BELLANGER, Mr Justin, Chief Executive Officer, Aquaculture Council of Western Australia BROWN, Mr James, Managing Director, Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm TYZACK, Ms Jude, Manager, Growth and Regulatory Affairs, Tassal CHAIR: Welcome. I understand that information on parliamentary privilege and the protection of witnesses giving evidence to committees has been provided to you. I now invite you to make a short opening statement. At the conclusion of any remarks, I will invite members of the committee to ask questions. Mr Bellanger : Firstly, I want to thank the standing committee for the opportunity to present. We always welcome the opportunity to talk about the opportunities of aquaculture, and this is a great setting within both Western Australia and Australia as a whole to explore emerging industries on a range of fronts from a First Nations perspective and from a commercial perspective. Thank you very much for the opportunity to do that. The opportunities we have for aquaculture to contribute to economic growth, regional employment and other societal benefits, particularly in the Kimberley but also in Western Australia as a whole, are really significant. We see that there are really significant expansion opportunities in areas like this. It's great that we have representatives here from Western Australia and from the Northern Territory, because I know you guys understand scope and scale, and not many people get up to places like this. We're fortunate to have all been here at different times and for extended periods, so we know how big the Kimberley is. One of the great opportunities that presents for aquaculture is to be able to operate at scales that can make a significant impact in terms of employment and also in providing the sources of food, particularly marine protein, that we're dearly in need of, particularly in Western Australia, when we have things like commercial fisheries that are in decline. We have great areas that are a long way from population and a long way away from other impacts that make sustainable farming hard in other areas but are not as much of a challenge here. But the flip side of that is that they need to operate at scale to be financially viable. Like we've seen in our resources sector, particularly in Western Australia, where we have a lot of co-investment of public money with private money to get the infrastructure in place to support large enterprises—aquaculture, particularly in the Kimberley, is in a very similar space. To realise those societal benefits and community benefits and the economic benefits that aquaculture can make—whether it's barramundi farming, pearl farming, oyster farming or a range of other areas that we, as a council, represent—there is a need for infrastructure to help support the development of that. One of the things in our proposal is around a deep-water boat-ramp access so consistent access to waters can be gained. We'll talk about the objectives of the Productivity Commission and how we can actually improve the productivity of Australian businesses. This is one of those areas where we can really make a significant material investment that can have really substantial productivity gains just by taking people off the roads—driving extended distances when they don't need to—with a more suitable, closer way of accessing the water. I want to talk about that and explore that a little bit more—some of the benefits of that and some of the co-benefits of what large-investment aquaculture can do in terms of lifting up other industries as well. That's a broad opening statement. Would you like to hear as well from— CHAIR: Absolutely. Ms Tyzack : Tassal was very pleased to take over the Kimberley barramundi business. We acquired the business in July 2023, so it's been 2½ years, taking that business, which was under administration at the time—we've been working really, really hard over the last 2½ years to turn the business around and to bring operational performance up to Tassal standards. As Australia's biggest seafood producer, we've got a very, very strong commitment to operational excellence, as well as to environmental sustainability, and we rely really heavily on technology and innovation to make sure that we can meet our aspirations on both those fronts. What that looks like for the barramundi business here in the Kimberley, which is the only ocean grown barramundi business in Australia—we've actually invested $30 million over the last 2½ years on upgrading infrastructure. A good portion of that has been on farm and bringing the cage infrastructure, the sea pen infrastructure, up to scratch. It's predator resistant, in particular, improving safety standards and generally just bringing operational protocols and procedures up to scratch with the rest of our business. We have also invested significantly in transforming the nursery facility, which was an old TAFE facility at the Broome Tropical Aquaculture Park. It's been converted into a state-of-the-art commercial nursery, and we also have plans in play to extend that facility—it's a hatchery facility as well. Across both the land based and the marine operations, we've introduced smart farming technology, which is really core to everything that Tassal does. We have a state-of-the-art feed barge out on farm, which means we're actually now feeding our farm up here in Cone Bay from our feed centre in Hobart, which is pretty amazing. It means we can be extremely efficient with our feeding. We've got round-the-clock monitoring in pens and that sort of thing. It's really exciting to see what's happened in the barramundi business in terms of turning it around. What we've also done over the last couple of years is we've reviewed the Ocean Barramundi Expansion Project. That's a project that's been on the table for quite some time—prior to the acquisition of the business. We've reviewed it, we've refined it and we've made some significant progress in moving along both the state and federal environmental approvals for that expansion proposal. As part of that, we've invested significant time and a lot of engagement with the traditional owners up here. The outcome of that has been that earlier this year we signed Australia's first aquaculture Indigenous land use agreement with the Mayala people, and they have granted consent for that expansion proposal. Where it lands is that 2½ years of hard work have placed our business in a really good position, both with the community and in terms of our readiness to expand and to seek some of that scale that Justin's talking about that we need to make the business viable and profitable. Obviously, our expansion is going to be market driven, but we're really confident that the market and the demand for seafood is there, and it's going to continue to grow. So we're very keen to get the other infrastructure in place that we need to make sure that we can meet that growth trajectory that we're hoping to achieve over the next 10 years. Mr Brown : I'll try and keep it brief. It is very opportunistic for this group to present in unison like this, and it probably represents the type of approach we've had to business in a region like the Kimberley. It's obviously got plenty of challenges. We've got a track record of trying to work as broadly as we possibly can, because our family's history in the area has shown that you do need to be able to work in the community and you need to be able to try and bring as many people as you can along for the ride. Economic development is the one thing that I would say we really need to see more of in the Kimberley. We've had a lot of progress over the last few decades in a range of different things, but regional economic development in remote areas is something that I think is still really challenging and very hard to compete with in other