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12:47 AM Mon 30 Mar 2009 GMT
 | | 'Senator The Hon Ron Boswell, Nationals - keen boatie and fisherman.'
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Senator Ron Boswell received the President's Marine Award 2009 from Marine Qld on the eve of the state election. To follow is his acceptance speech.
Don Jones, Wayne Bayne, Members of Marine Queensland, thank you very much for this Marine Queensland Presidents Award. I am very gratified to receive such a prestigious trophy.
I have always enjoyed boating. I have always had a boat until a couple of years ago where I sailed around Moreton Bay and its beautiful islands including what I consider the gem, Moreton Island. So I know your industry. I have grown up with it. From the days of the old seagull motor, which I still have, the old timber dingy, to the beautiful boats and rigs that you have displayed here tonight.
In politics, you talk to the industry; you listen to what they are saying and to their representations and you decide whether their case is justifiable and sound. In the case of your industry, the positions that they have taken have always been sound and viable: The reimbursement of the loss and damage caused by the restrictions of the fishing areas, the green zones on the Barrier Reef.
GBRMPA told us that it would cost us around 3 to 4 million dollars to compensate the displaced boating and fishing industry. When we left government, the cost had gone to 450 million and was still going north. The costs ran like an old sock. We had to pay professional fisherman, outboard motor and boat dealers, boat builders, net makers, fish processes. That happened because you had a willing Prime Minister that was prepared to pick up GBRMPA's 447 million shortfall.
It was a just cause to fight so was the removal of criminal convictions, even a greater miscarriage of justice. These criminal convictions imposed on many unsuspecting fisherman who in many cases were unaware of where the green zones were and how they were infringing on them.
We responded to the submissions of the boating industry. Took up your cause and were successful in removing 125 convictions. This was bureaucracy gone mad. This was one of the worst cases of a department overreaching its charter that I have seen in 27 years of parliament.
The Senate was able to pass legislation that deemed these charges to be spent; a term that means you don't have to record a criminal record and the conviction is removed from your record. To get to this point, we had a Senate Inquiry in Canberra and the chief witnesses on the side of the goodies were Wayne Bayne and Don Jones.
They gave such a strong performance. They convinced Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding to support the coalition in removing these criminal charges. We had to take on the government and the Greens and we won by 2 votes in the Senate. I would also like at this point to acknowledge the tremendous effort and expertise that Senator Ian MacDonald contributed to this outcome. His legal knowledge was invaluable.
One of the more moving experiences of that Inquiry was taking evidence by phone, by a young married man who lived in Caboolture. He was working for a pest extermination company, had a couple of young kids, his sincerity was overwhelming. He told the Senate committee if had a criminal charge against his name, he would never get another job. He was worried about his wife and kids and how he would support them.
His heinous crime was that he and his brother were towing their tinny back from Cairns and decided they would put their boat in somewhere around Mackay.
He thought the Barrier Reef green zones were where the Barrier Reef was miles off shore. He went about half a mile from the boat ramp, dropped the anchor, threw out his fishing line and was fined heavily and received a criminal conviction against his name. That was totally unacceptable.
So it was great day for your industry to have removed 125 criminal charges from people who get their pleasure out of boating. It was a great day for parliament. It showed it was relevant and working for the people of Australia.
We are all boating people here. Let me put a hypothetical incident to you. It's blowing a cyclone, a freighter is ploughing into huge head winds of over 100kms an hour, the seas are mountainous. The hull is punctured is spewing oil into the sea. The containers are going over the side. 32 boxes of ammonium nitrate lost over board. You think there was a problem. Apparently the Environmental Protection Agency didn't think so. It certainly didn't register with them. The first advice came through at 3am Wednesday morning.
The Premier didn't act until Thursday late afternoon. The EPA should have triggered a contingency plan. There is a contingency plan. I got it off the web. Why was the EPA asleep at the wheel? Why was some attempt not made by the EPA to stop oil polluting beaches off Bribie and Moreton Islands and the mainland? Destroying our wildlife, including beach worms, pippies and mangroves.
The strong advice from the EPA that went to the ship that night when it entered Moreton Bay was to hose 2 tonne of ammonium nitrate off the deck into the bay, very near to the Green Zones that you are not allowed to fish in.
These are the people who are charged with looking after the environment. Their dereliction of duty, their sluggish response has done more harm to the environment that we will be able to ascertain for years. That night they were not the solution, they became the problem. These government experts are the same high performers who took 16% of your fishing ground and 50% off the professionals and we are expected to take them seriously.
Well Anna got her pound of flesh from your sacrifice and that was the Green preferences for tomorrow's election. If she wins on those preferences, the Greens will be on her door on Monday demanding more green zones in Moreton Bay. You can never satisfy the green demands.
I thank you for giving me this prestigious award. I will place it in a prominent position in my office next to my commercial fishing award, to show the boating industry, the commercial fishing industry and the recreational fishers have more that unites them than divides them.
And it will be a constant reminder, the boating industry and all the families that enjoy boating and fishing in this wonderful marine environment in Queensland are worth fighting for.
by Media Services
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