Member for Burnett Stephen Bennett is supporting the LNP’s calls for the Labor’s Fisheries Minister to formally apologise for Fisheries Queensland’s conduct during the investigation into the loss of the trawler Diane & Cassandra.
The coroner investigating the loss of eight fisherman’s lives has accused the Palaszczuk Labor Government of ‘bureaucratic obstruction’ during the investigation*.
Local MP Stephen Bennett said Minister Mark Furner must now apologise to everyone affected by the tragedy.
“It became clear during the investigation that Fisheries Queensland was being deliberately obstructionist in relation to its operation of vessel monitoring systems (VMS) on commercial fishing boats,” Mr Bennett said.
“It’s absolutely shameful that is has taken a tragedy of this scale to highlight their failures.
“Those men and women in our community who go out to sea every day do not deserve to be lied to.
“Fisheries Queensland has been caught red-handed in claiming that VMS would be used for safety on commercial fishing boats, but it never activated the feature.
“It is a disgrace that Fisheries Queensland ‘sold’ VMS to the industry under the pretence that the devices would be used to monitor their vessels and alert authorities in case of emergencies.
“How can our hard working commercial fishing industry trust this Government to look after their best interests when they lie about a critical piece of evidence in a coroner’s inquest?
“Minister Furner needs to publicly apologise to Queensland’s commercial fishing industry for this deception and his department’s actions during the coroner’s investigation.”
LNP Shadow Fisheries Minister Tony Perrett said Commercial fishers are now questioning whether this culture of cover-up and obstruction is the reason for the recent botched rollout of the latest VMS trackers.
“Queensland’s Fisherman’s Portal has even declared ‘no-confidence in DAF whatsoever in its ability to function as a responsible resource management agency’**,” he said.
“Given too the context of recent unscientific regulatory changes that will force hundreds of commercial fishers out of businesses, it is hard to think of a worse time in the relationship between the Queensland Government and the fishing community***.
“The Labor Palaszczuk Government’s anti-fishers, anti-regions and anti-jobs agenda is hurting Queensland and needs to be thrown in the bin where it belongs.
“The LNP wants to make it easier for consumers to identify and purchase Queensland seafood through clearer labelling laws, while Labor is in the process of destroying our once proud commercial fishing fleet.”
*** Queensland Seafood Industry Association media statement: https://qsia.com.au/content/uploads/2019/09/MR_QLD-2020_2-Sept-2019.pdf
04/09/19