areas. As a bit of background on our business, my family has been working in the pearling industry for 80 years, so we've seen a range of different phases of that industry. When we started, the industry was entirely based on the collection of wild shell for the value of the shell. Pearl farming at the time was actually still illegal under Western Australian law. There's a big backstory on that, which is part of Broome's story. If you're interested, I'm sure we've got some books we could refer you to. We were one of only three companies that transitioned from the old shelling industry, in which there were hundreds, into the new pearl-farming industry. My family was at the forefront of pioneering that at Cygnet Bay back in the fifties, sixties and seventies. That industry boomed for many decades and was a major employer in the Kimberley—over 2,000 people employed on any given day—and in the most remote areas of the region as well. As you can imagine, it was very important to the population. For that period of time, the pearling industry was, in value terms, Australia's most valuable aquaculture industry. It suffered some issues about 15 to 20 years ago due to market issues and environmental issues. We're seeing the onset of the effect of warmer waters on our marine estate. I imagine you are probably aware of the extent of the marine coral bleaching that's occurring across the north of Australia. Pearling, thankfully, and other aquaculture species haven't been impacted by that, but it's a visible reality that we are facing a time of change in our marine estate, and we do need to be able to diversify and be as responsive as possible. To that extent, our company has been through a major diversification over the last 15 years. We are now really vertically integrated. We take our products all the way through from production to retail. We've integrated an educational piece on that as well to try and better connect to consumers so we can actually tell our stories and hopefully improve the value of our products through the virtues, which are very difficult to retain through conventional wholesale supply chains. A lot of that falls under what you'd consider to be tourism. Our farms are open to the public. That's allowed us to also create Cygnet Bay as a multi-user hub in the region. We've always facilitated other businesses' and other stakeholders' activities. But, for the sake of this exercise, it's probably important for you to realise where it is. It is on the tip of the Dampier Peninsula, 200 kilometres north of here. CHAIR: Did you say 200 kilometres? Mr Brown : Yes, so it is very close to Ardyaloon community, Cape Leveque, Kooljaman, Djarindjin and Lombadina. The bulk of the population on the Dampier Peninsula is close to the tip. That area is really the closest place by road to the western Kimberley. So, if you were to fly or drive across the Kimberley, like I'm sure you all have, between Broome and Kununurra, really, apart from the Kalumburu Road, there's no other access. Access to the western Kimberley, as our customs and our defence forces and so on know, is really challenging. It's really challenging to know what's going on in those areas. It's also really challenging to operate in those areas. It's been used as a hub for marine and aquaculture activities for more than 150 years, much longer than we have been there, because of the natural assets of the area. It has a natural harbour which is protected from prevailing winds and cyclones and so on and so forth, and it has relatively good deep water for anchorages and such. Today's discussion is really going to be an extension of what industry and everyone else have sought out in the natural assets. What we're looking to do is try and upgrade those to meet what you would consider to be normal in a modern environment, to give us the most opportunity to be competitive in a national and global framework. CHAIR: Is there anything further you want to add, Senator Whiteaker? Senator WHITEAKER: Mr Bellanger, the key thing the Aquaculture Council advocates for in your submission is a multi-user boat ramp facility on the Dampier Peninsula. Could you just talk us through what you imagine that would look like in terms of the infrastructure that would be required, the timeline, how much it would cost—those kinds of things. Mr Bellanger : The rationale for it is to provide an all-weather and all-tide access point—which we don't have currently for nearly any vessels but particularly larger vessels—to access King Sound and the western Kimberley, which is a critical area, as James has just explained. We can talk a little bit more about that, because it's not just aquaculture. It's also defence, biosecurity and environmental management. There are a range of different user requirements that can be met out of there which currently aren't being met. From a physical infrastructure perspective, we all know what boat ramps are. It's to get a boat ramp that is of a commercial scale that can handle larger vessels and be able to be in a fairly unique area with the world's largest tides, where you can actually get boats in and out all the time. There are not many areas that are suitable for that. James was just explaining an area where we think that is. The supporting infrastructure that sits around that is all-weather road access. That's obviously really important. The longer term aspirations are to get somewhat of an industrial park associated with the boat ramp, so not only some additional activities around servicing sites but also potentially processing offtake of aquaculture products as well, providing some local employment opportunities. They are some of the aspirations that we have that we think can have a significant impact locally. In the broad picture, they are the aspects of the infrastructure that sit around that. For the timeline, we're really at the initial phase of needing to do the business feasibility to assess the different aspects, like a classic business feasibility—viability—that you would do for what the capex and operating costs would be. There's not only a process to go around the governance, about how that would work in terms of the management of the site, but also some discussion with local First Nations groups. Obviously, there is private land owned by Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm, but then there's an intertidal transition where there's native title before you get into the water. There are some governance discussions around how those aspects would work and what sort of joint venture arrangement might come from that. So, at this stage, we're at that phase of advocating, looking for the resources to do that. We think we may have some resources through the state government yet to be confirmed. We'll part with resources to undertake a standard sort of feasibility analysis. We would obviously like the federal government to be a part of that picture as well in time. It's a part of this process, of course; it always is. From a construction perspective, all of the planning around the construction phase and the timeline for construction and commissioning and operation would form part of the feasibility plan. But from our perspective, from an aquaculture development perspective, we are a fantastic exemplar of sustainable finfish production. The only ocean based barramundi farm in Australia is operating in the Kimberley. Tassal are in the process of going through an expansion phase. I think it would be fair to say the sooner the better—as is always the answer. Our role as the peak body is to try and enable as much as we can for these things to work as quickly as they can but obviously with a sensible approach. That is the board's case. Ms Tyzack : As Justin said, the boat ramp infrastructure is quite simple infrastructure. It is a concrete boat