Motions

Recreational Fishing

Debate resumed.

Mr HUGHES (Giles) (12:24): I have listened with interest to all the speakers who have contributed to this debate so far, but I especially listened to the member for Colton because he has this incredibly impressive trophy which means he is obviously a serious fisher. As members are probably aware, the member for Colton and I have a number of things in common: we are both short, we are both bald, we are both tireless and we are both incredibly good-looking.

The Hon. L.A. Vlahos interjecting:

Mr HUGHES: I said 'tireless'. But the other thing that we have in common is that we are both very keen fishers. For many years I have been a recreational fisher. I started with my dad when he used to take us to Ireland to fish in the rivers and canals, so when I came out to Australia at the age of 10, there were no rivers or canals or anything like that around Whyalla but there was a beautiful coastline. Over the years I have explored much of South Australia's coastline—and I am often quite jealous about this, not that I want your seat—but the coastline that the member for Flinders has is just an exceptional part of the world.

The importance of recreational fishing is that it has a very significant economic impact, especially on regional communities, but the other very important element is the social element that the member for Stuart raised. I am sure that when I am on my deathbed some of the fondest memories I will have will be those of camping on the West Coast, often in isolated locations, with my kids. Fishing was always, and is always, an integral part of those fishing trips to the West Coast. I would classify myself as a conservationist, and I think it is incredibly important when we are looking at our fishing stocks that we take a conservative approach in order to sustain them so that they are going to be there for future generations, both in the recreational sector and the professional sector.

Many years ago, when I was on the Whyalla city council, I received a letter from an individual who had fished the waters of Spencer Gulf going back to the 1940s, and in the letter he described what it was like to fish the waters of Spencer Gulf in the late 1940s into the 1950s. The point that he made was that the range of species, the size of the fish and the quantities (the size of the schools) are all gone. We no longer see what he used to see.

When we carry out these scientific assessments, and scientific assessments are of a more contemporary nature, what is often missing is the real baseline. What was the gulf like? What were our coastal waters like in back in the 1920s and 1930s? It has fundamentally changed, as have the world's oceans when it comes to fish stocks. It is incredibly important that we get this right. There are often gaps in the scientific assessments we do, but at least the scientific assessments have a degree of rigour that goes beyond the anecdotal and the personal experience.

I listened to the member for Stuart with some interest because obviously the increased size limit on King George whiting has an impact on Upper Spencer Gulf, and I think that is something we should revisit at some point. Much of what the member for Stuart had to say strikes me as reasonably accurate. I fully support many of the other changes to bag and size limits. There are some recreational people go out there and really hammer it. I wonder why they need so many fish; they do not fish responsibly. Fortunately, most people do.

The state government is committed to sustaining our fisheries. There is always going to be a degree of difference and controversy. There is always going to be a clash between what the scientific assessments are telling us we should be doing and what we end up doing politically. Often, the science is pushing us farther and farther out. We know that in oceanic waters, globally, 90 per cent of the top-order predators have gone—they have been wiped out, and this is leading to fundamental changes in marine ecosystems.

In South Australia and Australia generally, we do attempt to manage our fish stocks quite well, but there is always room for improvement. I know there was a lot of controversy around the closures and the protected areas, but once again the science was telling us that those closures and protected areas need to be far more extensive than they are now. At least we have a start. It is a balance, but at the end of the day it is the science that should be driving us. I would be a very strong advocate of the state government investing more in that area so that we have a fuller and more comprehensive understanding of the marine environment in South Australia.

It is a marine environment that is undergoing change beyond just the recreational and professional impacts. You just have to look at what has happened in Adelaide. Unfortunately, those of us who live in more distant areas are largely spared from some of this. The destruction of the coast around Adelaide and the wiping out of the seagrass beds off Adelaide—largely due to effluent and turbidity—have had a major impact on the fishing experience in this part of the world.

