Katter’s Australian Party Leader Robbie Katter has backed a Cairns game fishing leader’s condemnation of the state government for siding with anti-fishing groups to slash Spanish mackerel quotas.
The Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) is proposing to radically reduce commercial Spanish mackerel catches by 75-90 per cent, sparking major backlash and fears of disastrous hits to market price and countless industries.
Cairns Professional Game Fishing Association spokesman Dan McCarthy has slammed Fisheries Queensland’s public consultation survey, released this month, as loaded and biased.
It comes just weeks after major party MPs failed to attend a public meeting in Cairns to discuss the quotas.
Only KAP’s Shane Knuth joined up to 300 local fishers.
Mr McCarthy said the survey on the management measures for the east coast Spanish mackerel fishery released by DAF was skewed towards severe restrictions and used a very different stock assessment model and method to any ever used before.
“You could be forgiven for thinking that the anti-fishing lobby group wrote the questions themselves; the department should be embarrassed for producing such a blatantly biased and skewed document masquerading as public consultation,” he said.
“Labor panders to anti groups at every opportunity; anti-fishing, anti-farming, anti-dam-building and anti-mining lobby groups are clearly calling the shots.”
Mr McCarthy said the Department claimed to know the exact stock levels in 1911 despite credible data not being recorded until about 1945.
Mr Katter said DAF’s proposal to slash Spanish mackerel limits was based on questionable scientific modelling and would inflict pain on the regional economy.
“If this fishery is cut off as planned, are we going to see Australia importing some of the 50,000 to 85,000 tonnes of Spanish mackerel that is caught in Indonesia each year?” Mr Katter said.
“In comparison we catch about 500 tonnes commercially and recreationally along Australia’s east coast, and we are the ones looking to have our fishery cut off and our jobs and prosperity lost.
“If the concern is about conservation of fish stocks, wouldn’t we just be importing the environmental pressures created by Indonesia?”
This article appeared in Cape York Weekly, 19 April 2022.
