2.3 million surfers put ocean issues on election campaign agenda

Surfers formed the environmental organisation Ocean Defence earlier this year. It has its headquarters in Hobart. Ocean Defence does not accept government funding and represents the environmental and cultural aspirations of 2.3 million Australian surfers.

Ocean Defence lawyer, Mike Morehead, says:
"Latest figures reveal that commercial fishing and aquaculture contribute $1.8 billion to the Australian economy, the offshore petroleum industry $7.8 billion and the domestic marine tourism and recreation industry $15.2 billion. Surfing contributes around $5 billion to the Australian economy, entitling it to a say in any decisions made on strategies for ocean use."

Today, Australian surfers, through Ocean Defence, requested John Howard, Kim Beazley, Bob Brown, Pauline Hanson and the Democrats respond to the following concerns in order that the surfers of Australia can consider who to vote for in the forthcoming Federal Election:

1. Urgent need to start the process of healing of relations between aboriginal and non-aboriginal Australians. All surfers acknowledge that aboriginal people were the original custodians of Australia, that the beaches, reefs and point-breaks that provide surfable waves existed for many millennia in pristine condition under aboriginal stewardship, and that it is the colonising Europeans that have to take responsibility for trashing what they found here.   

2. Urgent need for a National Ocean Commission to oversee the implementation of no-take, no-mining, no-pollution marine reserves. All political parties say they favour more marine reserves but there is no overall policy, no final aims and no timetable for the process.

3. Urgent national audit of National Heritage Trust funding recipients because in Tasmania for example, the largest Coast and Clean Seas sum by far (ten times more than the average) is reported to have gone to Australian Bulk Minerals to repaint their Port Latta facility. The greenwash must stop - Australians are not stupid.

4. Urgent stock-assessments of the 100 main fish species commercially fished in Australian waters because today the status of at least 59 of these fish species is unknown and at the very least Southern Bluefin Tuna must be acknowledged as "critically endangered".