Where I come from, in Whyalla, the coke ovens for many years spewed out ammonia into the marine environment—essentially, spewing out a fertiliser. That destroyed close to 20 square kilometres of seagrass beds in False Bay. That was addressed some 10 or 15 years ago, and we are seeing somewhat of a resurgence in those seagrass beds in False Bay. These elements—the loss of habitat and the changes that are happening in terms of both ocean acidity and the warming of the ocean—are going to have profound effects on our fisheries.

There is already significant movement in a number of our fish species. These are things that are going to continue to have an impact and, if we do not address that, there will be some very serious and negative impacts. The fishing people I speak to in my community were not all on board with the changes, especially the changes around King George whiting, but in general there is a very strong conservation ethic amongst most of the fishing people I know. They do realise that they have to look after our fish stock.

It would be tragic if my kids—who have inherited the fishing bug, especially one of them—when they go on to have their own children, were not able to go to the West Coast to go camping, put a line in and get a good feed.

Mr BELL (Mount Gambier) (12:34): I rise to support the member for Chaffey's motion:

That this house—

(a) notes the economic and social benefits of recreational fishing to South Australia;

(b) condemns the state government for not undertaking a regional economic impact assessment statement prior to introducing changes to recreational fishing bag, size and boat limits in South Australia; and

(c) acknowledges the impact on communities, particularly along the South Australian coast, affected by the changes to fishing 26 species and spatial closures.

Unlike members opposite, and the member for Chaffey, I am actually a terrible fisherman. I am the person on the boat who has to have the hook baited for him, basically the rod put in the right spot, and I still cannot seem to land a whiting while my mates are pulling them in by the dozen.

Mr Whetstone: What about crayfish?

Mr BELL: However, when it comes to crayfish, which is more prevalent in my area, we do a little bit better.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: They go in the pot on their own, don't they?

Mr BELL: Correct. You bait them, have a little bit of local knowledge of where to put them and you put them down there. I do like scuba diving and hunting for crays with friends in an aqua environment, but that does not mean that I am not passionate about fishing and do not see the economic impact that it does have.

A number of my good friends have shacks at Port Hughes and, with the amount they spend on a boat, fishing, fuel, bait and rigs, they could seriously have two investment houses and be doing a lot better than perhaps they are. It is there that I gain a lot of insight into the recreational fishing area, and nearly 300,000 recreational fishers in South Australia are certainly an economic driver for this state. I do appreciate the synergy between tourism and recreational fishing, and I think that should be enhanced at every level.

What disappoints me, and something I would fight very strongly for, is that those people caught doing the wrong thing should be penalised severely, and far more severely than I think they are at the moment. I know of professionals down home who have been caught time and time again doing the wrong thing, and the penalty does not in any way address the seriousness of the issue.

I would be a strident supporter if the government introduced far tougher penalties, and I am talking about the immediate confiscation of equipment, boats and the like, to be forfeited to the Crown and sold. I really do not care, because what we see is a group punished for the actions of a very small minority. It is that minority that needs to be addressed and looked at in a severe way and not tarnish the whole group.

Out of the 300,000 recreational fishers in this state, the vast majority do the right thing, and I see it very close up when we are measuring crayfish out of pots. Even if the measure just hits the back of the crayfish, we put them back in the water because (a) it is not worth taking the risk, and (b) we know that future healthy stocks rely on people doing the right thing. Those caught doing the wrong thing need to understand the seriousness of it, and that will spread like you would not believe as soon as there are one or two convictions for what they would determine as pretty minor offences. Well, I do not think they are minor. I think everyone knows the rules, and they should be strictly applied.

To come back to the member for Giles' contribution—and he made a very good contribution—one of the problems we have is that the recreational scene is an inexact science. If you are going to use science to predict bag limits, boat limits and size limits, I do not think the current method works. It is a sampling and then an extrapolation of that sample group. It is much easier for professional fishers to have a scientific approach to it because, first of all, obviously they are licensed so you know who they are. Their catches are weighed and you can see what stock is being taken out of the environment.

Recreational fishing does not have that same level of science wrapped around it. I actually agree with the member for Giles that we should let science determine appropriate catch rates, bag limits, boat limits and sizes. However, we will need to do a hell of a lot more work in that space to adequately inform us of that. I just want to go back to a local story. I probably should have said it at the start.

