Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Rights allocation? Mentioned again by Bill.
He did a very good job actually of allocating his rights, um ...
and actually if I was more recreation than commercial I'd 100% agree but I'm certainly
80% of the way there. We need good data, we need to sit down and talk
and we need to actually get together and work out
how are we going to allocate our rights between - and it's not commercial and recreational -
it's the public, commercial, receational and indigenous
- and we have to work that out as a specific
tool. We have, um, MPA
... I've put there 'perceptions' and I'll come to that
in a second but ... marine protected areas for me - the debate is
lost. They are not fisheries management tools. I can say that till I'm blue in the face
and you'll all go 'Yeah, righto, heard that before.' The truth is, they're not
- they are marine biodiversity protection areas and that's great.
But I'm not going to try and convince you or convince the public because there's not
a win-win possibility. The ...
NGO, um ... publicity, the media
the general concerns and the history, etc - have led everyone
to understand MPAs are essential. So, I think, why don't we
just sit down and agree? And, as CFA, we agree. MPAs
are essential. We believe they need to be put in
- we believe and we will be part of the marine biodiversity
bio-regionalisation process. - and we will support MPAs
coming in. What we will aim to do is to balance that
and try and avoid as much of the displaced activity and impact
as possible. What we will do is try and
ensure that our fisheries that are managed outside those MPAs are done
in the best way possible and that people understand
that good fisheries management doesn't actually necessarily
mean you have to block out huge areas of the water and
prevent people from fishing in it. So we've got a responsibility
- industry leadership - um, definitely
education programmes. One of our problems in the industry is finding people
that are either sane or insane enough to get off a boat and onto shore
and start talking and dealing with the myriad of rules and
regulations and so on and so forth. We need a direct industry
objection of unsustainable fishing. Y'know, we can have our
own internal debates and sit down and say, 'Joan Irk
you can't keep doing that because not only are you killing whatever it is you're killing
that you shouldn't be you're destroying the reputation of the whole industry.'
And, we need to change government terminology. And this is why I didn't answer
Patrick's question before because if there's one thing that's
wrong it's trying to say that
'I'm in a great fishery. It's not over-fished and
I'm not over-fishing.' Excuse me, it's like, well ..
er, I'm not burning all my trees and
I'm not ploughing up the land. I mean, Jesus Christ, gimme a break. Let's
find some words that actually say it's healthy. I don't care
what the words are - but positive words rather than the negative
commentation because otherwise every time it's reported people think, 'Jesus
... y'know, they're not over-fishing, it's not over-fished.' Well, that immediately goes into the
bad barrel as far as I'm concerned. Rights allocation
Um, we need that balance between competing users. The biggest
thing from the commercial industry is that it improves certainty. It gives us a planning horizon
and it allows us to actually generate both
professional people in the industry and investment in the industry
- which is critical to its success. We do have to
decide on how we're going to achieve it but, um ...
that's one for a bigger group than I at the moment.
The MPAs? Um, ...
... what can you say? I mean, public perception
... let's just minimise displaced activity. Get a government
policy in place that acknowledges that where displaced activity occurs it be adjusted
- if you don't want to use the compensation word - and
let's move on. I personally find it really hard to understand why
it's okay to set aside, y'know, 10% of the land and
everyone wants to talk about 30% of the water. I personally
have some problems with the debate between
why you should ban trawling, as Bill mentioned, through a marine
protected area - which is really there for benthic protection
or whatever but ... those are debates we can all have and
we can achieve them and we can MPAs around Australia and we can
herald them and be proud of them ... And we can do it together.
Which is even more important. So, I suppose, um ...
to finish up - and this is where I will need my glasses because I can't see this
scribble that I've put there well enough. I've got a few main points
First is honesty. Dealings with eachother.
Instead of running around trying to denegrate
whether it be the recreational or the commercial or
NGOs, we all have a role. We all have a right to be part of the system
- what we need to do is actually talk with facts
and try wherever we can to promote that as an honest
debate. The responsibility? I put that pretty much
um, down to the industry. We have to sort out
a lot more of our own ratbags and vagabonds
We do need though, some support in terms of extension
R&D to bring the industry up to another level were it can actually do that.
Certainty ... in terms of the access
direction and balance, if you like, um
... so that we can plan ahead and ... back to my original
big hairy audacious goal - so that what we can do is have Australians
say, 'We believe fishing is good. We want to see Australian
fish on our plate. We want that fish sustainable but we want fishing.'
And I think that's going to be a really critical communication
issue for us. MPAs? Back to marine
biodiversity protection. Um, a good thing for public perception.
In instances on the Barrier Reef, where it's a sink/sauce type
situation there will be very real benefits. In other cases
there will be minimal benefits whatsoever. But I think
overall the picture's really pretty positive. We've got an awful lot going
on at a government level with policies and reviews
- the VPBC Act and so on. Um, I believe that we can
grasp those, work together and actually create a great future
for the industry. Thank you very much.