Carter David: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Carter David: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11617] 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 As we in Parliament again discuss more fisheries legislation which I do acknowledge the National Party will be supporting today I want to clarify the very reason that we are debating this tonight. If people look at the commentary on the bill there is one very important sentence that sums it up: “We accept that the Fisheries Act 1996 was not implemented as contemplated by Parliament in relation to cost recovery.” That is the very reason we are here now addressing the issues of the over and under recovery of fishing levies. 
I want to congratulate the Ministry of Fisheries and the industry on finding a mature way around this problem. Too often this industry has had a reputation for being very litigious and on this occasion we saw a constructive mature response to which the Government was then able to draft legislation and move from a situation where a mess had developed because the original legislation was not enacted as we intended it to be. We moved to sorting it out instead of having the industry against the ministry in the courts as we have seen with other issues time and time again. 
I also want to take this opportunity of congratulating Peter Murray of the Ministry of Fisheries and his team on the way they helped the Primary Production Committee through this legislation. At all times Peter Murray’s answers were very clear and very concise. I think that it was his input to the select committee that enabled us to get to grips with the issues relatively quickly progress the legislation tidy it up with some amendments pointed out to us by submitters that the ministry and Peter Murray quickly acknowledged were required and present the legislation back today in far better shape than it was when it first arrived in this House. We will be supporting this legislation—the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2). 
As my colleague Phil Heatley said the levies we are talking about are collected from the industry as a means of monitoring fishing services and conservation. Having set those levies clearly some of that work was not undertaken and that was not credited by the ministry and the Minister as he set the levies for the forthcoming year. We have had a period now since 1996 where the anticipated collation of levies on an annual basis has not occurred. We are before Parliament today passing legislation that means a massive settlement on this issue requires a payment of $24.1 million plus $493543 as recognition for the fact that once the industry and the fisheries come to a solution it will take some time to draft the legislation put it before the House take it before a select committee and pass it into law for those payments to be recognised and credited in the future. 
I want to spend a little bit of time talking about a number of submissions we received from smaller fishers particularly the scallop and tuna fishermen. It was acknowledged by the committee that the joint working-group which worked on and established this final figure was one made up of the larger players in the industry. A number of small players came before the select committee many of whom had operated through the time and had paid the levies back almost 8 years ago. Perhaps some of them left the industry voluntarily. People appeared before the select committee who had been adjudged bankrupt and obviously been forced to leave the industry. 
These people explained to the committee that in their mind one of the reasons they had exited the industry was the high level of levies that had been set against the particular species they were fishing. The committee was certainly moved by those stories. People appeared before us who still owed these levies. They had not paid them in the year in which they were due and they still owed the levies to the Ministry of Fisheries. Yet here we are acknowledging that the levies had in effect been set too high and looking at a way to redistribute the recognised surplus that has been collected. These people because they were no longer part of the industry were not able to share in their opportunity to reap some of the benefits of the settlement. It was a sad situation for the select committee members to cope with. 
But on further investigation I think the select committee arrived at the only fair solution which was to acknowledge that while some people had not paid their levies on time and therefore continued to owe a debt the great majority had paid their levies—and we were unable to obtain information as to whether those people had had to go to the banks or mortgage the house etc. to raise additional money at the time to pay their levies. Why should it be that for the few people whom we could now identify—I think the amount concerned totalled $37662 with 15 fishers—we have found a way by which those people who had not paid on time should be credited an amount of the approximately $25 million and that therefore those who had paid legally and on time would not receive that particular bonus on the same basis? 
It was an issue that the Greens recognised and at one stage they suggested to us that they would not be supporting the legislation. They did argue that there was a means by which the individual amounts could be accredited out of the $25 million but as the officials pointed out to us and I fully accept their argument the costs involved in trying to individualise that and trying to find the people who had perhaps left the industry and not appeared before the select committee—and that would be a significant number of people—would mean most of the $25 million was chewed up in administration so at the end of the day many many people would have got next to nothing. When one considers that argument there was only one way to advance the issue and that was to accept wholeheartedly the recommendation of the joint working-group and that is certainly what the majority of the select committee did. 
I suggest that when Parliament considers the commentary in future years a precedent is created in that at the time the Green member said he would not be voting for the legislation. He then asked whether he was allowed to include a minority report and the committee agreed to accept a minority report from the Green member and that is included in the legislation and the report back before the House today. 
Subsequently the votes will show that the Green member actually then did support the legislation. I acknowledge that Sue Kedgley has said today that the Greens reserve their position. I took the opportunity to check with Keith Locke perhaps 30 minutes ago and he assured me that they would be voting for the legislation. However I think that Parliament has before it the very first commentary reported back from a select committee that will have a minority report but will see all members of the select committee vote for it—and shortly I suspect the whole of Parliament vote for it. I just take the opportunity to make sure that members realise that they are observing history today. 
I shall talk briefly of the other aspect of the clarification of the legislation that was associated with Operation Pacman which was a very good exercise that was carried out. A number of people were involved in illegal fishing and on that occasion they went before the courts. According to the judiciary because ofpoorly drafted legislation passed in the first place most of those people have been either discharged or acquitted and have been able to get off scot-free from that operation. It is a lesson for Parliament that we as parliamentarians and our officials working for us at the select committee process must be very vigilant about the way we draft legislation so that we do not have a situation like this with amendments having to be enacted that clarify it for the judiciary. 
Bill read a second time.