Government of South Australia

Document ID: MPI F2019/000125

Mr Eddie Hughes MP Member for Giles 15 Delprat Terrace WHYALLA SA 5600

Dear Mr Hughes

Determination under the Freedom of Information Act 1991

I refer to your application made under the Freedom of Information Act 1991 received by the Office of the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development, the Hon Tim Whetstone MP on 1 August 2019, seeking access to the following:

"Any emails, letters or other correspondence between members of the commercial fishing sector and the Minister's office regarding commercial licence buy backs and quotas for fisheries in general and more specifically the snapper fishery. Also emails and / or correspondence between from recreational fishing association and/or rec fishers relating to new members of the minister's recreational fishing advisory council - in particular, i f the new members had any previous violations of fishing regulations."

Accordingly, the following determination has been finalised.

I have located fourteen documents that are captured within the scope of your request.

Determination 1

I have determined that access to the following document is granted in full:

Doc No. Description of document No. of Pages

Email from brofish2@bigpond.com to PIRSA:Minister Whetstone 1 dated 3 May 2019 RE: M189 Licence Buy Back

Determination 2

I have determined that access to the following documents is granted in part:

Doc No. Description of document No. of Pages

'Wage

1 Email from PIRSA:Minister Whetstone to brofish2@bigpond.com dated 6 May 2019 RE: SIMOUNDS, Tony — acknowledgement from the office of the Hon Tim Whetstone MP Email from brofish2@bigpond.com to PIRSA:Minister Whetstone 3 dated 15 May 2019 RE: SIMOUNDS, Tony — acknowledgement from the office of the Hon Tim Whetstone MP Email from eo@marinefishersa.com.au to Sara Bray dated 16 May 2019 RE: Harvest Tags Email from eo@marinefishersa.com.au to Sara Bray dated 25 June 2019 RE: MEDIA RELEASE — Hughes — Fishing Buyback Scrapped Email from brofish2@bigpond.com to Tim Whetstone, 2 PIRSA:Minister Whetstone, Sean Sloan (PIRSA) and Steven Marshall dated 25 June 2019 RE: Pulling the plug on buying out of 100 licence Email from eo@marinefishesa.com.au to Sara Bray dated 18 32 July2019 RE: Sharing the Fish Email from cfletcherm259@bigpond.com to Sara Bray dated 24 June 2019 RE: MEDIA RELEASE — Hughes — Fishing buyback scrapped Email from brofish2@bigpond.com to Sean Sloan (PIRSA), PIRSA:Minister Whetstone and Nathan Bicknell dated 10 June 2019 RE: M189 buy back

12 Email from Chaffey EO to PIRSA:Minister Whetstone dated 10 May 2019 RE: Reform

13 Email from PIRSA:Minister Whetstone dated 15 May 2019 RE: Acknowledgement from the office of the Hon Tim Whestone

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14 Letter from Minister Whetstone dated 4 June 2019 RE: Individual Transferable Quota management system

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The information removed from the above documents is pursuant to Clause 6(1) of Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act which states:

"6 - Documents affecting personal affairs (1) A document is an exempt document i f i t contains matter the disclosure of which

would involve the unreasonable disclosure of information concerning the personal affairs of any person (living or dead)."

The information removed consists of the following:

• Employee and personal details

It is considered that disclosure of this information would be an unreasonable intrusion into the privacy rights of the individuals concerned.

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Determination 3

I have determined that access to the following documents is refused:

Doc No. Description of document __ _

, _No. of Pages

10 Email to Sara Bray dated 2 April 2019 3 11 Email dated 29 April 2019 5

The information removed from the above documents is pursuant to Clause 7(1)(c) of Schedule 1 of the Freedom of Information Act which states:

"7- Documents affecting business affairs (1) A document is an exempt document —

(c) i f i t contains matter — (i) considering of information (other than trade secrets or

information

and

referred to in paragraph (b) concerning the business, professional, commercial or financial affairs of any agency or any other person;

(ii) the disclosure of which — (A) Could reasonably be expected to have an adverse effect

on those affairs or to prejudice the future supply o f such information to the Government or to an agency; and

(B) Would, on balance, be contrary to the public interest."

