STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (13:47): I'm wearing my humpback whale badge today after having the most magnificent day possible on Saturday in my home town of Bicheno on the east coast of Tasmania. My wife and I witnessed nothing less than a humpback highway. In 15 minutes, we counted approximately 12 humpbacks just off the rocks down near where we live.

Unfortunately, one of the whales got caught in fishing gear near St Helens, just north of there, and had to be rescued. I wanted to raise this issue in the Senate today. When we go further up the east coast to Queensland and New South Wales, day in and day out humpbacks and their calves are getting caught in cruel, outdated shark nets and drum lines, put in place by the New South Wales and Queensland state governments.

They are responsible for the largest running marine cull anywhere in history. By the use of shark nets and baited drum lines together, over a hundred thousand sharks and other mammals have been killed over the last 60 years. These tactics and methods are cruel, outdated and have been proven time and again not to protect swimmers or surfers such as me.

Also, they not only pose a huge risk to endangered populations such as our beautiful humpback whales, dolphins, turtles, dugongs and many other wildlife species but are ineffective and expensive, and there are better alternatives available. Minister Watt can do something about this. With a review of environment laws, Minister Watt can close the continuous use exemption in section 43 of the EPBC Act, a loophole that allows the states to continue to kill federally protected species.

There is a fantastic petition going around at the moment that I understand has attracted nearly 170,000 signatures. I'm hoping it will come to parliament. Australians can go to the 'close the s43B EPBC loophole, require assessment of QLD/NSW shark culls' online petition and sign it, and then we can bring it to parliament.

Minister Watt claims that no-one has brought this to his attention, yet I can tell you that, for years now, people have been campaigning to remove this exemption to protect our whales. (Time expired)