ADJOURNMENT

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (19:35): Australians, and, indeed, people from all around the world, are rightfully distressed and outraged at seeing the footage, day in and day out, of humpback whales, mothers and calves; dolphins, including baby dolphins; turtles; and dugongs—our precious marine life—being caught in fisheries devices, fisheries nets, that we call shark nets in this country, in Queensland and in New South Wales, or being tangled in drum lines, on the baited hooks lurking off our coastline, indiscriminately killing our marine life.

When they learn that these so-called shark nets aren't effective at keeping us safe at our beaches—that they don't protect swimmers or surfers—or that these drum lines most likely even attract sharks to our beaches, then they ask the question, 'Why do we persist with this cruel, outdated, last-century technology?' The science clearly tells us there are better approaches to managing the risks of interactions between sharks and humans on our coastlines, yet the Crisafulli government continues to keep shark nets all the way up and down the Queensland coast, even during whale migration seasons, whereas the New South Wales government has, thankfully, removed them, at least during whale migration seasons.

I'm not kidding: every day a whale is getting caught. Whales are coming back in big numbers, and it's something to celebrate. But these shark nets are part of the longest marine cull anywhere in the world—80 years.

Over 100,000 sharks, which are critical to healthy oceans, have been killed on our coastlines. 'And for what reason?' I ask again. These shark nets do not keep our beaches safe. They are a fisheries policy designed to reduce shark populations in our country.

They're not barriers to keep our beaches safe. We sadly saw a fatality in Dee Why—and the community there is still in mourning over the loss of a surfer—with multiple drum lines in place to catch sharks. We saw, tragically, another surfer perish at Snapper Rocks—one of the most popular surfing beaches in the country—inside a shark net.

We know we've got better technologies. And guess what? Our minister for the environment and water has jurisdiction, and our minister for the environment and water, federally, has responsibility to protect federally endangered marine life.

He can do that by removing the federal exemption that allows the states to keep killing and risking protected marine life, and that's section 43B of the EPBC Act—the continuous use exemption that allows the Queensland and New South Wales governments to continue with this state sanctioned cruelty. That's exactly what it is: state sanctioned cruelty to our precious marine life.

This is at a time when we're seeing biodiversity collapse in our oceans right around our nation. We're not only seeing the loss of habitat because of frequent marine heatwaves, like we're seeing in South Australia, with a dead sea off the coastline of Adelaide, or off the Great Barrier Reef or even off Ningaloo Reef this year; we are also killing protected marine life.

And it is not working to keep people safe. It is a no-brainer to remove this. I want to give a shout-out tonight to Andre Borell and a number of marine campaigners across this country who are backing in a petition to this parliament by Envoy Foundation that so far has over 170,000 signatures from ordinary, average, everyday Australians saying: 'Enough with this shark cull.

Enough with this killing of federally protected marine life.' It's time the government does something better, brings in new technologies, adapts all the kinds of mitigation methods we've been looking at for years, follows the science and puts aside their fear of News Limited. The shark that the Queensland premier is most fearful of is the News Corp press, not the shark that's in the water.

It's time that politicians were courageous and stood up for protecting our marine life and human life.