In accordance with the requirements of Premier and Cabinet Circular PC045, details of your application, and the documents to which you are given access, will be published in Minister Whetstone's disclosure log. A copy of PC045 can be found at http://dpc.sa.gov.au/ dataassets/pdf file/0019/20818/PC045-Disclosure-Log- Policy.pdf

If you disagree with publication, please advise the undersigned in writing within fourteen calendar days from the date of this determination.

If you are dissatisfied with this determination, you are entitled to exercise your right of review and appeal as outlined in the attached documentation, by completing the "Application for Review of Determination" and returning the completed form to:

Freedom of Information Principal Officer Office of the Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development GPO Box 1671 ADELAIDE SA 5001

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Should you require further information or clarification with respect to this matter, please contact Mr Simon Price, Chief of Staff on 8226 2931 or email: Minister.Whetstone@sa.gov.au

Yours sincerely

Fiona Bond Accredited Freedom of Information Officer OFFICE OF THE MINISTER FOR PRIMARY INDUSTRIES AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

rS /12_12019

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Watkins, Amy (PIRSA)

From: PIRSA:Minister Whetstone Sent: Monday, 6 May 2019 1:57 PM To: 'brofish2@bigpond.com' Subject: eA187039 - SIMOUNDS, Tony - acknowledgement from the office of the Hon Tim

Whetstone MP

eA187039

Mr Tony Simounds Broughton Fisheries Pty Ltd

Email: Brofish2@bigpond.com

'Thar Mr Simounds

Thank you for your email of 3 May 2019 to the Hon Tim Whetstone MP, Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development regarding fishing licence M189.

The Minister has asked Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA) to contact you directly regarding your email. Mr Jon Presser, Manager Fisheries Reform, Fisheries and Aquaculture from PIRSA will contact you in due course.

Thank you for taking the time to write to the Minister on this matter.

Yours sincerely

Fiona Bond Office Manager to the MINISTER FOR PRIMARY INDUSTRIES AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

M r Jon Presser, Manager Fisheries Reform, Fisheries and Aquaculture, PIRSA

Off ice o f the M in i s te r f o r Pr imary Industr ies and Regional Development

Level 10, 1 King William Street Adelaide SA 5000 1 GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 DX 667 Tel 08 8226 29311 Fax 08 8226 0844 1 Minister.Whetstone@sa.gov.au

411

The information contained within this email is confidential and may be the subject of legal privilege. This email is intended solely for the addressee, and if you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, copy, use or distribute this email or any of its attachments. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately via reply email, delete the message and any attachments from your system, and destroy any copies made. PIRSA makes no representation that this email or any attached files are free from viruses or other defects. It is the recipient's responsibility to check the email and any attached files for viruses or other defects.

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Bray, Sara (PIRSA)

From: brofish2 <brofish2@bigpond.com> Sent: Friday, 3 May 2019 12:22 PM To: PIRSA:Minister Whetstone; Tim Whetstone MP Cc: brofish2@bigpond.com Subject: M189 licence buy back

Hi Tim

Due to our circumstance that there will be no licence buy back in July 2019 and the fact that we are in the process o f trying to purchase a Spencer Gulf prawn licence & finance we are going to be forced to stop fishing our licence M189.

For us to purchase a prawn licence I have to teach m y two sons Jake and Bradley to run our crab boat Pot Luck K03.

This is so when I am needed to do other jobs for prawn fishing like selling prawns the boys can run Pot _ck with out me on board.

The purpose o f this email is, i f we stop fishing M189 to wait for buy back and keep paying our licence fees will it affect us when it comes the time for gov licence buy back.

This is all we are waiting for is to leave the MSF industry for a far sum and reinvest into another fishery.

The time that we will stop fishing will be around 15th May or 1st July.

I f you could help us with a reply to assure us that we will not be penalized for doing so.

Are family has been in the marine scale fishery since the mid to late1960s as my father Peter Simounds who started us off as fisherman, but sadly he is now deceased & I took over the family fishing business.