ramp. Tassal uses these types of boat ramps extensively in our salmon business, and we do have quite a lot of experience constructing them and using them. They're big enough to allow tankers with our fingerlings in them to drive straight onto a barge. But it isn't complicated infrastructure. Certainly, in other parts of the world, it's reasonably cheap infrastructure. Obviously, up here in the Kimberley, everything is that much more expensive. But, from our perspective, if we had access to a boat ramp, we would look to put an operational land base there. We have things like ice production, which we can do up there. At the moment, we are trucking our ice up from Broome. We would also look to put in processing. At the moment, our fish comes in from harvest, goes straight on ice and gets trucked down to Perth, where it gets re-iced and then sent over east for processing. From a supply chain perspective, that's kind of insane and very costly, because we would then need to send the bins back up here. We also think there's a massive opportunity to have ocean-grown, Kimberley barramundi available here, on every restaurant menu. With all the cruise ships and the provenance story being really strong, we would look at having some kind of processing facility up there. Staff accommodation is a thing. There's also the maintenance of both the vessels and of our farm infrastructure, such as net servicing and that sort of thing. So there's a whole range of activities that we would look to put alongside that boat ramp facility. Obviously we've made commitments to the Mayala people for employment and business opportunities. With all that infrastructure there, as James mentioned—the Ardyaloon community is up there in that area—that kind of hub would allow us to offer local jobs. The bulk of our jobs are out on the lease, which is a fair way out, so we run in shifts. There would be potential for those kinds of jobs to be on-site and permanent without needing people to go out onto the lease. So there's a huge range of possibilities. James, do you have anything to add in terms of other multiuser potential? Mr Brown : To expand on my introduction, we've obviously been working with Tassal for a long time. They have been using Cygnet Bay to transfer staff from land to their water bases for many years now. We're already facilitating a portion of their business activity, which I think is indicative of the logic. In addition to that, and to try and highlight the strategic importance of the location, the relatively new Kimberley marine parks and their entire marine fleet are based out of our farm. They've got commercial moorings for all their motherships. They're on our leases and they basically homeport there. Everybody who goes onto the marine park launches through our existing boat ramp facilities. So we do have existing boat ramp facilities. That's because the place has natural assets that lend themselves to launching small boats and such. They've been there for the marine parks for four years, in terms of their fleet operations, and that has facilitated hundreds, if not thousands, of people that they've taken to and from the various West Kimberley areas. A lot of the Indigenous ranger programs now work alongside the marine parks and in joint management. But even before that arrangement, the Bardi Jawi Rangers would operate their bigger vessels from our anchorage, again using either our commercial mooring or whatever it might be and then launching to and from it in smaller boats. That's been going on since the start of the Bardi Jawi Ranger program, which I think must be coming up to about 15 years. On top of those long-term local operations, other tourism industries and other small boutique cruise boats also choose to stop there rather than steaming all the way back to Broome. These are boats that have 12 to 24 people; they're the really small boutique cruise boats. They generally cruise around quite slowly at eight to 10 knots. That saves them at least 2,000 litres of diesel each way, as well as not having to expose their boats to the western side of the Dampier Peninsula, which is obviously open ocean, whereas the rest of the Kimberley is a very irregular seascape with lots of bays and islands and a very protected area for that fleet, which is one of the reasons why thousands of people pay to go on those boats. It's very picturesque. The convenience of having a land-to-water interface on the tip of the peninsula gives them direct access from that relatively sheltered area straight onto land, and then they can just drive back. Really, the bituminising of the road over the last 10 years, in my mind, solidified the rationale for why you would then add to that infrastructure piece. That was a $90-plus million project to complete the road. That was the last 80 kilometres or something, which was done during the middle of COVID and has really helped the 2,000-odd people that live on the peninsula. You can imagine that, prior to that, anything from education to health to commercial activities—a dirt road makes it harder. Now that we've got a bitumen road, it's much easier for everybody to actually get between Broome and there. In fact, I think it was two or three years ago that the Fitzroy River Bridge collapsed. Is everyone familiar with that occurrence? When that happened, it was a particularly large wet season event. The only road that was actually open to Broome was the Dampier Peninsula road, so Broome wasn't able to be accessed from the south. Similarly, the road between Broome and Derby was so badly damaged that they had to operate barges between Derby and Broome so that supplies were flown into Broome, put on a barge and then steamed about 400-plus kilometres around the peninsula to get there. You can imagine that, if we actually had a facility like this already on the tip of the peninsula—the barge has to go from Derby to Cygnet Bay, which is about 90 or 100 kilometres, as opposed to the exposed ocean trip all the way around. To highlight the significance of the place, that was a lived experience that we can all remember. The other one that highlights it is that just about every government agency that needs to access the water for various reasons does it up there as well. Some months ago, we hosted an emergency drill. I think it was run by DFAS, but it involved NORFORCE, DFAS and all the other emergency services involved, including the Indigenous ranger groups and every stakeholder that you can think of that gets involved in those types of marine rescue exercises. They all were based at Cygnet Bay and using it daily to launch and retrieve and conduct those exercises and come back. Again, that was done in the early wet season. Given the type of events we've had over the last three or four months with multiple cyclones tracking right over the top of the Dampier Peninsula, you can imagine that facilities that aren't bituminised and concreted to give you all-weather—it's really up to chance whether or not you're actually going to be able to launch a boat off a typical beach type of thing in an emergency event. That's where we've come from. We see that an investment like this, given that the area already has natural assets that lend to it, should be relatively simple. This is not a hugely technical exercise like, for example, a floating jetty in Broome, which I would consider to be a massive technical exercise. Given the tidal regime around the entrance point and the huge currents and so on, I think anything around the Broome area is technically very challenging. The area we operate in is our oldest pearl farm lease because it is very sheltered. The length of time that we've been there continuously farming pearls—I think it's 50-something years in that particular lease—really highlights the fact that this is a relatively sheltered and technically