Abbott and Murdoch exposed

Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd The Australian 1 June 2013:

A growing number of the nation's estimated five million recreational anglers are furious that laws set to come into effect next year will lock them out of 1.3 million square kilometres of ocean. Some fear the bans could eventually extend to include iconic fishing spots such as Sydney Harbour and Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay.

With a view to the power of the swinging vote, up to 1000 anglers are expected to gather tomorrow at Torquay fishing club, in the heartland of the nation's most marginal seat -- Corangamite in Victoria, held by Labor's Darren Cheeseman by just 0.4 per cent -- to demand change.....

ABC Radio AM 4 June 2013:

GREG HUNT: Well unfortunately this particular process hasn't had genuine consultation and been based on deep science. 

From no_filter_Yamba 4 June 2013:

Hansard 4 June 2013:

Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for the Arts,

Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water and Population and Communities) (14:45):

On the weekend I saw a big article in The Australian that told me that there were going to be up to 1,000 people rallying in Torquay who were going to be very angry about this process. After The Australian article—and I will table it—there was no media coverage of it at all. Then I discovered the reason must be the funny way 1,000 people was calculated. Those numbers were in some way short—they used the shadow Treasurer to do the figures, clearly. Why would so few people turn up to the rally?

What the shadow minister for the environment did not tell them was that when they were making their speeches from the tinny they were speaking from—they spoke in a tinny, though admittedly it was on land—they did not let people know that if you wanted to go from that rally to an area where you are not allowed to fish, you would have to go out, turn left, go across the Bass Strait and, after 460 kilometres, you would get to the first place where you could not fish, a place where the no-fishing zone was put in place in 2007 when the member for Wentworth was the minister for the environment. The nearest restriction on recreational fishing was put in place by the Howard government when they were in charge.

This is a process where the science it has been based on was commenced under the Howard years. Some of these plans on the inside cover have the happy smiling face of the member for Wentworth and the member for Dawson for science. As for the process of consultation when they say, 'No consultation happened at all,' there were five separate rounds of consultation and three quarters of a million submissions engaged—in a process that works. What we found for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park work which has now come back with restrictions put in place by the Howard government that they now conveniently forget, is that fish stocks do improve. Coral trout numbers are six times what they used to be. Crown of thorns starfish are at a quarter of the levels in the protected zones that they are in the rest of the park. It is a process which for 20 years had had bipartisan support, and which the opposition are hoping will come to nothing tonight... [my red bolding]

The Liberal-Nationals Coalition lost their six motions to disallow the Commonwealth Maritime Reserve Network Management Plans by one vote each time and Northern Rivers readers will recognise the Nationals MP whose name was on these motions as the same John Cobb who (as Assistant Minister for the Environment and Water Resources in 2007) supported in the unsuccessful Howard-Turnbull push to dam and divert east coast rivers - in particular, the Clarence River.

These disalllowance motions may have been unsuccessful, however they offer a window on the attitude an Abbott-led government would have to marine reserves and attempts to ensure sustainable fish stocks in Australian waters.