Thank you and I await your reply

K i n d Regards T o n y Simounds Broughton Fisher ies P t y Ltd KO3 & M189 2 0 E v e n i t t Ave Fu lham Gardens South Australia 5024 P h T o n y 0428836749

Sent f rom m y Samsung Mobi l e o n the Telstra M o b i l e Network

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Bond, Fiona (PIRSA)

From: brofish2 <brofish2@bigpond.com> Sent: Wednesday, 15 May 2019 4:04 PM To: PIRSA:Minister Whetstone Cc: brofish2@bigpond.com Subject: Re: eA187039 - SIMOUNDS, Tony - acknowledgement from the office of the Hon

Tim Whetstone MP Attachments: A4027268 Letter to Tony Simounds re M189.pdf

Hi Fiona

A lot o f good that done, I have been a liberal voter all my life and no reassurance that i f we invest into another fishery that are licence will not devalue in any way.

We will be as o f the 1st o f July releaving pressure off the marine scale fishery by the way o f not fishing are licence.

are trying to diversify into another industry that will be costing us around 5 5mill and can't afford to lose money on the value o f M189 by not fishing it.

All I am asking is it is look at from 30th June back.

As I said our family have been in the fishery since early 70s

Letter from Sean Sloan attached

Lets hope that by August there maybe some money available late 2019.

K i n d Regards T o n y Simounds B r o u g h t o n Fisheries P t y Ltd

J / 3 & M189 2 0 EveiTitt Ave F u l h a m Gardens South Australia 5024 P h T o n y 0428836749

Sent f rom m y Samsung Mobi l e o n t h e Tels t ra Mob i l e Network

Original message From: "PIRSA:Minister Whetstone" Date: 6/5/19 1:56 p m (GMT+09:30) To: "brofish2@bigpond.com" Subject: eA187039 - SIMOUNDS, Tony - acknowledgement from the office o f the Hon Tim Whetstone MP

eA187039 Mr Tony Simounds Broughton Fisheries Pty Ltd

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Email: Brofish2@bigpond.com Dear Mr Simounds Thank you for your email of 3 May 2019 to the Hon Tim Whetstone MP, Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development regarding fishing licence M189. The Minister has asked Primary Industries and Regions South Australia (PIRSA) to contact you directly regarding your email. Mr Jon Presser, Manager Fisheries Reform, Fisheries and Aquaculture from PIRSA will contact you in due course. Thank you for taking the time to write to the Minister on this matter. Yours sincerely Fiona Bond Office Manager to the MINISTER FOR PRIMARY INDUSTRIES AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT cc M r Jon Presser, Manager Fisheries Reform, Fisheries and Aquaculture, PIRSA Off ice o f the M in is te r f o r Pr imary Industr ies and Regional Development Level 10, 1 King William Street Adelaide SA 5000 1 GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 DX 667 Tel 08 8226 29311 Fax 08 8226 0844 1 Minister.Whetstone@sa.gov.au

The information contained within this email is confidential and may be the subject of legal privilege. This email is intended solely for the addressee, and if you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, copy, use or distribute this email or any of its attachments. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately via reply email, delete the message and any attachments from your system, and destroy any copies made. PIRSA makes no representation that this email or any attached files are free from viruses or other defects. It is the recipient's responsibility to check the email and any attach files for viruses or other defects.

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IL) May 2019

Mr Tony Simounds Broughton Fisheries Pty Ltd 20 Everritt Avenue FULHAM GARDENS SA 5024

Email: brofish2@bigpond.com

Government of South Australia Primary Industries and Regions SA

FISHERIES & AQUACULTURE Level 14 25 Grenfell Street Adelaide SA 5000 GPO Box 1625 Adelaide SA 5001 DX 210 Tel (08) 8226 0900 Fax (08) 8226 0330 www.pir.sa.gov,au

LW 7 Dear Mr Simounds

Your email of 3 May 2019 addressed to the Hon Tim Whetstone MP, Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development regarding your Marine Scalefish Fishery licence M189 has been referred to me for consideration and response.