easy area. That should relate to your question about 'technically cheap', given the fact that, until things are scoped out and all the rest of it, we don't have an exact number. But I would have thought this was low-hanging fruit in terms of what it would cost. If we were able to get that done, in addition to the kinds of investments that Tassal has explained, or that Jude's explained that Tassal would like to put there, it would generate these local jobs on country very close to community. We also work with a number of local Indigenous entrepreneurs in the commercial marine space. These facilities would not only enhance what they're already doing but really should be a trigger for more of that type of opportunity. We see really great opportunities for business growth within the local community in that commercial space. I would point you to the two partners we've currently got up there: Rosanna Angus, with her Oolin tours, and Willie Maher, who's just launched his own after being a Master 5 on one of the Kimberly cruise boats for the last three years. They're already pioneering that space. We really do think that, given better access to launching and retrieving vessels, you don't have to have such expensive vessels. The problem we've got up there right now is that if it's not small enough to easily launch off a beach, off the rocky kinds of areas we've got or whatever it might be, you then have to have big tenders and bigger boats that can sit on anchors and so on and so forth. Whereas if you're in a normal area where you've got boat launching facilities, you've got a greater range of vessels that can be put on and off trailers and it makes small- and medium-sized business much more viable. Justin, in his introduction, spoke about scale, which is very true, and Tassal is a classic example of that. We're very pleased that Tassal has actually taken on that ocean farming because if you haven't got the capacity to invest and bring the latest technology globally, you're going to struggle out there. It's that type of business. But there are lots of other small- and medium-sized businesses that would be enhanced by a facility like this and that would really meet the needs of the regional economy. In addition to tourism, which is a really obvious one for our area, I know Justin's also been working in the tropical rock oyster space for a long time. So have I. In fact, we've got a family history. My grandfather and the Bardi people used to actually can wild oysters in the area. This was 67 years ago, but it was a thing. Since then, our pearl farming enterprises have spread. We now have farms in New South Wales. That's a different species, but we are there because we're supported by the DPI to help diversify their aquaculture industry. They've obviously been the heartland of the Sydney rock industry for a long time. In addition to growing pearl oysters and pearls in New South Wales, we also grow Sydney rock oysters, the angasi local flat oysters and Pacific oysters. We've been doing that now for over 10 years. We've got a lot of real experience now, as well as the lived experience of the rock oysters in the Kimberley. But real experience in that market and that production system has only further enhanced my belief that the Kimberley is prime for a tropical rock oyster industry. There was a report done some 20-plus years ago that looked at it and already found it to be a very likely industry that suits the area. The main concerns at the time were access to market and infrastructure. As we said before, with the road now being sealed, it really takes out that first barrier, as does leveraging off some of the latent pearling infrastructure. Ardyaloon has got a Trochus hatchery up there that's been operating in a range of forms for 30-plus years. So there's a lot of infrastructure and, now, access to market that really should make that work. And we've had Northern Australia CRC working with Northern Territory First Nations people for, I think, at least 10 years on developing the black-lip rock oyster opportunity up there, which should translate right down the coast. I look at that, and this is the type of infrastructure that would make the development of that really possible for the people of the Dampier Peninsula. Do you have a follow-up question, Senator Whiteaker? Senator WHITEAKER: Lots of my follow-up questions have been answered, which is great. I was interested in your engagement with the state government. It sounds like you're having productive conversations, but do you want to expand on that a little bit? Mr Bellanger : Yes. I can expand on that really quickly. The state government and the aquaculture council have gone through a process of developing a range of industry growth plans. They identified the priority actions that both industry and government have collaboratively prioritised. There are five of those. One of those is specifically on marine finfish, and one of the priority actions out of that is to do the feasibility and the work around establishing this deepwater access point. I think that's a common aspiration shared across government, scientists, policymakers and industry—all identifying the same high priority—so that's fantastic. Not surprisingly, in our own research, development and extension strategy, it's come up as well. It's not a new thing; it's a proposal that's been around for some time. So there's absolute consistency across a range of stakeholders at a state government level, and we're advocating for some resources at a state level to co-invest, at least in the feasibility. As I said before, I think the Western Australian government and federal government have got a great track record of co-investing in large-scale infrastructure, particularly in support of the resources sector. We see this as the equivalent; rather than investing in rocks and dirt, we're now wanting to invest in food, which is what everyone in the state needs. It's an obvious decision I think. Senator WHITEAKER: Who else operates from the Derby Wharf at the moment? Mr Bellanger : That's a very good question. Senator WHITEAKER: You can take it on notice. Mr Bellanger : We could probably take it on notice. I know that there are servicing barges. You could probably better answer the question. Mr Brown : Yes. The iron ore islands of Cockatoo and Koolan have been long running, and the Derby port has really been the main facilitating port for those barges for 70 years, I think. Outside of that, there's a very small number of tourism vessels. It's a challenging stretch of water—the southern part of the King Sound. It's got extraordinarily large intertidal zones—nearly 13 metres is the variation there—but, being the delta of the Fitzroy River, if you can imagine, it's relatively flat. If you haven't been there, I can tell you, on an outgoing tide or a low tide, you can't even see the water it's so far away, which makes infrastructure really challenging. So there's tourism. There'd be a little bit of ag. I think some of the sand mining barges were going out of there but aren't now. The rest would have to be taken on notice—to get the stats from the port. But it's certainly never been like Broome, where there are at least 10 main industries that really heavily rely on the Broome port, and for obvious reasons. It's that constant access to the water—and not being cut off. Senator WHITEAKER: We can probably ask the port, but that gives us a sense of the scale. You've all talked a bit about engagement with the traditional owners. I'm interested in how you undertake that engagement on an ongoing basis. Obviously you can't and shouldn't speak on their behalf, but what kinds of conversations have you had with them about the project? Mr Bellanger : I'll speak at a high level, and I think there are some really great local examples here. From the