The number one present my daughter wanted for Christmas was a fishing rod. I said, 'That's okay, darling. I'll get you a fishing rod and we'll go fishing.' She is only eight years old. I bought a pink fishing rod from BCF—there is no sponsorship involved there. We went fishing down at Pelican Point and it was one of the best days I have had with my children in a long time—my 10-year-old son, my eight-year-old daughter—no hook, just practising casting with a sinker, talking about who could get the farthest, who could not hit dad in the head with a sinker, who could get the line tangled, all that type of stuff.

After about an hour of practising how to cast properly, we decided to put the hooks on, put the bait on and go fishing, which was wonderful until she caught her first fish, which she reeled in and then started crying uncontrollably because she did not want me to kill the fish. Little did she know that I have absolutely no idea how to fillet the thing because my mates always do it and I provide the beers. So we released it back into the water even though it was very nice sized bream. She has not gone fishing since, but we have to encourage her back into that space. It impacts on me the importance of quality family time, and fishing, particularly recreational fishing, provides that for many families in South Australia.

One of the problems the government has, though, is a distrust. I hear it all the time around marine parks. Lots of locals say that if the government was serious about marine parks, they would have a marine park in the metropolitan waters of Adelaide because that is where most of the damage has occurred. I do not necessarily agree with that. I am just saying that that is one of the comments they make.

In terms of the King George whiting initiative to catch and fillet King George whiting between 1 and 30 April, save/freeze the frame (skeleton, including head, tail and guts intact) and return the form in a bag to the local tackle shop, I got on a website called RecFish SA: Selling South Aussies Short. I thought I would read a bit about this initiative and see what people are commenting on because the government loves talking about knocking on people's doors and getting really positive responses on a whole range of things. It would do the government a bit of a favour to look at some of these. Here are just some of the comments. Chris writes: 'Simple. The powers that be no longer hold the trust of South Australian anglers.' Cal Charters commented:

The reasons are pretty obvious when you know how government work. If you send in a fish frame in May, for example, and it has eggs ready to spawn, then wherever you caught it will be called a spawning area and closed next May. That is the stupid, impulsive they do with limited, uneducated advice at PIRSA and RecFish.

The comments go on and on. There is a distrust between elements within the recreational industry and the government.

Mr PEDERICK (Hammond) (12:44): Thank you Madam independent Deputy Speaker. I wish to speak to the motion from the member for Chaffey, namely:

That this house—

(a) notes the economic and social benefits of recreational fishing to South Australia;

(b) condemns the state government for not undertaking a regional economic impact assessment statement prior to introducing changes to recreational fishing bag, size and boat limits in South Australia; and

(c) acknowledges the impact on communities, particularly along the South Australian coast, affected by the changes to fishing 26 species and spatial closures.

As we are having a discussion about our fishing expertise—and mine is very limited—I had my best fishing as a young lad with my brothers on the Port Lincoln jetty, of all places, in the electorate of the member for Flinders.

Mr Treloar: Nothing like fresh tommies.

Mr PEDERICK: That's it. I think I was the only one that day to catch some fish; it was a yellow-looking thing. I do not even know what it was, but someone advised me you could not eat it. I was keen to take it back to show my family what I had caught, but one of my brothers threw it back. The fish was long dead by this time, so I was not impressed, and I think I let him know.

Beyond that, a few years ago my boys got some fishing rods from their grandmother. We went down to Robe and were there just in the harbor, baiting up the hooks and putting them in and it was all good. Nothing was happening of course. I pulled them up at one stage and there was no bait on the hooks. I thought my wife was not looking, and I just threw the line straight back in. She said, 'What are you doing?' I said, 'Well, I'm fishing.' She said, 'You haven't baited up the hooks.' I said, 'We're getting the same result and just saving on bait.' I got a bit of a reprimand after that.

The Hon. L.A. Vlahos: Did she call you 'fish lips' after that?

Mr PEDERICK: She calls me lots of things, but I will not say. A couple of years ago we were up at Cooper Creek near Innamincka and the Cooper was pretty cold, especially first thing in the morning when you go for an early morning dip. We threw our lines in there and I think all we managed to do was tangle them up in the trees and the undergrowth and it was a bit of a mess.