In your email, you refer to the reform package that is currently being investigated for the commercial Marine Scalefish Fishery and, in particular, the proposal to reduce the number of licences in the fishery through a licence rationalisation scheme. You question whether not fishing your Marine Scalefish Fishery licence M189 for a period of time will have any impact on your entitlements if a licence buy-back or similar scheme was introduced.

As you may be aware, the Minister has appointed a Commercial Marine Scalefish Fishery Reform Advisory Committee to work with industry in developing the reform package with a range of initiatives that include zoning, fleet rationalisation and investigation of a quota managed fishery. The Advisory Committee is currently considering a number of options and has developed draft concepts on methods to achieve a reduction in the number of licences. Details of these options are likely to be described in the Discussion Paper when it is released for further industry consultation in August 2019.

Until such time that options for a reform package are developed by the Advisory Committee that may include how entitlements are determined, I am unfortunately unable to provide any advice on the possible consequences of you not fishing your licence M189.

If you wish to discuss this matter further, please feel free to contact Jon Presser, Manager Fisheries Reform on 08 8429 0588 or email jon.presser@sa.gov.au.

Yours sincerely

Sean Sloan EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FISHERIES AND AQUACULTURE

Objective ID: A4027268

Bray, Sara (PIRSA)

From: eo@marinefishersa.com.au Sent: Thursday, 16 May 2019 11:45 AM To: Bray, Sara (PIRSA) Cc: Franca Romeo Subject: Harvest Tags Attachments: MSF REFORM 2019.docx

Categories: relevant FOI, Blue Category

Hi Sara and Franca,

A fisherman from Streaky Bay put forward to our Forum the use of Harvest Tags to explicit way to manage all extraction under a TAC (attached). The MSF reform could easily be the Flagship for this approach.

At our last meeting, Mr Cornish also raised the prospects of Harvest TAGs for boat fishing as a prime candidate to help resolve several fundamental issues; monitoring, management, compliance, cost recovery, economic evaluation,

-omotion and provenance(see below). While an idealist, I believe transition to a common trading platform would diso be the circuit-breaker required to resolve the "politics" of fishing (as demonstrated in Alaska). Let the free market sort itself out on an annual basis.

While I acknowledge the fact Harvest Tags also create some new logistical challenges and new cost-centres, these pale when compared to the opportunity cost of biologically compromised stocks (i.e. Snapper). My exploration of the concept to date suggests the Southern Bluefin Tuna Association manage their Harvest TAGs at about 15c/unit to produce and administer (talk to Brian). Naturally, abundant primary species could easily be manged by bag or bin tags as is currently the case for Abalone and Rocklobster. Noting, Victoria is currently undertaking trials for Recreational Rocklobster and it will no doubt be a candidate to manage Australia's new rec-allocation of SBT.

I am confident that explicit and consistent management of all recreational catch shares (allocations) using Harvest Tags would be welcomed by all WFSA members and any fair-minded recreational fisher, is not spending money on fishing their current measure of importance?

Seafood for thought.

than

From: eo@marinefishersa.com.au <eo@marinefishersa.conn.au> Sent: Thursday, 21 February 2019 5:04 PM To: 'Sloan, Sean (PIRSA)' <Sean.Sloan@sa.gov.au>; 'ed@recfishsa.org.au' <ed@recfishsa.org.au> Subject: Recreational Surveys

Hi Sean and Danny,

1. RECREATIONAL SURVEYS

In the interest of basic resource management, the MFA agree that we must advocate for improvements in the certainty and frequency of recreational measurements of catch, as described by Dr. Mike Steer in the 2018 Stock Assessment report;

"Improving the precision o f the recreational catch estimates, either through more frequent surveys or improved participation rates, will broadly benefit the assessment and the subsequent management o f the MSF."

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A recent comprehensive international review on the subject, suggests and that uncertainty in the estimates of participation, effort and expenditure arises from two sources: measurement error (precision) and biases (issues with design and implementation of each survey and methods used for extrapolation). The report goes on to say that (we don't lead the world) and annual monitoring is optimal to ensure assumptions (between years) do not result in perverse management outcomes [1].

While we must strive for a more precise survey, attempts to do so should not further compromise the time series.

