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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2010-07-20 Daily Xml
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ANXIOUS BAY AQUACULTURE

The Hon. M. PARNELL (15:21): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the Minister for Urban Development and Planning, representing the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, a question about aquaculture in Anxious Bay.

Leave granted.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: Members will be aware that a storm event a fortnight ago resulted in considerable damage to the abalone farm currently operating in Anxious Bay, near Elliston. From local reports, it appears that all of the 32 rings on this lease have broken free and disintegrated and that many have washed up on the nearby Waldegrave Islands Conservation Park, which is home to the protected Australian sea lion. With around 600 abalone trays per ring, that adds up to over 19,000 plastic trays, plus all the ropes and kilometres of netting, strewn through the marine environment along the coast, where they are already impacting on marine species.

After the storm I was sent a photo of a dead sea lion, washed up on a nearby beach, entangled in ropes and netting that are almost certainly part of this debris. Members might also recall that a previous storm event in 2005, in exactly the same location, saw a similar outcome, with debris strewn along more than 100 kilometres of coastline. In that event, five sea lions died, and at the time the aquaculture company said it had nothing to do with the debris, and the environment department refused to recover the bodies of the dead sea lions or to undertake autopsies to determine the exact cause of death.

This is not a new issue for us in this chamber. Members will recall that we debated in this place in March 2007 the very issue of the zoning of Anxious Bay for aquaculture, only one kilometre from a sea lion colony, without any public consultation and without even following the normal investigations and processes under the Aquaculture Act.

People writing to me over the last few days say that it is deeply disappointing that once again, as predicted, the inappropriate location of aquaculture infrastructure has caused significant damage to an extremely valuable part of our marine ecosystem. Worse still, once the aquaculture company has retrieved or replaced missing infrastructure, it is legally entitled to put it all back in exactly the same location whilst we wait for the next storm. My questions are:

1. What assurance can the minister give that similar damage will not happen again in Anxious Bay after the next storm?

2. Why, after the previous storm event in 2005, were the aquaculture operators not required by the government to undertake an assessment about the likely risk of storm damage and required to make changes to the equipment and location to ensure that it would not happen again?

3. Will the minister now review the location of aquaculture operations in close proximity to conservation parks in general, and sea lion colonies in particular, and if not, why not?

4. After two similar incidents involving storm damage at exactly the same location, will the minister use his powers, under the Aquaculture Act, to prevent the re-establishment of these aquaculture structures within close proximity of critical sea lion colonies in Anxious Bay?

The Hon. P. HOLLOWAY (Minister for Mineral Resources Development, Minister for Urban Development and Planning, Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister Assisting the Premier in Public Sector Management) (15:24): I will refer that question to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries and bring back a response.

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