Port River Mud Cockles

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (14:57): I am being a hard worker today—and no comments from the simple son of a sausage maker. My question is to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. What is the state government doing to revive the mud cockle fishery at the Port River?

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) (14:57): I thank the member for Colton and place on the record the fishing industry's gratitude for the great work that he did as minister for fisheries in South Australia. I also acknowledge the fact that I think he is the only dual gold medal winning fisher in this chamber from the World Police and Fire Games.

The mud cockle fishery down at the Port River has been closed since 2011 to commercial and recreational fishers. I know that came as a great disappointment to the Premier, who as a child would be taken down there by his father to go looking for mud cockles, tube worms and tiger worms so they could use them for bait when they went fishing off the Henley jetty. But the fishery has been closed.

What SARDI, our South Australian Research and Development Institute, has been doing is working with the local cockle industry to try to revive a fishery that was overfished and that also had problems with some of the environmental conditions down there. They have recently put some trays of baby cockles of varying sizes into the mud down in the Port River area for a trial to repopulate the depleted stocks of this popular catch.

The stock enhancement and restoration project covers the fishery from Port Gawler Road to the tip of Lefevre Peninsula at Outer Harbor. The key objective is to reveal the factors contributing to the decline in the stock and attempt to re-establish aggregation of mud cockles in the Port River. They are slow-growing animals and also produce a small number of eggs per individual each season, so the stocks will take some time to recover. A total of 144 plastic trays measuring about 60 centimetres by 30 centimetres containing 16,000 baby cockles of different sizes and densities were buried and will need to remain undisturbed during the next three months. So just tell George about it, but tell him to stay away, alright? We don't want him taking any of these mud cockles.

Each tray was tagged to allow them to be identified and removed to measure the growth and survival of the cockles and the impact of natural predators such as crabs and rays. We ask the public and fishers to help the project by not anchoring or disturbing the bottom at Section Bank or of course moving any of the plastic trays that may be visible during low tide. The experimental trays will be monitored regularly.

I would like to thank commercial fishers who have assisted by suggesting the best locations for the restocking trial to occur. Their help has been invaluable. I would like to take this opportunity, too, to thank those members of parliament who came along to a briefing today with our people from SARDI and PIRSA. We have the recreational fishing review. There are three reviews underway. We announced it last month. It goes right through until the end of April.

There has been some tremendous feedback from all parts of the state. I want to commend everyone. I think it's been done in a very professional and respectful way. We will hear a different view in one part of the state than we might in another part, but all the letters that I am getting are coming in with really great contributions. In what can sometimes be a really emotive issue I think people are taking a sensible approach to it and really trying to offer positive things for the future of our recreational fisheries in South Australia.

The really important thing that we want to do is make sure the grandparents of the next generation can take their grandchildren fishing and be able to catch a fish, and we can't do that if we overfish the stocks that are there. So, a big thanks to the PIRSA and SARDI staff who have done a great job going around the state for all of these briefings and for conducting a briefing today, which was well attended by both sides of the house.