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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-09-05 Daily Xml
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FISHING SUPER TRAWLER

The Hon. M. PARNELL (17:07): I move:

That this council:

1. notes the growing community concern and disquiet over the arrival in Port Lincoln of the super trawler, FV Margiris, to operate in Australian waters to fish the Small Pelagic Fishery;

2. expresses concern about the potential impact on local fisheries of the current quota of 18,000 tonnes for the Small Pelagic Fishery;

3. recognises the need for a balanced approach between the needs of a sustainable commercial fishing industry, access for recreational fishers and appropriate marine conservation outcomes;

4. notes that the government has written to Senator Ludwig, federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, to advise him that the South Australian government does not support the FV Margiris operating in South Australian waters or in commonwealth waters around South Australia; and

5. endorses that move and urges the federal government to prevent the FV Margiris from operating in Australian waters.

This motion, as members may already be aware, is very similar to one which was moved by the Australian Greens in the Tasmanian parliament, which was supported by all parties. I hope that this motion will be similarly supported by all parties and Independents in this parliament. What is probably also quite clear by now is that the question of the appropriate management and use of our marine resources is now a national debate, and it has brought into question the adequacy of our environmental and natural resource management laws. That debate is timely because, if we get it wrong, our economy and our environment will suffer.

The Dutch-owned FV Margiris is the second biggest fishing boat ever built. Super trawlers such as the Margiris are a combination of fishing vessel, fish processing factory and floating freezer ship. Super trawlers pull enormous nets up to 600 metres long, with an opening of up to 200 metres across. I note that, in the media, people have tried to visualise what that means, usually by reference to how many jumbo jets would fit inside the net. As I understand it, they are not fishing for jumbo jets; they are fishing for smaller fish. But I have seen estimates ranging from four to 17 of these jets fitting within the net; it is a very big net.

Once the fish are caught, they are sucked up on board via a huge vacuum hose, and the bycatch is then discarded. The fish are then frozen and stored on board. This method enables boats like the Margiris to stay at sea for long periods, fishing and storing hundreds of thousands of tonnes of fish each year. To put it into context, this boat is more than twice the size of the biggest fishing vessel ever used in Australian waters.

Part of the reason for concern in the community is the experience of this vessel and vessels like it overseas. David Ritter, the CEO of Greenpeace Australia Pacific, wrote an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald on 31 August, and he described it like this:

The basic problem is that there is too much capacity in the global fishing fleet. According to the World Bank, the global fleet is 2½ times what the oceans can sustain. The situation in Europe is even worse. And, with European stocks of fishing running out, the biggest and worst of Europe's fleet—boats like the Margiris—have gone in search of other fishing grounds.

The seas off the west coast of Africa have been among the hardest hit. Earlier this year, the West African nation of Senegal went to the polls. Among the usual big issues there was an unexpected topic running hot with voters: super trawlers. In May, the newly elected government of Senegal acted decisively, kicking out the super trawlers and demanding they empty their catches in the capital, Dakar. Local Senegalese fishermen have reported a surge in their catches since this action was taken.

We need also to consider why this boat is in South Australia. The Tasmanian fishing company SeafishTasmania, in joint venture with the trawler's Dutch owners, was planning to base the super trawler in Devonport in its quest for fishing rights for jack mackerel and red bait. It now looks like the boat is likely to be based in Port Lincoln where it has been warmly received by that city's tuna barons.

Had it gone to Devonport it would have been subjected to a considerable amount of protest, particularly from recreational fishers who had threatened to blockade the port. Members might have heard the ABC Radio National Background Briefing program which featured a large number of very angry recreational fishers who were concerned that the extraction of large quantities of small fish from their seas would in fact have an impact on their ability to catch bigger fish.

It is also significant that the Tasmanian parliament, as I said, passed the Greens' motion calling for the ship to be banned. According to SeafishTasmania's Director, Gerry Geen, that resolution indicated that Tasmania was 'not particularly inviting us to use their Tasmanian ports'. There were also plans for protests in Fremantle, which was fully expected to be the first port of call, and the Greens were very involved with local community efforts, including supporting recreational and commercial fishers, to make their displeasure known if the ship landed in Fremantle.

The latest information is that the ship will be notionally registered in Brisbane, but that does not mean that it will be based in Brisbane and in fact it may not even visit Brisbane. Ironically, the fish that are proposed to be caught by the Margiris in Australian waters may well be exported to West Africa. However, I think that there is also a reasonable chance that the tuna feedlot industry in Port Lincoln has its eyes on these thousands of tonnes of small fish as potential cheap feed for their caged tuna. One of the biggest costs of the tuna feedlot industry is the cost of feed, which explains, I think, why the tuna barons at Port Lincoln have rolled out the red carpet for the Margiris while other Australian port towns are promising protest and disruption.

One of the main issues of concern for local communities, and especially fishing communities, is that of local depletion of small fish stocks. The way in which the quota system is set is that there is a tonnage allocated but the area in which that tonnage can be harvested is absolutely massive. What that means is that if they have the capacity to do so then fishing vessels will catch their quota in a shorter period of time and probably as close to port as they can manage.

The idea of local depletion of small fish is one that is very worrying to other commercial fishers and to recreational fishers, and you only need to contrast the potential impact of, say, 10 boats catching the same quota in 10 different areas compared to this one boat catching it in one location. Probably the main area of concern, and certainly that which is featured in the full page advertisements that we have seen in The Australian, for example, recently, is this notion of bycatch.

