hon. David Basham, licence conditions fixing a quota entitlement on all licences were applied in accordance with his determinations.

As part of the former Liberal government's plan, a voluntary licence surrender program was undertaken that saw a significant number of marine scalefish licence holders exit the industry. At the former minister's discretion, additional allocation of units could be made by the minister upon an applicant demonstrating exceptional circumstances during the period upon which the quota entitlements were calculated.

I am advised that the former minister, as a matter of policy, limited the adjustment of the quota for licence holders where exceptional circumstances were demonstrated to a pro-rata share of the catch histories of licence holders who surrendered their licences after 2 November 2020. This meant that the former minister chose a course of action that, to use SACAT's words:

…singled out those fishers unfairly disadvantaged by the general allocation process and effectively sought to enshrine that disadvantage...

SACAT proceeded to state:

Further as the policy itself makes clear, the reason the Minister adopted this approach was not related to the equitable distribution of the fishery, or even its sustainability. The rationale and motivation for the policy was to avoid disturbing the indicative quotas which had already been notionally allocated to fishers who had not made exceptional circumstances claims.

A number of licence holders appealed the decisions of the former minister to the South Australian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (SACAT) arguing that the pro-rata adjustment method implemented by the former minister was unfair and unreasonable.

SACAT recently made rulings to set aside the decisions made by the member for Finniss in his role as Minister for Primary Industries and for the matter to be remitted for reconsideration. Since the change of government, this now falls to me in my role of Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development.

I draw the chamber's attention to some of the findings of SACAT in the matter of Pennington on 17 February 2022 that:

…although the precise motivation for the policy is not entirely clear, we infer its adoption is likely to have been influenced by considerations of expediency, risk management and perhaps political motivations.

The SACAT findings continue:

…in our view the adoption of this policy imposed an impermissible fetter on the exercise of the Minister's broad discretion and introduced into the exceptional circumstances process an irrelevant consideration, namely the need to leave existing indicative quota allocations undisturbed.

During the caretaker period, appeals to these decisions were filed in the Supreme Court. However, I can today advise the chamber that, as the new minister, I have given directions to withdraw these appeals and accept SACAT's ruling that the former minister's pro-rata policy 'had no legal foundation' and produced unfair and unjust results for these fishers with exceptional circumstances.

I also advise the chamber that this government has resolved to remedy the error of the member for Finniss by recalculating the additional quota units for licence holders with exceptional circumstances while preserving the quota units that were allocated on 1 July 2021 to all licence holders.

I have sought and received advice from the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) that taking this course of action to correct the former minister's grievous error will not impact on the sustainability of the impacted species.

Consistent with the SARDI advice, the total allowable commercial catches (known as TACCs) can be increased to accommodate the additional units to be allocated to the affected fishers, thereby not impacting on other licence holders in the current fishing period and the expected next quota period.

The decisions taken by the former Liberal government in adopting a policy without legal authority have caused distress to a number of businesses who only sought a fair outcome. The decisions appeared to be made by the former minister, as SACAT indicated, with political expediency in mind. This should not have been a factor in decisions taken to properly manage our marine resources. The nature of the findings from SACAT raise serious questions about the actions of the former Minister for Primary Industries and the policies of the former Liberal government.