Recreational Fishing

Mr PICTON (Kaurna) (14:58): My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. Can you inform the house on how the government is consulting with recreational fishers regarding the recreational fishing management review?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport, Minister for Racing) (14:58): I thank the member for Kaurna for that question and acknowledge the coastline that he has in his electorate and the large amount of fishing that goes on off the jetties, the beaches and the boat ramps in the seat of Kaurna as well.

Earlier this month, we announced three discussion papers and a consultation period lasting until the end of April. So far, we have had 340 submissions to the inquiry. We are looking at boat limits, bag limits, and having a specific look at King George whiting. The reason we are doing a specific look at King George whiting is that every five years we do a survey of recreational fishers. What we found out through last year's survey was that there were 40,000 extra recreational fishers and, between them, they've taken an extra 200,000 King George whiting. That is 400,000 fillets that they've taken out of our coastal waters.

I know from speaking to people involved in fishing right around the state that they all recognise that we can't keep going with a 'business as usual' approach. What we don't know is what the answer will be, so we've put out some discussion papers, because some of the best advice we will get is from people who put in submissions and come along to the community meetings. So far, we've had meetings in Ceduna and Port Lincoln. I know the member for Flinders was there, and thank you very much for your interest in this issue and for getting along to the meeting.

The Hon. A. Koutsantonis: He cares about regional South Australia.

The SPEAKER: The Treasurer is on two warnings.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: We've also had meetings in Whyalla and last night in Wallaroo—

Members interjecting:

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: Yes, I'm about to get to that. The member for Goyder was at the meeting in Wallaroo last night—

Mr Griffiths: I drove to Wallaroo for it—120 people there.

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL: 120 people. As I mentioned before, we've had 360 people turn up to these four meetings, which is terrific. It's great to see this input, and I thank the member for Goyder for that. We have meetings coming up in Adelaide tonight at Glenelg, Renmark tomorrow night, then Millicent next Tuesday night, Victor Harbor on Wednesday night and Kangaroo Island on Thursday night.

We've also added some meetings after some discussions with the member for Goyder and the member for Stuart. We have a meeting in Yorketown and another in Port Augusta coming up in April, and a third meeting—a second metropolitan Adelaide meeting—will be held at Port Noarlunga in April as well. It's been great to have the cooperation of people on the other side, working together and listening to the views of their constituencies to make sure we can reach as many people as possible, because this is a great resource and we need to make sure we protect it for future generations.

Some 277,000 people are involved in recreational fishing each year and, because we only do this review every five years, it takes a while to get all the stats in. We're working constantly with the commercial fisheries and we always know how much fish they are taking, so we can work with them and tweak things each year when we talk about quotas and the amount of fish they can take. Certainly, an increase of 40,000 in the number of people going fishing is a great thing, because it is a fantastic recreational pursuit but, by the same token, taking 200,000 extra fish in that one species, King George whiting, is having an effect.

We only need to talk to our friends who go fishing to know that the days of getting their bag limit and their boat limit don't happen like they used to. People are noticing that there has been a depletion in the stock. We want to work with them, and that is what we are doing through the consultation period, through the public meetings and also by accepting submissions from people involved in fishing or who have an interest in fishing.