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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-10-28 Daily Xml
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Marine Scalefish Fishery Reform

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (15:03): My question again is to the Premier. Has the government considered voluntary buybacks of marine scalefish fishery licences and quota based on data already held? With your leave, sir, and that of the house, I will explain.

Leave granted.

Mr PEDERICK: Industry have long called for voluntary buybacks, however the government is spending $500,000 to examine this data despite already holding quota and licence data.

The Hon. P.B. MALINAUSKAS (Croydon—Premier, Minister for Defence and Space Industries) (15:04): What the member for Hammond will well appreciate is that the data is changing, because we've got this harmful algal bloom and it has had an unprecedented impact on the marine environment, particularly in Gulf St Vincent.

It would be reckless and foolhardy to make decisions on the basis of information that is now effectively redundant. Literally, every week that goes by the science matures, the data points improve and more information comes in. If we were making decisions on buybacks from six months ago or 12 months ago, that would not be making decisions on the basis of the information that we need when we are forward thinking regarding the challenge.

Buybacks have their own consequences and they just have to be thought through. The worst thing we could do now, I would say to the member for Hammond, is to rush to make a decision on buybacks that don't stand the test of time and rush to make decisions without looking at the science or the evidence that we continue to get in following the harmful algal bloom. I would have thought that that is an obvious approach to take. These decisions tend to be permanent in nature once they occur and we have just got to think it through very carefully, and we want to make sure it is on the basis of all the information we can get our hands on.

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