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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2012-02-14 Daily Xml
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ROCK LOBSTER FISHERY

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (15:36): I seek leave to make an explanation before directing questions to the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries on the subject of rock lobster fishing.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: Thank you, Mr President. As you yourself may be aware, being a South-East person and—

The Hon. D.W. Ridgway: And a connoisseur of rock lobsters.

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK: —a connoisseur of rock lobsters on occasion, a number of us on this side of the house have just returned from the sunny South-East and rock lobster fishermen in the southern zone are experiencing their best season in many years with well over half their quota filled in just three months. Perhaps desperate for a good news story, we saw last month this minister lauding her department for the fishermen's success, telling the local paper that SARDI had the luxury of knowing all along that this would be a bumper season. My questions are:

1. If SARDI had knowledge all along that this season as well as that of 2010-11 were going to be good fishing seasons, why then in 2010 did they give an ominous warning that the industry was in crisis and that, in fact, it was finished?

2. If the government had the luxury of predicting better than average seasons two years in advance, why then did the minister's predecessor cut the 2010-11 season by two months?

3. If the government did indeed have this valuable information, why did it withhold it from the fishing industry and instead spin them tales of doom and gloom?

The Hon. G.E. GAGO (Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, Minister for Forests, Minister for Regional Development, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the Status of Women) (15:37): I thank the honourable member for her most important question. Indeed, our rock lobster fishery is a very important part of our fisheries. Both the southern and northern zones are very productive fisheries and indeed are something that most of us enjoy immensely. Part of PIRSA's strategy is obviously to assist in managing the long-term sustainability of these fisheries. It is quite critical that these fisheries, like all of our commercial fisheries, do not become over-fished. Rock lobsters are worth a lot of money and there is a significant attraction to fishing the greatest amount each year as possible.

Fisheries manage the biomass of rock lobster in these waters very cautiously. They have a system and a protocol of assessing what the biomass is likely to be and set limits accordingly. We are very fortunate that the results have been very good to date and we are very pleased with that outcome, and that is a result of the quite amazing degree of cooperation between the fishers and PIRSA. I have to congratulate the fishers. They cooperate greatly with PIRSA in providing us with the information that we need to make those assessments—things like the number of undersized crays that are pulled up in each pot load and other information. That helps us plan ahead. PIRSA attempts to provide accurate information to all fishery sectors in a timely way whenever they can.

In terms of the specific timings that the honourable member has asked for, I do not have those details but I am happy to take those on notice and bring back a response. I can absolutely assure the honourable member that it is with the high degree of cooperation between very diligent and hardworking fisheries officers and the fishers themselves that we can be very proud of having a rock lobster industry which is sustainable and which is yielding such great benefits not only to the fishers and their families but a lot of those going to export, and they contribute significantly to the overall economic benefit of this state. I congratulate PIRSA officers and also rock lobster fishers.

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