Labor may not have the numbers in Parliament today to stop the boat. Which might be exactly what it deserves.
The Coalition won’t support the government’s attempts to send supertrawler Abel Tasman away, saying it’s another example of Labor singing from the Greens songsheet. Which is neither here nor there; overfishing is a significant problem in parts of the country and protection is paramount. Certainly the optics are right for Labor in making an environmental stand in this case.
But the opposition is right to be cynical. As environmental policy expert Andrew Macintosh writes for Crikey today, the proposed operations of the Abel Tasman tick all the boxes of the fisheries and environmental regime:
“The fishing will occur within the quota set for the Small Pelagic Fishery. The fisheries management arrangements for this fishery have been strategically assessed by the Environment Department on four occasions: 2003, 2007, 2009 and 2012. Moreover, the introduction of the larger vessel is in keeping with the desire to improve efficiency as it will lower unit costs, and Environment Minister Tony Burke had set stringent by-catch conditions on the operation of the vessel.”
So what’s it really about? Politics and pressure from interest groups and backbenchers whose concerns are, at best, untested.
In stringing the operator of the trawler along, Burke has muddied an important issue and put questions around the efficacy of the strategic assessment process. And made the government vulnerable to a compensation claim it probably deserves to pay.
Rarely in Australian political history have independent MPs had so much power than in Rob Oakeshott and Tony Windsor. What they think matters much to the federal government and the broader policy debate, so today we ask them what voters most want to know. Readers have been lobbing questions via OurSay for the past month and this afternoon at 4pm AEST Bernard Keane will put the most popular questions to both men. Register now for our special Crikey Live event and watch the independents on the grill.
As a person that will have this thing right outside my front door I’ll let you in on a tib bit of information that the MSM are not telling you.
Just for a little history, the very same people that organised this were the same people that had a fish oil business here in Tasmania & it ended up putting itself out of business by guess what, yep fished out the fishery.
When the Sea Fish Tasmania originally organised this vessel it was considered that the current quota was insufficient to make it financially viable, so what did they do, just double the quota (real scientific) & what’s more suspicious is that one of the person voting on that increase was the person organising the bloody! boat.
Yes he stated his interest in the venture & they let him have input to the discussion & vote anyway. That’s why we now see the lieberals not backing the bill to stop the super trawler, that’s the way they work all the time, nudge nudge wink wink methodology.
As a caller to ABC radio recalled today. Several yrs ago he was out on the police boat & they saw heaps of sea birds so went to investigate & there was a 3 mile long trail of dead fish from by-catch & that was from a small trawler. So I put to you how many tons of by-catch will a net 600mtrs wide X 200mtrs deep at its mouth catch? night & day.
It is here because it has been chased out of every other country that it has worked in by FISH STOCK DEPLETION.
First it was stated that the trawler was only going after a very low valued fish (Redfin & Jack Mackerel) not eaten by us humans. Then that morphed into.
They are a highly sought after in Africa (because the very same ship had depleted their stocks!) & that’s where these fish were being sent too.
For crying out loud Australia wake up & actually look at what is going on & stop being led bye the nose by big business.
This lead article picks up only one aspect of the problem. The apparently arbitrary decison about the Abel Tasman is in the face of the severe problem of other – arguably more politicially sentitive fisheries – that are seriously degraded as pointed out in the Conversation this morning theis morning http://theconversation.edu.au/super-trawler-not-the-only-fishing-problem-needing-review-9503. Secondly, Andrew points out that the action against the Abel Tasman should be compared to the compensation paid to high carbon polluting industries as compensation. The overall arbitrary and problematic nature regulation is what is at issue here and the role that short term political interests play in deciding what sort of pollution is and is not politically palatable.
I saw the photo of it on InDaily, it doesn’t look like a fishing boat, more like a supertanker.
“The fishing will occur within the quota set by “Small pelagic fisheries”?
But.. but..Andrew Macintosh only takes the above quote to be correct, but how the heck does this organization know all this and more importantly, who are they and let’s ask questions from the “Environment Department” and the person who assessed this.
To me, it just doesn’t make sense to rape the seas all at once without knowing what the consequence may or may not be. How do they intend to replace what they’ve taken like they do in Nordic countries where sustainable fishing is a way of life and provide plenty of fish for everyone.
And why is all the catch going to South Africa while the cost of fish in Australia is ridiculously high?
KHTAGH:
Thanks. I doubted those who wrote elsewhere that this boat is towing only the same sized net as existing ones; the only difference being on-board processing.
600 metres x 200 metres is somewhat larger than huge. It is obscene.