I am deeply concerned that there are questions over the availability of funds to conduct this year's schedule recreational survey (good bad or ugly it must be done)!?_ The MFA have written to the past and present government to improve the capacity of the research program which includes the recreational survey.

While I appreciate the rationale and motivations to pursue another FRDC project to, "better monitor and manage recreation fisheries", IMOP this race has already been run and won in WA with the use of Harvest Tags to effectively recover a Snapper stocks and effectively manage a comparable recreational catch of 5t.

When I say comparable it may be a lot less in Spencers Gulf. For argument sake - lets presume a 10% harvest fraction may promote rebuilding of the SG stock. Assuming positive recruitment (unknown) and stable estimates of spawning biomass at 2014 levels, the following basic calculations can be made for Northern Spencer Gulf (NSG) (i.e. above of Cowell).

• Spawning Biomass of = 260t • The Recommended Biological Catch (RBC) = 26t • Based on the regional catch shares when allocations were set in 2007.

o The Commercial catch share (86%) = 22.5t o The Recreational catch share (14%) = 3.5t

• Charter catch share = 2.6t • Recreational catch share = 900kg

While I appreciate, there are views that Harvest Tags may compete with the implementation of a Rec-Licence, they operated in tandem in WA. The commentary that, "They Didn't Work" is inconsistent with;

• their success - Stocks recovered • their acceptance - the published literature that includes surveys of Fishers and Compliance [2] and • the publications of RecFish - West [3]. • WA don't use them now as the fishery has recovered, not because they didn't work.

Moreover, the popularity of any management measure is context dependant (i.e. relative to the alternatives). The South Australian Recreational Management Plan 2017; clearly states if a fishery is classified as overfished (depleted) then PIRSA must, "consider closing the fishery fo r a predetermined period or develop a suitable alternative to provide fo r the recovery". I would suggest in this context Harvest Tags would be a suitable and popular alternative?

My homework on tags to date below.

WHAT'S A HARVEST TAG?

Before you run for your pitchforks hear me out.

CI: How many times have you heard the old chestnut,

"I'm not paying a rec-licence fee unless I know the money is being spent on fishing!"

To be fair the professional sector shares this concern and would not wish the current 'cost recovery model' on our worst enemy.

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What if you could get exactly what you paid for (a fish) and collective pay for your share (allocation) of management, monitoring and compliance and no more?

In the process getting an accurate measure of participation, total catch, and a valid economic measure of worth?

ENTER HARVEST TAGS

Assessing the effectiveness o f harvest tags in the management o f a small-scale, iconic marine recreational fishery in Western Australia (2016).

"Hunting, like fishing, is typically subject to restrictions to protect finite natural resources and meet acceptable social standards of behaviour. Although wildlife agencies in North America and Europe have a long history of successfully using harvest tags to manage hunting their use in recreational fisheries is rare....

Quantitative evidence of the biological impacts of marine angling is often limited due to a lack of robust time series of recreational catch and effort data and relatively low levels of funding to assess marine fish stocks of primary interest to the recreational sector

Marine recreational angling is typically 'open access' with only rudimentary management controls such as size (e.g. minimum length) and daily bag limits, with no constraint on overall catch levels or fishing effort

Harvest tags for snapper in Freycinet Estuary (Shark Bay WA) were effective for sustainability and stock recovery by limiting total catch and individual catch quotas with high fisher acceptance, high compliance and minimal administrative burden....

Harvest tags for snapper in Freycinet Estuary were effective because the value of snapper was high compared with the cost to fishers in purchasing harvest tags (relative to administrative costs)

Although the costs of managing, compliance and monitoring of many recreational fisheries can be high but typically unknown, this information was available for the snapper fishery in Freycinet Estuary"

[1] Hyder. K, Weltersbach. MS, Armstrong. M, et al. (2017). Recreational sea fishing in Europe in a global context— Participation rates, fishing effort, expenditure, and implications for monitoring and assessment

[21http://www.fish.wa.gov.au/Docunnents/recreational fishing/rap newsletters/rap newsletter 33.pdf

