Legislative Council - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2025-10-28 Daily Xml

Contents

Fishing Restrictions

The Hon. J.M.A. LENSINK (14:58): Supplementary: does this include ensuring that fishing restrictions are proportionate to the actual algal bloom impact on stocks without being unnecessarily prolonged or applied without scientific advice?

The PRESIDENT: Minister, if you can provide information, I guess that would be helpful.

The Hon. C.M. SCRIVEN (Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, Minister for Forest Industries) (14:58): Sure. I thank the honourable member for her supplementary question. I think what she is failing to appreciate is that sustainability needs to be the overriding principle here. We have an unprecedented algal bloom and therefore the impacts on our fish stocks are also unprecedented. The algal bloom continues to be a changing phenomenon, as we have seen over the past six or seven months or so, and so the impacts of the algal bloom are continuing to unfold. Until we know the full impacts we obviously can't have the full picture. What we are doing is attempting to get as much information as possible and as much data as possible, and make decisions accordingly.