George Christensen MP

Federal Member for Dawson

MEDIA STATEMENT

Bad boat bill still nets all Aussie commercial fishers

THE Gillard Labor governments fishing boat ban legislation currently before parliament still leaves a filleting knife hanging over the entire Australian commercial fishing industry even with the Member for Dobells foreshadowed amendment. It was a bad bill from the start because it was a knee-jerk reaction to a fishing vessel that the Environment Minister Tony Burke encouraged to come to Australia in the first place a decision that the Fisheries Minister Joe Ludwig defended as late as Monday. Under the guise of banning the super trawler Magiris, the Environment Minister, Tony Burke, was trying to give himself the power to shut down any fishing anywhere, anytime. Now the government is lurching from one disaster to another and has enlisted their supposedly exiled colleague, Credit Card Craig, to do their dirty work and amend this ridiculous bill. But under the Thomson amendment, the countrys entire fishing fleet remains in the same vulnerable situation the minister can at any time target an entire commercial fleet and close it down. That would create the mother of all uncertainties for every single man and woman in the fishing industry, nationwide. Tony Burke could call time on the entire fishing fleet in Mackay or Bowen or they could call time on any of the tourist fishing charter operations run out of Mackay or the Whitsundays. It is a bad bill. It should deal with just one boat but instead it takes a catch-all approach that captures more than the super trawler Margiris ever could. ENDS Wednesday, 12 September 2012

PO Box 1697, Mackay Qld 4740 | 07 4944 0662 | george.christensen.mp@aph.gov.au

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