The most recent enjoyable experience was when I drove over to Western Australia with the family and stopped at Fowler's Bay and caught up with Di and Brian Smith and a whole of crew of people there—a magnificent community in the electorate of the member for Flinders, who could really show a lot of people how life should be lived and how to relax. It is totally off grid, but that is another debate I can have another day.

I went up to my boys and said, 'They're going to take us out to check the craypots.' My boys, being like me, are real landlubbers and just thought we were going out in a little aluminium dingy. It was a bit better than a dingy; it was a little power boat about seven or eight metres long with a very small cabin on it, and we were going out to check the pots. I had no idea how far out we were going either. Fowler's Bay is very protected by a natural peninsula, a beautiful bay.

So, we all got on the boat, about six of us—myself and my two boys and these other blokes. Thank God we had a professional deckie so that they did not have to rely on me! We charged out, went around the end of the peninsula, and there we were in the chop. We were just going up and down, up and down. I was looking at my boys for their reaction. They were not too bad at this stage.

We got around the corner and we were offshore maybe a couple of kilometres, certainly well within sight of land. I looked at my young bloke, who was 12 at the time, and said, 'How you going, Angus?' He said, 'Don't even speak to me.' I thought, 'Okay.' I said, 'Well, look, if anything happens, you can see the land, you know which way to swim', but I do not think he took that as a very happy comment.

We checked the pots—there were only six to check, I think—and we managed to get one cray, so that was a bit of an experience. When we came back into Fowler's Bay itself, the other fishing blokes gave my boys some hand reels and we started hauling in snook. That was a magnificent experience, just essentially trawling along—

Mr Hughes: You didn't eat them, did you?

Mr PEDERICK: Yes, we ate them that night—absolutely—on the barbecue. I got some good photos of the boys having a good crack at these snook. I must say that Fowlers Bay is a gem of a place and if you ever get the opportunity you should go there to visit, especially with the very fine company that we had.

There are a whole lot of things that need to be taken into account about fishing. I note the recent meetings that were had around the state, and I got to several of them. When I was the shadow minister for fisheries I was opposite to the Hon. Gail Gago, who was the minister at the time when there were some recreational fishing limits brought in. I must say I had very good negotiations with Mehdi Doroudi and had a couple of wins.

There is no secret that fishing does need to be managed, but I think there is something else we need to acknowledge, and I know there are some people in the department who will acknowledge this, and that is the impact of the notorious New Zealand fur seals on fish stocks. I know I have talked in this place about their impact on the Lakes and Coorong fishery, and they are still having a heavy impact.

I went to the Northern Zone rock lobster fishery dinner late last year and some of those people said to me, 'Why stop there? I am looking for some sort of program and control,' in regard to New Zealand fur seals. I said that we need to work something out on the inland waters before we get out to sea. What I was reflecting on before is what people in the department are aware of, that I have heard, in regard to declining fish stocks. We know that garfish are fully fished, we know whiting are under pressure, and this is what many people believe is the impact that the well over 100,000 New Zealand fur seals are having on our ocean species, including whiting and their breeding and spawning grounds up around Eyre Peninsula and Yorke Peninsula.

I believe there does need to be true science, as the member for Giles indicated earlier, in regard to the management of fisheries and that includes what is happening with predator species, no matter what they are, offshore. If we do not do that, we will not have fisheries—we just will not. I know for a fact that, especially in a netting situation, New Zealand fur seals kill for fun.

Other things that need to be managed, obviously, are things like the recreational catch of Goolwa pipis in my electorate. They have become very much a favoured item for human consumption, especially over the last few years. They used to be recognised as bait but are now very much for human consumption. People are very keen to catch as many as they can and, dare I say it, probably take more than they should.

The South Australian Research and Development Institute was looking at getting whiting fish frames to do some research, and I know that has been mentioned by the member for Mount Gambier. I can understand why fishermen (a) do not want to give up where they caught them, and (b) just do not want to be involved with anything to do with government, because basically they got done right over with the marine parks process when fishermen took to government where they fished, where their hotspots were, and guess what? That is where the marine parks turned up.

