Mr BALDWIN - 1996-05-15
In light of the ongoing incursions in the Australian Fishing Zone by foreign vessels and the potential effect this could have on our own fishing industry, has he or his department taken any steps that might reduce the number of these incursions?
ANSWER
Mr Speaker, it is a fact that there is a shared fishery resource between Australia and Indonesia, namely the snapper or ground-fish resource. It is quite obvious that parts of that fishery will become over-exploited unless it is adequately controlled. Equally obviously, unless those controls are in place, there could be a collapse in the fishery, in both Australian and Indonesian waters.
In June 1995, during joint Australian/Indonesian discussions on fisheries, officials from both countries agreed informally to develop collaborative programs for fisheries research and management in the area. My Fisheries Division drafted a program, based on those discussions, and 6 projects were identified that could form part of that program. They were: assessment of deepwater snapper resources in the Timor Sea; assessment of red snapper and other ground-fish resources in the Arafura Sea; development of procedures for collaborative management of shared fisheries resources; introduction of sustainable fishing methods for the Timor and Arafura Seas; development of deepwater snapper fisheries in the Nusa Tenggara, Timor and Timor-Timur1 regions; and, finally, the implementation of post-harvest technology for snapper and other ground-fish. The Indonesian Directorate-General of Fisheries and the Central Research Institute for Fisheries support the program. They invited a delegation of my Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries to Jakarta in March this year for further discussions on these proposals. The Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries and Energy joined that delegation, and we are keeping the governments of Queensland and Western Australia informed on future developments.
The program for the delegation included discussions with the Australian Embassy, AusAID and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, discussions with officials from the Directorate-General of Fisheries, and briefings by officials of the United Nations Development Program and the Food and Agricultural Organisation. We expect the outcomes to be Indonesian agreement on priorities for each of these projects, expansion of the agreed projects to a stage where they can be finalised, and identification of potential funding sources for the projects. The indications are that the Indonesians have productive snapper fisheries in their own territorial waters that they are not utilising fully, either because they do
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not know where they are or because their fishing methods prevent them from efficient utilisation of the resource. I hope this process will improve the situation and allow the Indonesians better to utilise and manage their own resources, rather than continuing their incursions into the Australian Fishing Zone.
In no way am I suggesting that there will be an instant fix to the problems we are encountering to our north. However, the continued dialogue between Australia and Indonesia, the continued exchange of technological information, and the continued development on a sustainable basis of the Indonesian fishery will, in time, reduce the pressure on the Australian fishery. In the north of Australia, we have what is probably one of the most conservative fisheries management regimes in the world. We intend to maintain that stance. We see no benefit in the large trawl in the fin-fish or ground-fish fisheries. We see benefit in passive fishing methods, drop-lining or trap-lining, that will sustain a good, high-value fishery for years into the future.
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ANSWER
Mr Speaker, it is a fact that there is a shared fishery resource between Australia and Indonesia, namely the snapper or ground-fish resource. It is quite obvious that parts of that fishery will become over-exploited unless it is adequately controlled. Equally obviously, unless those controls are in place, there could be a collapse in the fishery, in both Australian and Indonesian waters.
In June 1995, during joint Australian/Indonesian discussions on fisheries, officials from both countries agreed informally to develop collaborative programs for fisheries research and management in the area. My Fisheries Division drafted a program, based on those discussions, and 6 projects were identified that could form part of that program. They were: assessment of deepwater snapper resources in the Timor Sea; assessment of red snapper and other ground-fish resources in the Arafura Sea; development of procedures for collaborative management of shared fisheries resources; introduction of sustainable fishing methods for the Timor and Arafura Seas; development of deepwater snapper fisheries in the Nusa Tenggara, Timor and Timor-Timur1 regions; and, finally, the implementation of post-harvest technology for snapper and other ground-fish. The Indonesian Directorate-General of Fisheries and the Central Research Institute for Fisheries support the program. They invited a delegation of my Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries to Jakarta in March this year for further discussions on these proposals. The Commonwealth Department of Primary Industries and Energy joined that delegation, and we are keeping the governments of Queensland and Western Australia informed on future developments.
The program for the delegation included discussions with the Australian Embassy, AusAID and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, discussions with officials from the Directorate-General of Fisheries, and briefings by officials of the United Nations Development Program and the Food and Agricultural Organisation. We expect the outcomes to be Indonesian agreement on priorities for each of these projects, expansion of the agreed projects to a stage where they can be finalised, and identification of potential funding sources for the projects. The indications are that the Indonesians have productive snapper fisheries in their own territorial waters that they are not utilising fully, either because they do
Page 1352
not know where they are or because their fishing methods prevent them from efficient utilisation of the resource. I hope this process will improve the situation and allow the Indonesians better to utilise and manage their own resources, rather than continuing their incursions into the Australian Fishing Zone.
In no way am I suggesting that there will be an instant fix to the problems we are encountering to our north. However, the continued dialogue between Australia and Indonesia, the continued exchange of technological information, and the continued development on a sustainable basis of the Indonesian fishery will, in time, reduce the pressure on the Australian fishery. In the north of Australia, we have what is probably one of the most conservative fisheries management regimes in the world. We intend to maintain that stance. We see no benefit in the large trawl in the fin-fish or ground-fish fisheries. We see benefit in passive fishing methods, drop-lining or trap-lining, that will sustain a good, high-value fishery for years into the future.
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Last updated: 09 Aug 2016