Now, 'bycatch' is a very quaint term. It is, in fact, a slightly nicer way to describe what is in reality the indiscriminate mass slaughter of important higher-order species, including protected seals and sea lions, dolphins, rays and a range of seabirds, including penguins. What we have seen in the last day or so, especially from the federal government, are statements that the operations of the Margiris may be suspended if it kills too many dolphins and seals. That in itself is a shocking admission: that as far as federal authorities are concerned it is a foregone conclusion that dolphins and seals will be killed.

One analysis I read recently about the newly imposed conditions is that, if there are 10 seal deaths in 24 hours, then the Margiris must suspend where it is fishing and move 50 nautical miles away. That is quite remarkable when you think about it: that you are allowed to kill 10 seals every 50 miles. You have to put that into context. If recreational fishers were killing 10 seals or dolphins or whatever, all hell would break loose.

It just goes to show how hypocritical it is that the standard that would apply to all other Australians or South Australians does not apply. They accept as an inevitable consequence of this activity that a certain number of protected animals will be killed. It is a similar hypocrisy to that which applied to the tuna feedlot industry, which was the single biggest killer of dolphins at Port Lincoln, with at least 22 recorded killed in the predator nets surrounding the tuna cages.

I will move on briefly to the federal government's role. Certainly, the federal environment minister, Tony Burke, has been in the media and said the following:

Under national environmental law I don't have the power to block it altogether. What I do have is the legal power to impose a number of restrictions on it based on the impact it can have, not on the fish that it's targeting but on the bycatch—the seals, the dolphins, the fish that are protected and listed and I have responsibility for.

Again that draws our attention to the complete inadequacy of our commonwealth environmental laws, that the minister is only allowed to pay attention to things that have reached the pinnacle of conservation by being included on endangered species lists or on lists of species where we have treaties with other countries. The vast bulk of the natural environment is of no interest or concern legally to the federal environment minister. That is certainly a situation that I know the conservation groups are working on at the moment as the commonwealth environmental laws are being reviewed.

Minister Burke is proposing certain conditions that will need to be complied with and conditions in relation to observers on the boat and underwater cameras. We know that bycatch is inevitable, and I do not believe that their untried methods will eliminate it. In fact, at the most generous level they try to claim that the bycatch represents only 1 per cent of the total catch. I do not believe that a ship of this size, with these size nets, will catch 99 per cent of exactly the species they are after and only 1 per cent of other creatures.

It just beggars belief that that is in fact the statistic. Let's say for one minute that we think it is correct. That means that 180 tonnes of seals, sea lions, stingrays and all manner of other fish—18 10-tonne trucks—is the bycatch, and that is if you accept that the bycatch rate is 1 per cent, which I do not. So, we are talking massive quantities of sea life that will perish as a result of this ship's activities.

I will briefly mention the quota, as it also has been in the media a bit lately. The amount of fish proposed to be caught by the Margiris in the Small Pelagic Fishery is 18,000 tonnes. This figure ostensibly has been set using science, including assessments of the available biomass in the oceans. However, scientists and others in the community are starting to question the basis on which the quota was set, and just this week the Tasmanian parliament has been considering evidence put forward by the Greens following an analysis by Dr Andrew Wadsley of Australian Risk Audit, who found that the estimates of fish stocks were unreliable and based incorrect data, and that therefore the quota was unreliable.

In fact, if you just go to the Australian Fisheries Management Authority website and look at the small pelagic fishery page, you will find that they themselves admit they do not know, with any certainty, how many fish are out there. They do not know the biomass of some of these species, including species in the part of that fishery off the South Australian coast.

I will also mention, in relation to quota, that where I think the real action lies will be in the federal parliament next week, and the Senate in particular, where my colleague Senator Peter Whish-Wilson—who might be a new name to some people; he is the senator who replaced Dr Bob Brown on his retirement—has moved for the quota to be disallowed when parliament resumes. As I understand it, there is also an Ombudsman's inquiry underway into how the quota was set.

I want to finish by making an observation about the proposed name change for this vessel. The Dutch owners of the Margiris have decided to rename the ship the Abel Tasman, in honour of the 17thcentury Dutch explorer Abel Tasman. However, I do not think people will be fooled by a simple name change; giving the ship a name with a more Australian feel does not imply Australian support for what this ship proposes to do. My Green parliamentary colleague in the Tasmanian parliament, Kim Booth, put it like this:

Calling the vessel Abel Tasman would just be adding insult to injury for the hundreds of thousands of Tasmanians for whom that name has a deep connection and significance...Just as a leopard cannot change its spots, this cynical use of Tasmania's namesake is...shameless spin.

I thought I might reflect a little bit more on Abel Tasman and who he was. We know about his exploring activities, but in May 1648, after most of his exploring days were done, Tasman was put in charge of the Dutch expedition sent to Manila to try to intercept and loot Spanish silver ships that were coming from America. Apparently he had no success, and he returned to Batavia in January 1649. So Abel Tasman has previous form in plunder, loot and pillage, and our job is to make sure that the current incarnation of that name is equally unsuccessful and that it goes back to where it came from.

Lest any members begin to feel too nostalgic about those swashbuckling days on the high seas, it is worth adding just one more Abel Tasman anecdote. In November 1649 he was charged and found guilty of having, in the previous year, hanged one of his men without trial. He was suspended from his office of commander, fined and made to pay compensation to the relatives of the sailor.

If the FV Margiris is allowed to plunder our seas with the approval of commonwealth authorities there will not be any compensation paid to those whose livelihoods or recreational activities are affected. There certainly will not be any compensation for the loss of the non-target species, including dolphins, seals and penguins. I urge all honourable members to support this motion.

Honourable members: Hear, hear!

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. J.M. Gazzola.

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