7/31/2019 Hansard-MARINE PARKS 20121017 - Marshall Grieve

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MARINE PARKS 17 October 2012

Mr MARSHALL (Norwood) (15:08): I rise to continue our discussion in this house on the importantissue of marine parks. I can say, up-front, that the Liberal Party strongly supports marine parks inSouth Australia. In fact, it was the Liberal Party, back in the 1990s, that floated the idea ofestablishing marine parks. Going to the 2002 election, it was a Liberal Party commitment to establishmarine parks.The government has also made a long-term commitment to marine parks. They made thatcommitment leading up to the 2002 election but here we are, a full 10 years later, and we still do not

have the zone arrangements in place in South Australia in our marine parks. It has been an absolutelyshambolic management of this process by this hopeless, incompetent government. More than that, itis not just their hopelessness; they are affecting the lives of people in regional and rural South

Australia, people who derive their income, their entire livelihoods, from fishing activities in regionalcommunities.Not only is the Liberal Party fully in favour of marine parks, it is fully in favour of sanctuary zones. It isa complete furphy that the minister puts forward that somehow the Liberal Party is against sanctuaryzones. The Liberal Party is for them, the commercial fishing sector is for them, regional communitiesare for them; we are just not for this government's hopeless sanctuary zones, the zones that it has putin place. We reject those zones that the government has suggested to the people and on whichconsultation closes off next week. We reject them because the process to determine those sanctuaryzones is fundamentally flawed. It is fundamentally flawed because it has not followed the establishedprotocol for arranging protection zones within marine parks.The simple fact of the matter is that throughout the entire world

and, in fact, as part of the COAG

agreementmarine park protection zones need to be based upon identified, scientifically evaluatedthreats to marine biodiversity. This is not the approach that the state government has had. It hassimply done the lazy thing and said, 'We want to create a representative sample of our state waters.'Well, I put it to you that this will not have any positive environmental outcome whatsoever and, morethan that, it just flies in the face of what the rest of the world is doing and it flies in the face of theagreement that South Australia signed up to as part of the COAG agreement on managing marineparks in Australia. We have gone out on a limb because this minister cannot stand up to hisdepartment and put the lives of hard-working people in regional communities first. The government's plans for sanctuary zones will have a huge effect on regional communities. Theminister seemed to somehow refuse to acknowledge his own government department's reports onthis issue. In fact, he repeatedly said today, 'I think this is going to have a positive outcome for South

Australia.' Well, read your report, minister, and you will actually see that there is going to be significant

social and economic impacts right across the regions here in South Australia because of yourhopeless policies.I also raise the point that this will have a devastating effect on South Australia's exports. Our fisheriesin South Australia are amongst the most sustainable in the world. There is no reason whatsoever thatthe government should be using marine parks and sanctuary zones to control fishing. When ministerO'Brien, the very hard-working former minister for fisheries, stood up in this place, he made it veryclear that the people who should be managing our fishing zones in South Australia are those in thefisheries department, which sits within PIRSA. But no, not this Premier, not Premier Weatherillhewants to talk about going down to the beach 25 years ago and finding a couple of tubeworms. Thesimple fact of the matter is that there is an important industry in South Australia and it is under threatby this government. If there are identified marine biodiversity threats, the government should use theaquatic reserve provisions within the Fisheries Act to control any single threat that exists.The Liberal Party is for marine parks, for sanctuary zones and for sustainable fishing, and we want

the government to start to address the issue of sanctuary zones on a threat basis, not just thesehopeless lines on a pagerepresentative samples for South Australia. It is going to cost us jobs, it isgoing to cost the regional communities, it is going to cost exports, and it is going to cost ourrecreational and our commercial fishing sector. It is not good enough. The government needs to sit upand take notice. Fishermen are not going to go away; they feel very passionately about that, and thatis because their entire livelihoods are in jeopardy at the moment because of this government. Sit up,Mr Weatherill, take note of what people are saying, listen to their concerns, involve the local advisorygroups and make some sensible decisions on behalf of South Australians.