Rich Katherine: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Rich Katherine: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:616;Page:11698] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 If we look at the reason we are in the Chamber today it is that there has been a huge problem with the overcollection and overpayment of levies that were supposed to go towards either conservation services or to the provision of research services for the benefit of the industry. 
This problem has been created over the last 10 years and of course when a very large sum of money has been overcollected we are faced with the problem of how to divide that money in a way that is fair to the industry and fair to as many people as possible within that industry. We are talking about handing out about $24.1 million. The aim is to work out a system that is fair that has a certain amount of common sense and that is economical to do. 
I take issue with some of the comments made by the Green member that part of this process has been unfair because some of the levies—some of the credits—will be going to those people who might not have been in the industry at the time the initial levy overpayment was collected and some of the money is not going back to those people who were in the industry at the time the levy was collected. Those people may have left the industry they may have gone bust they may have sold their businesses or whatever—they are no longer there to collect their part of the levy. 
Any system of repayment has to establish a certain amount of fairness but one of the points made by Phil Heatley is that the select committee the officials and the industry itself have taken an industry-wide view about how the money is to be repaid. In terms of repayment if I spend a bit of time on Mr Ewen-Street’s example he said that it was a bit like a landlord overcollecting rent and then paying it back to an individual tenant—a tenant who might have left town died or whatever. I do not think that is a very fair example because that does not happen in reality. 
 A better example would be to look at the way councils collect rates. In some years they may overcollect rates and in other years they may undercollect rates but the way they compensate and the way they make sure they are fair to all ratepayers is by either lowering or raising the rates of future ratepayers. They do not go back and try to track down every single ratepayer who might have paid rates in the period within which they overcollected the money. 
It does not take a long time before one chews through $24.1 million worth of costs in trying to track down fishers who might have left the industry who might have died and have estates or who might have sold their businesses. In an ideal world one would like to do that and return the levies to those who paid them but in reality it is quite difficult—it is unachievable. 
One of the things that strikes me as very interesting about this part was a comment made by David Carter the chairman of the Primary Production Committee. He said that we are in the unusual situation of a party having a minority report on a bill yet that party going on to support it. I do not think I have seen that before and I cannot think of any other example where that has occurred. 
Hon David Carter 
: It’s history in the making. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Yes I say to Mr Carter it is history in the making. I do not think we have heard enough of an explanation about why we have that dichotomy of views within the report. It is good that the members of the industry have come together to try to find some kind of consensus about a way forward for the whole industry. It would be difficult to support this bill if the industry was not for it and felt that it had not played an important part in establishing the way that the levy debts should be repaid. We are talking about a very significant amount of money so I am glad that the select committee took the time that it did in order to be able to review a very complex problem and to come up with some solutions in this very complete bill.