aquaculture council's perspective, we've been doing that this week. We've been engaging with aspirants who want to get into tropical rock oyster aquaculture. That's been fantastic. I used to work up here 25 years ago in Aboriginal aquaculture development and other aquaculture development as well. It's been really lovely to come back and see some of the same people and be able to re-engage with that and see some of the same passion that still exists, which is fantastic. At a broad level, we've been working with DPIRD to establish a guide called a 'setting up for success guide', which is for Aboriginal people wanting to get into aquaculture. It's sort of a handbook about how to engage and what sorts of ways First Nations people can be involved in the sector, either on their own or through joint ventures or other mechanisms. Aqua instigated that piece of work; DPIRD have delivered it directly themselves. Through that process just recently, there's been a lot of engagement with different communities to try and understand what their desires are to be involved in the sector, which has been really strong, which is fantastic. Beyond that, our engagement is on an as-needs basis. At the moment, in terms of this project specifically, we've been respectful of the local engagement that's occurred, so we haven't stepped into that. When we get to that point of prefeasibility and feasibility, we would then engage and be respectful of the existing relationships that exist. We've sort of left it at that point. At the moment, we're really just looking at the aquaculture perspective of trying to meet those small- to medium-scale aspirations that local Aboriginal people have and addressing that need. The other point I'll make before I hand over to Jude, I think, first, is that there are great examples of large enterprises being, to use a trite term, the rising tide that lifts all boats. Getting a critical mass of industry activity around that can support other businesses in development, whether that's in supply chains or being able to access local goods or being able to navigate some of the legislative and compliance based things, which is really easy for a big company to do and really a lot easier for small companies to do after that. There's a real co-benefit for local people—in this case, Aboriginal communities—to work off that. That's high-level stuff, but Jude can talk fantastically about where they've engaged with local Aboriginal groups. Ms Tyzack : I'm going to let James talk about the local community in terms of this specific project and the boat ramp, but, in terms of our broader engagement with the traditional owner communities, as I said before, we do have an ILUA place with the Mayala people. You asked how we are going about ongoing engagement. Part of that ILUA was the establishment of a relationship committee. Now, the ILUA is specifically linked to our expansion proposal, which is not yet being progressed. Well, it's being progressed through the environmental approvals processes, but it hasn't actually got to a development stage yet. We have, over the last 18 months, commenced those relationship committee meetings. We're having them on a quarterly basis, and that's with a view to trying to get really well positioned before the expansion goes ahead so that we can implement the commitments we've made under that agreement. The big focus at the moment is the economic engagement aspect of that ILUA—jobs and training opportunities, business support opportunities. One of the things that we think are particularly exciting and with a lot of potential is that we have made a commitment, within five years, to be able to involve and hand over our environmental monitoring work and contracts to a Mayala business or Mayala people. This particular proposal, I think, is critical for that, because that would be an obvious thing—to find those people in the community there that could potentially take on that work for us in partnership. In terms of other traditional owner engagement, we are also engaging with the Dambimangari people, which is not so relevant over here, but we are talking to them on an ongoing basis about opportunities for collaboration and negotiating an MOU for the opportunities there with them as well. I'll let James talk about the local community and the engagement prospects there. Mr Brown : Sure. There are a few native title determined areas on the Dampier Peninsula between here and the tip of the peninsula. The area on the tip of the peninsula falls under the Bardi Jawi native title. We mentioned before the main communities of Bardi Jawi: Ardyaloon/One Arm Point is at the end of the road up the peninsula, and Lombadina/Djarindjin is just prior to that, about 15 kilometres. Cygnet Bay is right in the middle. I'll try and give an abridged version, I guess, of the past 80 years. My grandfather started working with a gentleman by the name of David Wiggan in Broome in 1946. They worked together for the rest of their lives, and that's what really led to our relationship with the Bardi people and being based out of there. He was actually based on Sunday Island for about 20 years, I think, when most of the Bardi and Jawi people were at the mission out there. That was before the mission shut, in the early 1960s. That sort of lined up around the transition from the old shelling industry to the new pearl-farming industry. My grandfather and David, with his family and some of the other Bardi families, were involved in the early trials, looking at how to grow pearls in these things. The First Nations people have a well-documented and longstanding cultural use for the pearl shell. It's called guwan. It holds great value and it's been traded across the country for thousands of years. They hold no interest in the pearls, strangely enough, and never have. At best, the pearls were a thing that the kids played with, but the shell was always very valuable. That trade still exists somewhat. We support that with some of the Wiggan family carvers now. Once the men go through law they can carve pearl shell for cultural uses, and those things are called rijis, generally, or pinji pinji, or a few different other things. But they are and have always been traded pieces as well. So we support that activity, from supplying shell, all the way through to hosting it in our showrooms, selling it and so on and so forth. Anyway, I guess our relationship with the Bardi Jawi people goes back a long time. It's obviously seen the highs and lows of the national reconciliation process. Every step of the way we've been observers to it. I'd like to think we're good neighbours, and we still, today, work with the same families. To that effort, we formed a cultural steering committee for our property back in 2015, which is essentially two families: the Wiggan family and the Phillips family. We've got an entity under Bangarad Pty Ltd, where we have directors that they choose. We have, essentially, a suite of commercial activities we'd like to try and explore for the benefit of everybody, trying to get more opportunities for people based in the community to start their own businesses, hence the reason why we've got such a great interest in rock oysters. We think that's a viable aquaculture industry, and it's certainly one that's been identified through our longstanding discussions with Bardi people about what's not only a high-value cultural species but also something that they're actually interested in for production. There are a range of other things as well. There are about five different aspects to that joint work. For the point of today's discussion, the approximate location that we see as being a logical spot for the boat ramp that would facilitate the requirements the Tassal operation is very close to Ardyaloon. There could quite easily be a short road to