SENATE

74 SENATE Thursday, 13 October 2016
the Attorney-General over the last couple of weeks as he has had to answer questions on this is a similar thing
occurring. My advice to the Attorney-General is that he needs to start being honest in this parliament and answer
the questions properly. The trickiness must stop. It is important for the Attorney-General to front up and answer
the questions.
Question agreed to.
New South Wales: Shark Nets
Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (15:34): I move:
That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Education and Training (Senator Birmingham) to a
question without notice asked by Senator Whish-Wilson today relating to policies to mitigate the risk of shark attacks.
The issue of shark encounters in this country is very sensitive. It always grabs headlines and people's attention.
Australians love to go to the coast to swim, surf and recreate at our beaches. I myself am a very passionate surfer
and scuba diver, and the issue of sharks is never far from my mind when I am in the water. But I think we need to
be very careful that the sad number of shark encounters that have led to the loss of human life and damage, both
psychological and physical, to surfers, swimmers and people in the community at places like the north-east coast
of Australia, around Ballina, is kept in perspective and that we have a calm conversation about how we mitigate
risks of shark attacks and shark encounters.
I want to make very clear that my personal opinion and the opinion of my party is that we need to be very
cognisant of the fact that the ocean is not a risk-free environment. You go into the ocean at your own risk. It is
good to understand those risks, and education and awareness are absolutely critical in that respect. To politicise
this issue to get a headline in The Daily Telegraph or to respond in a way that actually encourages fear and
misunderstanding is not productive. This is an issue about which we need to have a science based understanding
as well as a community based understanding. There are a number of things we can do in this country to mitigate
the risks of shark attacks. Those technologies are being trialled. I myself have been involved in a couple of
mitigation strategies. Putting in shark nets at a place like Ballina on the New South Wales coast is a last-century
solution.
Shark nets kill all marine life indiscriminately. They are actually designed to capture and entangle sharks—any
kind of shark—and reduce their near-shore populations. But they also kill other protected species, such as turtles,
dolphins, whales and of course hundreds, if not thousands, of non-harmful shark species and, of course, also
protected and endangered species. There is no evidence that they make us safer in the ocean—no evidence at all. I
do not want to see any Australians given the false impression that because there are shark nets along beaches on
the North Coast of New South Wales that somehow they are going to be 100 per cent safe from the risk of shark
attacks—they will not be.
So this is an issue that we need to take very seriously. The New South Wales government is coming to the
federal government to seek approval on this issue, because under environmental protection and biodiversity and
conservation laws, which are federal laws, we have a duty and an obligation—but it is also a moral obligation—to
assess the impacts of things such as shark nets, which kill sharks and other species. This is something I expect the
minister will take very seriously and that there will be a full assessment on the potential impacts.
I want to say, as someone who does surf and who is aware of the issue, that this is a deep issue to me. I
understand the fear and loathing and the concern in communities around shark encounters—I understand that very
well. But it is never going to be 100 per cent safe when you go in the ocean, especially as a surfer. When you surf
different spots and different places all around the coastline, some will never be netted and cannot be netted. There
would literally have to be thousands of nets linking this country together, if that is what we wanted to do, and that
would not reduce the risk of shark attacks. There will still be that risk. Yet, in this day and age we should not
consider culling species in the ocean—we should be protecting them. We should have a mature and calm
conversation about how to reduce the risks and what devices and processes we can employ. We should understand
that the ocean is where sharks live and that this is perfectly natural. We need to have an awareness of that when
we take risks by going into the ocean.
Question agreed to.
BUDGET
Consideration by Estimates Committees
Senator FAWCETT (South Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (15:40): I present additional
information received by committees relating to estimates:
Incorporation:20161013:HSU to incorporate additional information for estimates
CHAMBER