I have always said in this place that it should not be up to the Department of Environment to manage fisheries, it should be up to the fisheries department. We have one of the best acts and one of the best legislative programs and regulatory processes in the world and to leave it in the hands of the environment department, I have always said, is an utter disgrace.

We already had excellent legislation. The fishermen know that if they cross the line—especially commercial fishers—they are in real strife. We certainly need to manage fish stocks, but if we are going to do the science let's not just manage human intervention, but let's also look at predator species so that we can get an accurate picture of what is happening on our fish stocks now and into the future so that our kids and grandkids can enjoy fishing well into the future.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (12:54): In the few minutes remaining, I would like to make a contribution to this motion brought to this place by the member for Chaffey which, amongst other things, notes the economic and social benefits of recreational fishing to South Australia. As mentioned by previous speakers, part of my electorate has an extraordinary length of very beautiful and, in many cases, pristine coastline. I acknowledge particularly the member for Giles' comments who, by the sound of it, spent much of his youth, and now with his children, visiting the West Coast of South Australia, and also the member for Hammond, who talked about his recent trip to Fowlers Bay.

The electorate of Flinders extends all the way from the township of Cowell down to Port Lincoln, around the corner, and all the way up to the Western Australian border, so there is well over 1,000 kilometres of accessible coastline, that is very attractive to both recreational and professional fisherman. It is often mentioned that the fishing fleet at Port Lincoln is the largest professional fishing fleet in the Southern Hemisphere, but it is also home to a significant recreational fishing population, as are all the other towns right around. Without wanting to list them all, it extends from Cowell, Arno Bay, Port Neill, around to Streaky Bay, Ceduna and on to Fowlers Bay.

Many members have spoken about their childhood memories of summer holidays and fishing expeditions. For me, it was at our family shack at Coffin Bay. We learned how to row a boat, catch fish and fillet them. We were much better at catching tommy ruffs than we were whiting, but anyway we got to know and love fresh tommies.

I attended some of the community meetings that were held around the state and on Eyre Peninsula and the West Coast in the lead-up to the change in these regulations. They were robust meetings, and not all but certainly most people at those meetings recognised that something needed to be done. They were not exactly sure what that should be, but something needed to be done about managing declining fish stocks because everybody recognised that fish are harder to catch and that we have to go out farther to get them. People now have bigger boats and are able to do that, but they are certainly going farther to get them.

The recent change in regulations was about reducing bag limits and increasing size limits for a number of species, but probably the focus in my part of the world will always be on the King George whiting. Interestingly, the size increase was moved to 32 centimetres east of 136 longitude, which aligns with Cape Catastrophe. That recognises the importance of the gulfs in the marine scale fishery and also recognises the fishing pressure that comes in those gulfs. By default, it makes the West Coast more attractive because, first and foremost, it retains the 30 centimetre size limit, and probably is not so impacted by the spatial closures during the month of May that exist at the bottom end of Spencer Gulf, adjacent to Kangaroo Island and Yorke Peninsula.

I regularly hear reports, particularly from constituents farther west, to Streaky Bay, Ceduna and that area, about concerns relating to what they term the 'tinnie brigade', visitors primarily from interstate who come to those towns. They are recognised by interstate numberplates and, at this time of the year, there might be up to 50 interstate plates at the boat ramp at Ceduna, and they fish hard for a period of time. We have introduced, through this parliament, possession limits and everybody recognises that that was a good move.

The member for Hammond and others have mentioned compliance. I believe that is an issue. Our fisheries officers do a very good job. They are always busy, they have an extraordinary area to cover and they cannot always be where they need to be. Even though we are making efforts towards managing fisheries through boat and bag limits, size limits and possession limits, it still seems that there is pressure on the fishery and I think that at some point in the future we are going to have to make more significant changes in the way in which we manage these fisheries overall. I seek leave to continue my remarks.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.

Sitting suspended from 13:00 to 14:00.