access that, from the existing bitumen road, which would really help to facilitate not just the direct employment from whatever else comes out of that operation, but also, like I was saying before, the enhancement of the existing commercial operators up there, if they live in One Arm Point/Ardyaloon. I think one of the benefits of the location is its proximity. Obviously, there are the regulatory processes that Justin spoke to. However the project solidifies, moving forward from this point, the Ardyaloon community council, the Djarindjin/Lombadina communities and the PBC, obviously, would need to be involved in that process. We really think this could be done with a holistic approach as a multi-user facility, with the support of a report such as this and the support of state government backing. This shouldn't just be one stakeholder talking to another; it should be a project that has a regional view and looks to how we can benefit every stakeholder as much as possible. If we could take that type of approach to the next steps, from here on in, however it was to work its way through, I think that would be great. The reality is that the location we're talking about, as I said before, is already used by the Bardi Jawi Rangers and by the Bardi Jawi people, for both recreational and commercial use, so they're very familiar with it. This isn't something new. They're already launching and retrieving boats there. They're already going to work there. This is just part of our collective backyard, so to speak. There are always challenges in bringing the entire community—and I'm talking nationally—along for the ride on any project. If we make sure that we approach this right, it should be something the community would support, if they see opportunities that come out of it. CHAIR: I come from the Tiwi Islands, in the top part of the Northern Territory. For my people, there's been a real interest in aquaculture for a long time, and they did try. They had the sea cages in the water, but a cyclone went through the area and destroyed it. But this is very impressive. With the Tassal $65 million investment into the region, you're saying there's potential for 150 jobs in the Kimberley region. How many of those jobs would be for people that you would need to bring in? What's the capacity for training and development in this region, with local people? Ms Tyzack : I think there's a huge capacity for training and development in the region, and obviously it's much better for us if we are employing local people, rather than having to bring them in. In an aquaculture operation, we have a real range of jobs. I think our talent team was saying we've got over 250 job descriptions within Tassal. We employ 1,800 people across the country, and there are 250 different job descriptions, so there's a full range of different types of jobs. Obviously, up here, sourcing skilled staff is a challenge for every industry and every business. I mentioned that we redeveloped the TAFE facility at the Broome Tropical Aquaculture Park, and TAFE has indicated that it doesn't have enough applicants in aquaculture to keep that program running. I was speaking to TAFE's managing director yesterday. She came to do a tour. Since taking over, we have been working with TAFE to say: hey, we think that there will be enough people who want to study aquaculture, and we're very keen to support TAFE in making sure that we retain that training potential up here for local people. The conversation I had yesterday was really around how we make that happen and how the TAFEs coordinate with the other TAFEs to make sure that we are getting local people with the range of skills that we need. It's not just aquaculture training that we need; we need health and safety and boat skills. We employ our own in-house vets, marine scientists and environmental specialists. There's also engineering. There's a huge range of jobs that we have in our operations. As I said before, there are training commitments in the ILUA and we're really committed to meeting them. We have our own in-house Accelerate program, which is specifically designed so that we can take people and put them through different parts of the business to train on-site and within our business. We have suggested that we will also extend that Accelerate program to people from up here. Maybe we can send them down to Tasmania where they can learn about farming on our farms, and then we can bring them back up here with those skills already developed on our operations. The 140 jobs that we have mentioned—that is at full-scale development. It is a 10-year prospect to get up to that full-scale development, but we think that, along the way, there's huge potential to keep working with TAFE and to make sure that we're prioritising local jobs for local people and doing what we can to train on the job. CHAIR: I'm not sure whether you should answer this, Mr Bellanger, or whether it would go to all three of you. What would be the cost of doing the multi-use boat ramp that you were talking about? You can take this on notice if you like. If it's multi-use, has that been costed across all the different uses? Mr Bellanger : I think we've done back-of-the-envelope at this stage, and then added on the Kimberley component. Senator WHITEAKER: The 'Kimberley tax'! Mr Bellanger : Yes, or the northern Australian component. CHAIR: Which is usually a mark-up of 100 per cent. Mr Bellanger : It is a little hard. Ms Tyzack : As Justin said, this is back-of-the-envelope workings. I can tell you what it cost in Queensland. I think we were talking in the order of $5 million for the boat ramp itself, but then there's the sealing of the road— CHAIR: It's a fixed one which you wouldn't take out, because it's— Ms Tyzack : Yes, it's prefabricated concrete. It's pretty simple infrastructure. It's prefab; you bring it in and put it in the water. So the boat ramp is possibly not the most expensive part. I think James has done a bit of work looking at what it's going to cost to seal the road. CHAIR: If you looked at what that would be regionally, as an economic opportunity—we shouldn't just look at the boat ramp being multi-use, even though that's important. We should look at the other infrastructure associated with that. Ms Tyzack : Which will obviously be power and getting the road in. There will have to be fuel distribution facilities there. James, how much have you done around all that other stuff? Mr Brown : The reality is there's a sliding scale. There's the activity that's already happening at this location—which is literally just off the rocky beach—and everyone, including the government agencies of marine parks and fisheries and all the rest of it, deals with it by using different equipment that suits remote access. Then you've got what Tassal would require, which, from the preliminary work we've done, really is just a suitable concrete ramp that a barge can push up to. You're probably familiar with them back home—something similar to that. Getting power and water to that is not particularly difficult these days, with solar and so forth. Our whole operation up there runs on solar, off grid. Then there's the few kilometres of road. We maintain all the internal roads—because they sit on the property—with just local bitumen and gravel. CHAIR: You cover that cost? Mr Brown : We do, yes. We've upgraded it. Again, from a pearling perspective, we used to just drive four-wheel drives out across sandy dirt roads and be okay with that. Now it's multi-user. We've upgraded the roads with gravel so that you can get out there with a two-wheel drive, and, if people are taking a minibus or whatever it might be that they need to get out there, they can get out there. So I think there's a sliding scale. To answer your question about how it works for the rest of the region and the rest