Book 8 - Parliament of Victoria

FISHERIES AMENDMENT BILL 2011
1564 COUNCIL Tuesday, 31 May 2011
Account currently supports 13 full-time equivalent
positions from those numbers I mentioned earlier.
The well-known fishing enforcement phone number,
13FISH, is reported to have received 10 000 calls from
the time it was set up in 2003 up until the middle of last
year. The minister’s answers also stated that as a result
of calls to that line 112 prosecutions have been
launched, 803 infringement notices have been issued
and around 1900 intelligence reports have been
developed. Some fisheries officers are involved in more
proactive and investigative-type activities as opposed to
your regular speed-cop-type enforcement activity.
I notice that the coalition’s agriculture policy promises
to ensure that 100 per cent of revenue raised from
fishing is reinvested in fish restocking programs and
infrastructure. One hundred per cent of the money from
fishing licences is required by law to be spent on
programs that benefit fishing, but those programs are
more than just simply restocking and infrastructure, so I
have had cause to ask some questions in relation to that
spending.
Over the last six financial years fisheries officers and
field services accounted for about one-fifth of the
trust’s disbursements, according to our analysis. That is
a bit over $1 million a year. That figure is not adjusted
for inflation. It is difficult to provide that money from
the fund, which means it is difficult to continue
sustaining this number of positions.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU)
mounted a campaign over this back in 2003. At that
time it set a long-term goal for 77 field officers and
8 investigators. The information provided to me shows
the number of fisheries officers has not significantly
increased from 2003 levels. At that time the CPSU
claimed there were 72 officers. These are reasonably
expensive positions to maintain. They are not
9-to-5 jobs. By definition they involve working
evenings, weekends and holidays, as this is when many
people are out there fishing. But if that public money is
well spent, it means we can preserve our marine
environment for the benefit of our grandchildren’s
grandchildren.
I am told that around 80 per cent of fishing activity
occurs around Western Port bay and Port Phillip Bay.
There are, I think, a few dozen boat ramps around those
two bays, and it would seem possible to cover most of
those boat ramps on a given weekend if needed, even
with the current number of officers provided. Again we
have this conundrum where fishers tell me they do not
see a high level of enforcement activity. Apart from that
concentrated area of fishing activity, you then have a
very large coastline all the way to the west and to the
east, which would be a huge task for anybody to cover
with the remaining regionally based officers.
Hon. P. R. Hall interjected.
Mr BARBER — Thank you for that prompt,
Minister. It would be interesting to see the level of
enforcement or contact activity that applies in each
subregion or out of each regional office. That
information was provided at the time of the 2003
submission by the CPSU, and if such detailed
information is not available tonight, we might put a
question on notice and examine it at some future date.
In speaking on this bill the former minister for fisheries
and agriculture, the member for Ripon in the other
place, Joe Helper, said:
With the possible exception of the fruitloops of the Greens
political party, strong fisheries compliance has the support of
the Parliament of Victoria.
It was convenient for Mr Helper down there in that
exclusive club, the Lib-Lab society: the Labor and
Liberal parties got together at the last election to ensure
that they kept it exclusive, of course, and that they kept
the Greens out of the lower house. But it is a pity for
Mr Helper that he does not have to make those sorts of
statements in a chamber with Greens members in it,
because he would then have to sit around and listen to
the response. He has about as much considered opinion
as the front pages of the Australian or the Daily
Telegraph these days. Of course we support the
compliance measures in this bill.
It is important to remind both sides of the house that
when it came to the VRFish election scorecard, the
Greens scored higher than both the coalition and
Victorian Labor on the range of issues that VRFish put
forward as the most important priorities in relation to
recreational fishing.
Mr Koch interjected.
Mr BARBER — Mr Koch might like to go back
and seek an explanation from VRFish about how it
arrived at the score. That is the kind of research
Mr Helper needs to do before he opens his mouth. As I
said, I will be doing a little more research as to the
performance of Mr Helper in this area since 2003.
In its Pursuing the Great Outdoors policy statement the
Brumby Labor government, just like the coalition,
promised greater powers for fisheries officers, but when
it came to more staffing the only promise was for
mobile squads of fisheries officers. Generally, they are
pretty mobile. There was no detail about what that was