[3] Gary Jackson, Karma L. Ryan, Timothy J. Green, Kenneth H. Pollock, Jeremy M. Lyle; Assessing the effectiveness of 'vest tags in the management of a small-scale, iconic marine recreational fishery in Western Australia, ICES

Journal of Marine Science, Volume 73, Issue 10,1 November 2016, Pages 2666-2676

Seafood for Thought

Regards

Nathan Bicknell Executive Officer

**Note Email Change** eo@marinefishersa.com.au

08 7221 1961 I 0407 551 826 PO Box 2099 Port Adelaide SA 5015 Quality produce, local producers since 1836

Marine Fishers Association Inc

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MARINE SCALEFISH MANAGEMENT REFORM DISCUSSION PAPER MAY 2019

The current reform initiative by the government is welcomed by Industry. It presents a unique opportunity to bring about contemporary and sustainable management to the valuable and prized fish stocks in South Australian waters.

Background; current management of recreation catch and effort with bag, boat and size limits

as well as the amalgamation, owner operator, input output and gear restrictions for the commercial sector has served well. With this said it is important to understand the worlds population has doubled since 1970 and the growth of the recreational fishing sector in terms of participation by the general population and retiring baby boomers along with effective vessel power is growing exponentially. Future management needs to respond to this added fishing effort from the combined sectors.

With the next generation in mind to ensure our fish stocks are healthy and sustainable, total catch from a defined region needs to be managed "explicitly".

The timing for this reform is in line with the drafting of a new Fisheries Act. The Fisheries Act 2007 does describe resource allocation and shares, there is however insufficient mechanisms to control the catch and effort to said shares.

This proposal for consideration would require the new Act to manage fishing catch and effort to the explicit resource shares.

• A biomass of the four key species is estimated in a prescribed region by SARDI

• Management plan by region will define sustainable harvest fraction of the biomass which in turn will be represented as Total Allowable Catch TAC

• Management plan by region will define resource shares to the commercial and recreational sectors

• Resource share as a fraction of the TAC will be applied, for example; 100 Tonne KGW in Region A 36.5% resource share allocation Recreational sector (36.5 t TARO Total Allowable Recreational Catch 10% resource share allocation Charter fishery (10 t) 2.5% resource share allocation Rock Lobster (2.5 t) 1% resource share allocation indigenous traditional fishing (1 t) 50% resource share allocation commercial fishery (50 t TACC) Total Allowable Commercial Catch

Compliance; as a method of "explicit" management is defined in the new Fisheries Act (assumed), the catch shall be managed in an explicit manner.

• Individual one use tags to be produced, 1 tag, 1 fish, colour coded for; SPECIES REGION SECTOR, recreational, charter, rock lobster, traditional, commercial

Distributed annually in accordance to stock assessment and harvest strategy, management plans.

• Individual licences to be allocated with appropriate number of tags for each region and species as to be determined by the allocation process.

• A tag represents an uncaught fish and only has value to a fisherman which can catch and tag the fish. Tags can be traded amongst fisherman on an industry web site similar to AFMA My Fish therefore allowing individual fishing businesses the flexibility to customize their holdings to suit fishing regions and methods.

• Quota is not a number on paper but a tag, (tags are only allocated to a licence), this will maintain the owner operator, and associated stewardship the MSF is renowned for.

• Every key species fish is tagged at capture. No Tag — Illegally caught. • Tags can follow the fish through the processing and retail chain, which will enhance

quota integrity and ease of compliance.

• Recreational Tags made available for the appropriate region at; Council Offices Post Offices Caravan Parks Service Stations Tackle Shops

• At say $1 per tag for KGW, as per earlier example 36.5 t KGW recreational TARC Region A, @ 5 fish per kilo = $183,500. This provides financial opportunity for a higher level of stock assessment and compliance. User Pays.

• Secondary species may therefore be more attractive to target by the recreational sector as they do not incur a cost. Fresh Australian Salmon, Herring, Snook, Leather Jackets are a wonderful family catch.