of the opportunity to spin off this, I'd say part of the feasibility is to look at what different components of the economy it could actually enhance. What would they require? I would suggest that the tourism, like the small boating tourism stuff, doesn't require much. The concrete boat ramp itself would probably be enough. Again, Tassal can be very explicit about exactly what they require, so that could be worked through in terms of dollars and cents. The rest of it, I'd say, would be looking at each different component that you think you'd be trying to target, and I'd be really excited by that piece of work, personally. Mr Bellanger : Just to follow on from what James said, I think the really interesting piece is what the multiplier effect or the return-on-investment effect is—whether it's just reducing the time of trucks on road currently between Broome and Derby and the carbon footprint of that, or whether it's stimulating the local economies up there. Again, this is back of the envelope, at a really qualitative level rather than a quantitative level, but the opportunities it looks like that can generate look really significant, which is the exciting bit. CHAIR: Has the Aquaculture Council of WA looked at a feasibility study so you've got the tones of it and you know what needs to happen, and have you had the conversations with the different stakeholders? Mr Brown : Yes, we've got the broad terms of reference for a feasibility study in mind and documented. That obviously requires a little bit more work to go to a tender and for those remaining steps. There's still some discussion to be had with other users about precisely what their needs would be. But we know from experience that there is a demand and a need for this, even if it's, as I said before, just saving steaming time from Broome up to that point of the Kimberley rather than driving up the road. So we think there's a reasonably good foundation for other users to see the benefit in it. Again, that would form part of that pre-feasibility sort of assessment. CHAIR: Can I ask, on notice—just as a follow up for us at the committee—how much this would cost in terms of the multi-use boat ramp and, across all of the sectors, what the Indigenous employment numbers would be? That would include the various projects and the employment and training for the region—not just Aboriginal employment. If you want to grow the region, what are those opportunity costs? And the ranger program—I know, Mr Brown, you talked about one ranger group, but are there a number of ranger groups that operate? Mr Brown : Yes. Mayala, which is the next saltwater group, is about 10 nautical miles or something like that—anyway, it's essentially where the Tassal lease area is. That's probably one of the newest native title determinations. They've got their ranger program, I think, probably started. Ms Tyzack : It's starting at any moment, if not already started now. Mr Brown : Yes, so there's more there. As I say, everyone that goes onto the jointly managed marine park vessels, regardless of which park or which joint management group they're working with, essentially starts the process at Bardi Jawi country and steams off from there. So it has a multiplier effect across, I would suggest, the entire West Kimberley and potentially even further afield. I'd say most of their operations in the Kalumburu area probably don't have quite as much. But, between here and there, absolutely. I think that's highlighted by the road as well. I think what you'd find with this is that you'd be able to do more. CHAIR: Yes, sometimes when we look at infrastructure we think of boats, but I think we need to also look at roads as a key part of that infrastructure. Mr Brown : Yes. Again, the road between here and there has been around for maybe five to 10 years in its current form, but it's really, now, about the small bits that you can add to that at the tip that really enhance the economic opportunity. I think it's done a lot for operating up there on the peninsula. That road has significantly improved the reality of operating a business on the peninsula. Joining that land-sea interface is the key to really enhancing the marine opportunities. CHAIR: It might have been you, Jude, who said that there wasn't enough interest in the agriculture training. Ms Tyzack : Obviously, as I said, when we acquired the business, MPA was under administration. I'm not sure what the reasons are behind there not being as much interest in that training, but we are certain that there will be, as we start to expand and grow. As I said, we have indicated to TAFE that we will assist with offering facilities at the Broome Tropical Aquaculture Park. Where we've occupied the previous TAFE facilities, there's scope for us to put in a classroom there and help them retain that training and outsource it, working with the other TAFEs as well, where we can, to make sure that we're still offering aquaculture training for local people here. It's critical for us, so we're pursuing that. Mr Bellanger : There's always a timing issue with capacity and training and industry development trying to— CHAIR: Yes. It's always chicken-and-egg stuff. Mr Bellanger : Absolutely, yes. But I think there are things that give us some encouragement. We were at Lombadina community yesterday. We had eight community members there interested in tropical oysters. They're smaller businesses. There was another young Aboriginal lady who just blew us away in terms of her passion for getting into the same area. I'd love to see Broome and the Kimberley become our northern equivalent of Port Lincoln, which has got a number of different aquaculture enterprises at full scale and full capacity, with all of the training and peripheral industries that sit behind that. I think we can do that here. We've got such a long history in pearl aquaculture. We've got great examples in terms of barramundi aquaculture and a lot of aspirants who want to do other things coming through. I think the fundamentals are really sound and the timing is fantastic for that, so it gives me a lot of confidence that the chicken-and-egg bit can start to work together a little bit better. CHAIR: I want to thank the three of you. From a Northern Territory point of view, it would be good to get that happening in the Territory. But I think if this can work here, that can be taken and transitioned up there. I just think agriculture is fantastic, in terms of employment and opportunity Ms Tyzack : And product. Everyone loves seafood, right? CHAIR: Indeed. Whilst we have farmed barramundi on land—you're right—it would be good to go back to having barramundi in the water. Ms Tyzack : Yes. There is a difference between land farmed and— CHAIR: Absolutely. And I've tasted the difference between barramundi that's been farmed on land versus barramundi that's been farmed in the water. They have very different tastes and quality. Ms Tyzack : Can I put our marketing team in touch with you just to get you to answer some questions! CHAIR: How much difference does it make? I know that Tassal and the brand is known—whether that's a big part of the marketing or being able to sell it and get— Ms Tyzack : Absolutely. When we acquired the business, we really saw the opportunity there. It is the only ocean grown barramundi in the country, and we really do have a focus on a premium product. Our brand is extremely strong, and we think that there's a huge growth potential in the demand for barramundi. One of the things we'd like to see is the name 'barramundi' trademarked so that it's just Australian barramundi that is being sold as barramundi. But it's a beautiful product that's coming out of the farm up there. Mr Bellanger : A key point with that is that we have a critical need in Western Australia, and in Australia as a whole, for a good