Northern Territory Second Reading Speeches

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FISHERIES AMENDMENT BILL 2000

Mr Speaker, this bill provides three amendments to the fisheries act which will encourage investment in the fishing industry, improve the effectiveness of enforcement and on a national level assist in the conservation and sustainability of valuable or threatened resources.

The status of Territory fish and fisheries is the envy of the rest of Australia and we are widely acknowledged for our sustainable fisheries management arrangements. This provides for a viable and developing commercial industry whilst allowing the opportunity for exceptional recreational fishing and ample resources for traditional users. These amendments to the Fisheries Act seek to enhance the above characteristics of territory fisheries and also assist in providing protection to specified at risk species on a national level. One of the major management arrangements in place in Northern Territory fisheries involves closures to a number of areas and rivers to fishing as to protect the stocks within these areas.

The Police Marine and Fisheries Enforcement Unit have experienced difficulty in undertaking prosecutions where it has been alleged that fishers have been taking fish in closed areas. These difficulties have arisen as fisheries legislation refers to most fishery closures in coordinates defined under universal transversal mercator, that is UTM. This was because many closures were developed in the days before sophisticated electronic equipment such as global positioning satellite system, commonly called GPS, were readily available. For that reason, topographic maps, which are read in UTM coordinates, were used, and known points on land were generally identified as landmarks to indicate points of closures.

Unfortunately, the Fisheries Act only allows the use of latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates by averment, not UTM coordinates. This omission has led to difficulties for enforcement in obtaining convictions.

This amendment which will allow the averment of UTM coordinates in evidence, seeks to rectify this problem and improve the number of successful prosecutions for breaches of the act in respect to illegal fishing activities in closed areas. Further, the likelihood of conviction of those involved in illegal fishing activities will be enhanced by allowing the use of GPS to be accepted by the court by way of averment. This will greatly simplify and improve the frequency of convictions of those involved in illegal fishing activities.

Another of the amendments will introduce legislation to extend the power of the Director of Fisheries to request a wider range of persons to maintain records or returns to assist in the management and conservation of specified fish or aquatic life. This is part of an Australia wide initiative which has been adopted as part of a national fish docketing system. This will be introduced by all states and territories to provide for the attuning of document systems relating to the catching, landing, transporting, processing, storing, the sale of, and the exporting and importing of specified fish. The national fish docketing system provisions ensure that all movements of nominated species of fish and aquatic life, where it is known there is significant illegal trade, or which are of a high commercial value or conservation status, can be traced through an Australia wide system.

This system seeks to overcome possible illegal product being sourced from other jurisdictions by utilising an Australia wide docketing system to the final point of sale. This illegal trade is especially a problem in respect to high value products such as abalone and lobster in which there are differing management arrangements in place in neighbouring states. This amendment provides the legislative framework to implement the national fish docketing system, as the director will be able to legislate that persons must not move or receive any specified fish or aquatic life without the proper documentation.

It must be noted that this doesn’t mean that every time anyone buys any fish they will need to fill out forms and have those forms with them at all times. This system will only apply to fish and aquatic life which the director gazettes as being greater than a nominated weight or number of a class of fish or aquatic life to which appropriate documentation must accompany the fish or aquatic life. Species identified in the Northern Territory which in the future could be subject to the national fish docketing system are mud crab and barramundi.

I will now move to the next amendment which relates to formalisation of a third party register for commercial fishing licences. The fishing industry maintains that some licencees continue to experience difficulty in securing finance against their licences as security through the major lending institutions. This minor amendment seeks to formalise the departmental policy into legislation which will give potential lenders and other third part interests more legislative comfort in providing funds to licensees as they will be notified of all dealings on a licence over which they have a financial interest. The amendment focuses on providing a process for registering, administering and removing third party interests from commercial fishing licences.

In summary, this bill will be gratefully received by industry as it provides a more secure framework for investment in the new fishing industry by the formalisation of the third party provisions. Additionally, this bill will provide for more effective enforcement in respect to illegal fishing in closed areas by allowing for the averring of UTM position and GPS readings as evidence. Also, Territory responsibilities in respect to our national obligations to reduce the opportunity for black marketing of fish and aquatic products and the trade in threatened species have been addressed in the national fish docketing system amendments.

This bill will continue to enhance our record as responsible managers of the territory’s fish and aquatic resources.

Mr Speaker, I comment this bill to the Assembly.

Debate adjourned.

 

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