CHAIR—Are there other questions on the Marine park?

Senator JOYCE—I have questions.

CHAIR—Senator Joyce, please proceed.
Talk
Senator JOYCE—Unfortunately I do not agree that the outcome for GBRMPA has been good for people, especially North Queensland. I am talking specifically about fishing and recreational fishermen. In that light, I have a couple of questions to ask. Output Group 1.3 talks about working with fisheries managers and stakeholders to review and improve management arrangements for the reef fish, fin fish, trawl, crab and inshore et cetera. How do you think you are going in your relationship with the fishing interests in North Queensland?

Ms Chadwick—I think it would be fair to say that it is patchy, particularly with their key organisations. This in large part goes back to disagreements in respect of the representative areas rezoning program. When I say it is patchy, there are areas both with commercial and recreational fishers where we have good relationships, but it would be most foolish of me to suggest that that is universal or that it reflects particularly the commercial fishers association, QSIA.

Senator JOYCE—Do you think the majority of the industry are happy or unhappy with the role of GBRMPA?

TalkMs Chadwick—I would think, particularly in relation to rezoning, that there would be still some questions that raised particularly by those who feel they have been negatively impacted by the zoning plan. However, I do not necessarily believe that is a view universally held by all fishermen, recreational or professional.

Senator JOYCE—Have the ones who have concerns conveyed those concerns to you? If they have, can you give a summary of what those concerns might be?

Ms Chadwick—I would have to say that in recent times I have received very few complaints from either commercial or recreational fishers. However, during the time of the rezoning, fishermen, both recreational and commercial—just the same as any other citizen or interest group within the GBRMPA—were very vocal in their views on various aspects of the rezoning.

Senator Ian Campbell—We do obviously hear a lot of feedback and input from people who have been affected by the representative areas program and, as you would know, we are dealing with most if not all of those through the structural adjustment package process. That is a process on which we have spent a lot of time trying to get right and a lot of time trying to finetune and listening very carefully to the concerns. Many of them are from fishing families and fishing businesses and, of course, many recreationals as well. So we do hear from those who are not happy with the rezoning, even if they are ambivalent about the rezoning and are affected by it. When he was doing the review, Mr Borthwick also analysed a lot of the process of the rezoning and the impacts and talked to a lot of the people that I have spoken to over the past nearly two years. It is worth mentioning that there are many others who are either benign about it or are generally supportive in the recreational area, the tourism area and even fishing families. It is only natural that we would hear from those who are upset.

In reviewing some correspondence recently, I saw a large article in the Australian newspaper that focused on this and the structural adjustment package and the impact. I cannot remember the date of it, but I think it had a photograph of some game fishing boats tied up at Cairns. Interestingly, after that article appeared—which was tending to be very anti the representative areas program, which I do know is very controversial—I got a lot of mail from fishing people, charter boat operators and others who were incredibly supportive of what the government had done there, which did surprise me because, like you, I had heard torrents of abuse from people saying the process was a disaster and GBRMPA were a bunch of things I cannot say on the Hansard and that they should all be shot. But there is a substantial body of people up in the Barrier Reef Marine Park greater area that have been incredibly supportive of it as well. There is a balance there, and I just want to put that on the record. A lot of people wrote back when that big article appeared in the Australian newspaper. They said, ‘We know it has been tough, we know it is hard and maybe it could have been done better, but you have done it and you have done it well, and it is good for Australia. At least fishing in that area will be put on a sustainable footing.’ I think that is one of the benefits of all of this, and we want the fishing businesses that remain on the reef to be sustainable going forward.

Senator JOYCE—That is the issue I wish to concentrate on. Obviously, you would have heard ad nauseam about the studies of people such as Dr Walter Stark—and correct me if I am wrong—that fishing on the reef was at about 17 kilograms per square kilometre. Would you agree with that? Do you know?

Ms Chadwick—No, I would need to check.

Senator JOYCE—I think it was. Other fisheries in the world collect up to 7,000 kilograms of fish per square kilometre. Prior to the expansion of the zones, what was the evidence of the main environmental threats that inspired it, and can you direct me to the paper that states these in detail, and have the expanded zones alleviated these issues?

Ms Chadwick—There are any number of challenges facing the sustainable future of the Great Barrier Reef, sustainable fishing being but one of them. Water quality is an issue, sustainable tourism is another—

Senator Ian Campbell—Climate change.

Ms Chadwick——and climate change. It is our goal to ensure that in the face of matters over which we, as a small organisation, have very little control, for example, climate change as the minister said, we have built sufficient insurance policy or resilience into the reef so that it in fact has the very best chance of being sustainable against those forces over which I have got no control. That was the basic underpinning.


Senator JOYCE—What is the specific paper that details, outlines and quantifies the threat?

Ms Chadwick—There are any number. I would doubt very much that there would be one single paper.

Senator JOYCE—What was the one on which you based the increased zoning?

Ms Chadwick—We included more than one single paper. There are many. As you are probably aware, the Great Barrier Reef is, thankfully, one of the most studied—

Senator JOYCE—Can you just mention for the record a couple?

Senator Ian Campbell—We could provide to the committee a series of papers that would create substantial scientific underpinning to the concept that you set aside areas of total no-take in terms of marine management. We will provide those to you.

Ms Chadwick—I would have to say that no member of staff, myself included, got up one morning and thought, ‘What will I do today? Let’s rezone the reef.’ Clearly, we had a group of scientific experts who provided us with information on how many bioregions or habitat types there were, what level of protection would afford these bioregions the best chance of resilience.