Mr CAMPBELL (11:08 AM) —I rise to speak on the Fisheries Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 1998 as I represent undoubtedly the greatest fishing province within Australia, the electorate of Kalgoorlie, which includes some of the best game fishing areas.

I firstly wish to congratulate the government on heeding the voice of the prawn fishing and export industry in removing the prawn boat levy, levied per boat metre, and the prawn export charge levied at $0.02 per kilogram net weight after a five-tonne threshold is reached. The government consulted with the industry and conducted a plebiscite, to which 67 per cent of industry responded with an 85 per cent affirmation that industry wished to discontinue the levy. That is an amazingly democratic undertaking by the government, and it will be retrospective to January 1998.

However, I find in another matter the government has been totally inconsistent as they saw fit to introduce draconian legislation in March 1998 which imposes a 0.01 per cent kilogram levy on all seafood exported to conduct a seafood residue survey which industry never sought or agreed to pay. The inconsistency lies in the fact that the Minister for Resources and Energy, Senator Parer, said in his second reading speech that:

. . . levies should only be imposed on an industry if the levies have substantial industry support, and there is significant market failure . . .

John Anderson has forced the forced the seafood residue levy on industry because it is `in the national interest'. It has been introduced at the behest of AQIS.

This is another example of AQIS, an arm of government, introducing disincentives to seafood exporters, some of whom operate on marginal profits. There has been no real evidence tendered that, without the seafood residue survey, our seafood would not be accepted on the European market. To my knowledge, there is no indication that our seafood caught wild has been rejected by the marketplace or AQIS.

I am reminded of the stupidity that existed in the old Wool Corporation when they went down the road of infinitely testing our wool and therefore giving our customers reasons for discounting prices where previously they had taken the wool on its face value. Undoubtedly this led to a reduction in price for our wool.

I also note another inconsistency in that in the peanut industry we have actually raised the admissible level of cadmium to accommodate the high cadmium levels of imported Chinese peanuts. No doubt this is another example of the government wishing to play on that level playing field.

It is my belief that AQIS should concentrate on more effective and extensive screening of our imports and not setting up barriers for our own export industry. Or is this another example of the federal government kowtowing to international pressure for uniformity and expecting industry to pay for their ideology?

The seafood residue levy should be immediately removed, given the state of the Asian economy, our largest market for seafood. In Western Australia alone, crayfish sales to Japan are down 10 per cent, which equates to some $17 million in loss of income.

The other amendment which will prohibit the commercial taking of black and blue marlin in the Australian fishing zone is simply legitimising bans already voluntarily introduced by commercial long-line fishermen. The government endorsed the ban at the request of the charter boat industry, which wishes to ensure its own viability. Contrary to what previous speakers have said, the ban was largely successful, and it was effected by the industry adopting line levels and hook settings to limit the by-catch of marlin. I notice the previous speaker, the honourable member for Paterson (Mr Bob Baldwin), in talking about by-catch percentages, said that these trawls are actually set for pelagic fish, not just for billfish, and as a by-catch it is simply that, as a total, there is a much smaller percentage than is actually quoted.

The major change facing commercial fishing is that they are now compelled to return incidental catches of marlin to sea dead or alive, a policy which in other fisheries with less effective catching techniques is illogical and wasteful. I bring to mind the South East Trawl Fishery where they have a totally illogical, irrational situation where fishermen are forced to return by-catch to sea, most of which will be dead on return to the sea. It is an extremely wasteful process, does nothing to conserve the fishing stock and, of course, it is very damaging to the financial viability of the South East Trawl Fishery. Some of the bureaucrats have actually recognised that the only feature of this requirement is to put a structural hindrance in the way of the South East Trawl fishermen.

Commercial fishermen now face fines of up to $13,750 should they land or sell marlin. The previous speaker alluded to the fact that these blue and black marlin were not acceptable on the market, that they had no real commercial value, so there is absolutely no doubt that the voluntary ban was generally working. In my view, this is just another example of governments pretending to do things, of making it look as though they are actually doing something—although I think there was pressure from the game fish operators.

There is still one undecided factor within the amendment—that is, who will pay AFMA's estimated $66,000 administration costs to enforce the prohibition on marlin? It would be outrageous to expect commercial operators to pay for the administration of the ban which most had previously adhered to. The long-line industry already pays numerous charges and levies to catch and sell fish, and it is incongruous that the government would even consider imposing a levy on industry to not catch fish when they are not even deriving an income from that resource.

As the member for Paterson pointed out, if the game fishing industry is such a lucrative and big industry, if anyone should pay for this ban, it should be them. It is quite clear that there has been no consultation with the fishing industry about the payment of this money. I certainly hope the government's intention is not to try to levy the commercial industry for this particular ban.

In general, I support this legislation as I think it is sensible legislation. As I said earlier, I am concerned about this residue survey. Australia developed atomic resonance testing, and we are the world leader in it. With this method, you can actually detect elements down to one in a quadrillion. I fear that what will happen is that we will get things showing up in these tests and people will say, `Look there, we must discount your prices for this,' when in actual fact it has no bearing at all on the health value of the product.

My mind goes back, of course, to the big dieldrin scare, which saw dieldrin taken off the market, to the enormous disadvantage of the Australian sugarcane industry. Had the Americans tested their own product with the vigour with which they were testing ours, they would of course have come up with much higher levels. But, with the advent of this very sophisticated testing equipment, we are going to find these microscopic quantities which cannot possibly do any harm. I see no logic in performing these tests other than at the behest of AQIS to be seen to be doing something scientific. I believe it will be detrimental to industry. It certainly has not been called for, and certainly we should not be doing it until the rest of the world is applying those same tests to the same industry. This sort of nonsense is very detrimental to our primary industries, and it is something that the government should be stopping, not accelerating as it is doing in this bill.