Marine reserves – Australians pay the price

The new Commonwealth marine reserves are bad news for the professional fishing industry, regional communities, and industries that service fisheries around Australia.

CFA understands from the Environment Minister’s release, that those with the least capacity to absorb impacts (eg businesses impacted less than $5,000) will receive no assistance from the government. “..That’s appalling…” said Martin Exel, Chair of CFA today.

Martin said that “… Everyone impacted negatively by these new reserves should be recompensed. That goes for the fishermen, their crews, regional communities, suppliers, and truck drivers that deliver the fish.”

He went on to say that “…Capping funds available for Australians impacted by this process should be unacceptable in this day and age.

If the Government chooses to set aside our waters, that’s one thing. But to further punish Australians who will be impacted, by limiting the available funds for assistance, is astounding Government policy. Even worse, not all of the funds are for assistance, but will be used to cover the government’s own administration costs.“

The CFA considers it untenable that the marine reserves will be implemented, based on a deficient socioeconomic impact assessment. Two independent reports confirm that the government has not identified and fully costed the impacts on the fishing industry or community, nor has it adequately demonstrated the conservation benefits of setting aside such huge tracts of our waters.

CFA considers it unacceptable the government has capped this package before it understands the impacts the reserves will create for Australians. For example, we understand the more than 100 communities identified by ABARES as directly impacted will not receive assistance.

• The Hon Greg Hunt MP

Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Innovation, Industry and Science

Friday 16 November 2012

COMMUNITIES MUST BE CONSULTED ON MARINE PARKS

The Coalition supports the creation of new marine parks but it must be done in consultation with the coastal communities.

Unfortunately the consultation process for the new marine parks announced today by the Government, has been a sham as evidenced by the fact that there has been no change to the draft plans released at the commencement of the consultation period.

This is a blow to both recreational and commercial fishing communities who had expected genuine consultation rather than a sham process. It also creates the risk of commercial fishing vessels being pushed closer to shore in areas where there are recreational fishers.

The Coalition has a strong record in creating marine parks and would continue that process, working with communities which are impacted and establishing the scientific data which validates where the most sensitive environmental areas are.

We have proposed legislation to make the creation of marine parks accountable to the Parliament so as the process is completely transparent and a full social and economic impact assessment is conducted.

The Coalition will review the marine parks if elected, seeking input from the community and ensuring the decisions are based on scientific research.

Unfortunately, these boundaries are not based on science, as confirmed by Minister Burke during meetings with both recreational and commercial fishermen.

The result of these marine parks, as evidenced by the $100 million payout to local fishermen, is that Australians will be eating more imported fish.

A $100m payout is likely to be inadequate and also indicates the massive loss of Australian fishing production which will have to be made up with imports of foreign fish in order to feed Australian families.

Australia already imports more than 70% of the seafood we consume and under Labor’s plans that will only grow, inevitably from much less sustainable sources than Australian fisheries.

These proposals also ignore the future need for seafood from sustainable sources with Australian demand predicted to grow by 850,000 tonnes by 2020.