white-flesh fish alternative— CHAIR: Absolutely. Mr Bellanger : with declining demersal fisheries. Snappers, dewfish and gropers have historically filled that. Particularly in Western Australia at the moment, a number of those commercial fisheries either have ceased or are in decline. So we see the sustainable production of barramundi as an easy way to fill that market so we're not— CHAIR: Australian barramundi, not Indonesian barramundi. Mr Bellanger : Exactly, so we're not losing consumers to imported products that are less sustainably grown, and we're not losing people who would buy seafood, and receive all the health benefits that come with seafood, to other products with fewer health benefits. I think large-scale aquaculture has a really important role to play in a societal sense in that regard as well. Mr Brown : Before we sign off—I feel like we're getting to the end—something that's probably also interesting is that there has been a fair bit of discussion today about the emerging rock oyster industry in northern Australia. I think it's fair to say that the Northern Territory has done a lot of work in that space. Queensland now has a legitimate farm of this particular species which has started up. CHAIR: Yes, we're going to go across and have a look there as well. Mr Brown : So there is a real opportunity, if you look at the effect that it can have on the economic, job and business development opportunities. In the current aquaculture landscape, especially in Western Australia, there are a few serious players. Tassal is the only one that's actually been able to forge this ocean-grown finfish space, really. The pearling industry has been around for a long time, but it's always been very restricted in the number of licences based on the sustainability of the wild stock. At its peak, it was only 16 licences, whereas my experience now in New South Wales is that you've got a $50 million to $70 million wholesale industry in New South Wales, but it's got hundreds of proponents, and it's got everything from corporates that might control 10 per cent of it all the way through to mum-and-dad growers who also might have a second job. So I look at that with great excitement for the peninsula, where you've got 2,000 people and probably 400 kilometres of coastline and an opportunity to act through cooperatives where lots of people could actually have equity and be involved not just in jobs but also in owning and operating. These are saltwater people, so oysters are already an important part of the day to day. So I really do feel like the stars are aligning, particularly with the fact that, over the last 10 years or more, the Western Australian state government's been focused on the development of the southern rock oyster industry down in Albany. It's got its own hatchery down there now. That hatchery has already produced this species, the black-lip rock oyster species. CHAIR: Which is what you're doing here. Mr Brown : Yes, and it's already supplied them to trials for research and development in Cone Bay, which is essentially where the Tassal group farms. So we've got the bits of the puzzle. We just need to put them together in the right way now, and it really does look like low-hanging fruit. CHAIR: So what you're producing here in terms of the black-lip oyster— Mr Brown : Rock oyster, yes. CHAIR: Rock oyster. You said it's being done in New South Wales as well, including in Sydney. So what's the difference? Is there a difference in the quality? Mr Brown : It's essentially different species. They look very similar, but one is just suited to the northern warmer waters, and the other one, which they call the Sydney rock oyster, is really suited to that band of temperate water. But it is the same species that's grown now in Albany. The Western Australian industry, over the last 10 to 15 years, has really been driven by interest from state government in that. It's actually quite a significant player now down south. The northern oyster is what is commonly known as the black-lip rock oyster. It's a bit confusing. It's just northern rock oyster. On that one, WA has really just done research work. It hasn't really been commercialised. The only place where I know it's commercialised is the one farm in Queensland and the work that the Northern Territory has done with the groups up there. CHAIR: And I think CSIRO is helping him with some of that. Mr Brown : Yes. Mr Bellanger : One really important point from a marketing perspective is that it looks like there's an offset between the northern and the southern products when the oysters are ripe and ready to sell. It looks like, if it develops at the northern end, the tropical black-lips will be able to fill the market when they're ripe and full when we can't get stuff from the Sydney market or when we can't get Sydney rock oysters. So that would be a really great marketing— CHAIR: So, it's seasonal. Mr Bellanger : It would be a perfect marketing perspective. CHAIR: That's great. Mr Brown : The fact is that you've got an active industry in the country already that's doing this. If you look at New South Wales and the Sydney rock oyster, the wholesale price value is roughly $50 million to $70 million. That's produced on about 4,000 or 4½ thousand hectares. There are at least 100 different business proponents. It's not a lot of space. If you were to think about the Dampier Peninsula and the potential places where rock oysters already grow, then you would definitely be able to look at that in terms of scale and start to have that conversation with stakeholders here and say, 'Well, if 4½ thousand hectares can produce $50 million to $70 million worth, what could we do here?' It exists. We don't have to develop the market; we don't have to dream it up. We just have to figure out how to grow them commercially now. CHAIR: Yes. This might seem a little bit left field, Mr Brown, but you also do pearling. Mr Brown : Yes. CHAIR: You farm that. With the meat, once you harvest that, what happens in terms of production and retail? I get that pearls are a commodity and an asset and that's what you sell. Mr Brown : Here, the species we use for pearl production is Pinctada maxima. It's not a rock oyster. This might be the confusion. It's an oceanic oyster. When we finish pearl production, we sell the adductor muscle like a scallop. CHAIR: That's the inner flesh, isn't it? Mr Brown : It's the bit that holds the valves together. CHAIR: Is there a big market for that? Mr Brown : There is, but in our industry it's a relatively small by-product. The bigger by-product is the shell itself, which over the last few years— CHAIR: We're going to have a conversation with someone who's doing the shell. Mr Brown : Oh, yes, the biomedical. We still sell the shell by the tonne. I had a shell buyer at the farm yesterday. It's a significant part of our industry still, but the cultivation of the pearls is still the primary output. CHAIR: Thank you. Mr Brown : No problem. CHAIR: Thank you for your evidence today. We will refine those questions. Mr Bellanger, if the three of you are happy to receive those questions on notice, there's a two-week turnaround for your responses back. If we could get those, that would help with the committee's deliberations. Mr Bellanger : Yes, that's fine. It'll be high-level at this stage, but at least we'll be able to provide it to you. CHAIR: It would only be for the purposes of the committee. We could make that clear that we wouldn't use it. If you didn't want us to use it—if it's commercial-in-confidence or if there are sensitivities with that—the secretariat will have that conversation with you. Then we can make sure that just the committee uses it for their deliberations. I thank the three of you for your evidence and your appearance here today. Proceedings suspended from 11:23 to 11:33 .