Fishing industry wrecked by whacky policy

Allan Essery writes about the government's environment policy and how it is being driven by Greens and other environmentalists whose marine agenda follows the doctrine of catch or eat no fish.

Recently we heard the Gillard Government’s Environment Minister, Tony Bourke’s introduction to the creation of a huge Marine National Park that is said to be in size equal to the area of Australia. It was a simplistic explanation that had all in my household in fits of laughter when he claimed that there was a need to protect our ocean environs so that in fifty years time children could go out on the ocean and see ‘Nemo’.

There are most certainly parts of our offshore waters that need protection for obvious reasons but to create massive marine national parks just to satisfy environmentalists and Greens has no other outcome than to damage our economy and send many in our fishing industry backwards, out of the business.

The Australian Fishing Management Authority says, “Fish are a multi-billion dollar industry for Australia. They are our fifth largest food producing industry, in fact worth more than $2.1 billion to our economy every year.” They go on to say, “Australian fish stocks are generally in good shape and improving. Catch levels are set under harvest strategies that provide for more abundant target species than previous settings.” Everyone seemed to be happy with that arrangement except the Greens, the environmentalists, and Tony Bourke.

With the importance of commercial fishing to our economy and their own survival in mind Brian Jeffriess, of the Commonwealth Fisheries Association, says it threatens the livelihoods of hundreds of fishermen and their communities. General manager for Austral Fisheries, Andy Prendergast says the Australian fishery is already one of the best managed in the world. He says his fishermen will be excluded from their most important fishing ground, which lies off the Wellesley Islands group in the Gulf of Carpenteria.

Mr Prendergast says adding insult to injury is the fact that this part of the fishery is where the industry currently conducts scientific monitoring to measure the health of the fishery. Under the guidance of the CSIRO, industry has funded charters that go out, and, “we have what we call a benthic impact study site to see the effects of trawling on the marine ecosystem.”

Chris Smyth, of the Australian Conservation Foundation claims, “There’s plenty of science around that shows that protecting areas of oceans works.” He says that the establishment of highly protected zones actually increases fish stocks. Now who would have thought that? It doesn’t take a mental giant to work out that if you ban fishing in a certain area fish stocks will increase; is that as good as it sounds?

In Western Australia recreational fishermen are, as an example, pointing to the damage resulting from tight restrictions on Pink Snapper. The limit: one fish per angler, per day. “The Pink Snapper are now in plague proportions, which have a detrimental effect on other fish species,” they say.

Guy Leyland is a spokesman for the WA Fishing Industry Council. "Our reaction is strong disappointment, there will be impacts in terms of the commercial fisheries off Western Australia," he said.

"Those impacts range from mild to severe. I think some businesses will probably reach the tipping point in terms of their viability. They will be forced out of fishing businesses.

"The impacts range from shark and scale fish in the north-west, in the south-west mackerel, scale fish and rock lobster off the Abrolhos Islands and Kalbarri and scallop and shark fishing off the south-west and south coast of Western Australia.

"What I find extraordinary is this spruiking by the Gillard Government in terms of this initiative of effectively setting aside from any economic activity a huge part of Australian sovereign waters, that's being spruiked as a major achievement, which I find extraordinary.

"It would seem we're leading the world in terms of a carbon tax, shutting down our live cattle industry to Indonesia, the next achievement of the Gillard Government is to add the commercial fishing industry in Australia, so shutting down primary industries and regional economies for the offer of inner city seats of the east coast."

What does this mean for the taxpayer? It means that there will be a new $2.1 billion hole to fill as the significant economic advantages of our fishing industry disappear just to satisfy the Greens and environmentalists lobby.

Allan is retired from active RAAF duty. In civilian life he was a pilot and flight instructor. He was also the commander of an Royeal Volunteer Coastal Patrol maritime rescue unit on the South Coast of NSW and senior officer for the Far South Coast. He fights for a fair go for ex-servicemen and women and is a harsh critic of the government's treatment of serving and ex-service personnel.