Local fishing operators may close with law changes

Peninsula residents wanting to buy local seafood from local retailers may soon not be able to do so, as changes to commercial fishing in NSW cut in, according to a Patonga fisherman from a family with more than 40 years in the industry.

Parliamentary Secretary for the Central Coast, Mr Scot MacDonald, has said the changes would support local fishers and ensure the supply of locally caught, high quality seafood continued into the future.

However, fisherman Mr Dane Van Der Neut said the opposite was true and he believed the changes could be the death knell for local operators.

He said at least four of six operators in Patonga were under threat.

Mr Van Der Neut said he had been fishing for a living for 10 years and his father had been working in the industry out of Patonga for over 40 years.

"He spent the past three decades fighting for his job through consecutive governments," he said.

Mr Van Der Neut said the latest NSW Government reform package was about corporatising the industry and targeting export markets.

Mr MacDonald said the key changes would see the NSW Government investing in fishing businesses and providing local fishers with the tools to better manage their business and ensure what is caught continues to be done so sustainably.

"The changes will provide more certainty and support for fishers to invest in their businesses, and cement the future of the commercial fishing industry for years to come," he said.

Mr Van Der Neut, who fishes Hawkesbury River squid and Broken Bay school prawns, said estuary prawn trawl fishers have been given until July 2017 to raise their minimum shareholding to 200 or they will not be able to access their fisheries.

"There is no guarantee that those shares will be available.

"We have been given no guarantee of any access at all because, in 2019, a committee will be established to determine how many boats should be left fishing," he said.

"There are different issues with different governments," he said.

"Labor Governments are predominantly green, whereas the Liberal and National Governments are more about corporatising, removing the smaller operators who support the local communities and turning them into larger businesses, moving them into larger ports and starting to work on export deals."

According to Mr Ven Der Neut, the latest NSW Government reforms "were asked for by a minority group in the industry who wanted to link their shares to the amount they could catch.

"Some of that minority group had good intentions, they wanted to buy more shares and run more traps or more nets.

"Ultimately what happened is the process got hijacked by a smaller minority group who had been buying up shares for years."

He said the industry was now split between active fishers and "latent endorsements" who may hold a certain class of shares (such as for crab pots) but are not actively fishing.

He said the NSW Government has used the catch history of active fishermen to come up with its caps on kilos allowed to be caught per day.

"Then they've redistributed the efforts of those active fishers in a Communist way over all the shares in a share class so now the active fisher's shares have a lot less value," he said.

Mr Van Der Neut uses the example of a five-member family who operated as a combine.

Their combined catch in the last year was 25 tonne of mud crabs.

Under the new rules their quota has been capped at 1400kg per fisher or a combined quote of seven tonne which means their business is no longer sustainable.

If that family is forced to sell its shares and exit the industry, there's nothing stopping someone with a latent endorsement from buying up their shares and then profiting from the demise of the active fishers.

"At this point of time, we import 87 per cent of the fish products we eat but I will be shocked if in 10 years' time you will be able to purchase locally caught seafood.

"This sort of reform has already happened in the lobster industry in NSW where you already have catch shares linked to a quota.

"I have already read reports from places like Columbia and smaller fishers are forced out of the industry through increased prices and after that it gets consolidated.

"When governments start to talk about sustainability we are talking about the amount of fish we take out of the ocean.

"That is the worst type of management we can do.

"The public does not understand that every time you have a shower, wash up, wash clothes that have micro plastics in them, that all goes in the drain and into fish habitat so while we are restricting what we can take out of the water we are still impacting on fish productivity.

"Commercial fishing is one of the only user groups of the marine environment that have a fishery management strategy underpinned by environmental impact studies.

"We've got all that.

"We also have the tick of sustainability.

"The only thing we don't have the tick for is export which is a good thing from my point of view because it keeps seafood in the local community."

According to Mr Van Der Neut around six commercial fishers are still operating out of Patonga and most are sole traders.

"My dad got shares a long time ago because he was in business pre-dating any reform.

"With most businesses you can make an educated gamble on the business, on what you are buying, there are no guarantees out of this.

"It is just a gamble that we will be buying more or less guaranteed access until 2019 and in 2019 we may have to do it all over again and the difference will be the Government in 2019 won't need new regulations to make the changes, they will already be in place."

"My belief is it is all about export and I feel what is happening is other countries overseas want our product to be on their tables and I don't blame them because we have the best seafood.

"But the consumer is going to lose if they don't wake up and do something about it.

"Commercial fishermen per electorate are in minute numbers so we don't stand a chance politically so we need to tell the consumers to tell their MPs to look after our seafood.

"In 2017 we won't know how many commercial fishers will be endorsed because we don't know how many shares are available.

"There are only two fishers in Patonga as we speak with enough shares.

"So if the shares are available we might see those existing fishers continue, that is of course if they can access the funds to buy those shares because what this will do is increase the share price beyond our range."

According to Mr MacDonald, the new program will give fishers the option to grow their business or choose to exit the industry "through a range of supportive measures including: low-rate loans; grants for retraining or for independent business advice; subsidies for buyers and sellers of shares; or fixed payments of $20,000 for fishing business buyouts."

The NSW Government has also extended its cap on management fees.

Assistance is also available for fishing cooperatives.

The NSW Government will also invest $400,000 as part of a campaign to promote NSW caught seafood as sustainable and fresh and work with industry to implement an origin- labelling scheme for cooked seafood across the state.

Media release, 31 May 2016

Hannah Eves, office of Scot MacDonald

Interview, 7 Jun 2016

Dane Van Der Neut, Woy Woy

Reporter: Jackie Pearson