• The secondary species are currently not commercially viable, especially from the West Coast, as freight to Adelaide is $3/kg, most secondary species range between $2.50 - $6.50

• The explicit management platform is arguably the most efficient in ensuring no over catch as it is pre-emptive, also the most cost effective for management and compliance.

• Examples of the management platform have occurred in Western Australia and have

proven highly successful.

• Ask the question, will the fish like this management option, (not Government, not regulators, not fisherman), as the future sustainability of our stocks for future generations is paramount, as this reform process is vital to achieving this. What a great and timely opportunity to get it right for the Fish!

Noel Box

Streaky Bay SA

Member WCPFA

MSF M057

SANZRLF N037

Bray, Sara (PIRSA)

From: eo@marinefishersa.com.au Sent: Tuesday, 25 June 2019 9:53 AM To: Bray, Sara (PIRSA) Subject: RE: MEDIA RELEASE - Hughes - Fishing buyback scrapped

Categories: relevant FOI, Blue Category

Can I send your email out to the troops?

From: Bray, Sara (PIRSA) <Sara.Bray@sa.gov.au> Sent: Monday, 24 June 2019 3:26 PM To: eo@marinefishersa.conn.au; Franca Romeo <office@wfsa.org.au> Subject: FW: MEDIA RELEASE - Hughes - Fishing buyback scrapped

FYI

e have explained to ABC Adelaide our election commitment and the reform process and consultation in place. Also that we do not yet know the cost of reform —therefore not in the budget. Hopefully this misleading release does not get coverage given the stressful situation the MSF fishers are in currently and our discussions today about mental health.

Its tough enough to get the message out about reform without this adding to the mx

Sigh

Sara Bray Ministerial Adviser — Fisheries and Forestry Office of Hon Tim Whetstone MP Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 DX 667 P: 08 8226 1188 M: 0402 465 349

T .iformation contained within this email is confidential and may be the subject o f legal privilege. This email is intended solely for the addressee, and if you i t the intended recipient you must not disclose, copy, use or distribute this email or any o f its attachments. If you have received this email in error, please

advise the sender immediately via reply email, delete the message and any attachments from your system, and destroy any copies made. It is the recipient's responsibility to check the email and any attached files for viruses or other defects.

From: Perre, Pamela <Pamela.Perre@parliament.sa.gov.au> Sent: Monday, 24 June 2019 2:58 PM Subject: MEDIA RELEASE - Hughes - Fishing buyback scrapped

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EDDIE HUGHES MP Shadow Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development

Monday, 24 June 2019

Liberals scrap critical Marine Scalefish fishing licence buy back

The Marshall Liberal Government has scrapped South Australia's $20 million marine scalefish fishing licence buy back just days before it was to come into effect.

The multi-million structural reform package was an initiative of the former Labor government and would have ensured snapper, whiting and garfish stocks would be available for future generations of South Australians to catch and enjoy.

The buy back would have also boosted sustainability and provided fair access for both commercial and recreational fishers. The buy back scheme targeted the removal of 100 commercial net and longline licences and was to come into effect from July 1.

Importantly, SA Labor also planned to introduce commercial quotas given the daily catch limits do not go far enough when it comes to ensuring the future of the snapper fishery.

New figures released by the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) show 90 per cent of the snapper stocks have disappeared from Gulf St Vincent since 2014.

SA Labor is calling on the Marshall Liberal Government to immediately reverse this short-sighted decision and help replenish marine scalefish stocks.

Quotes attributable to Shadow Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development Eddie Hughes

SA Labor listened to proposals and advice from recreational and commercial fishers before announcing this reform package.

Overall the feedback was that the buy backs strike the right balance between commercial and recreational fishers, as well as supporting economic growth in regional towns.

Now, with a stroke of a pen from penny-pinching Treasurer Rob Lucas, this hard work has completely unravelled.

I appreciate the research undertaken by SARDI in relation to these alarming statistics. The figures are not surprising and many fishers have reported how dire the current situation is.

Yet there was no consultation done with the industry and the Marshall Liberal Government tried to hide its cruel cut in this year's State Budget papers.

Once again South Australians are being ripped off by a Liberal Government that has a trail of broken promises in its wake.

Pamela Perre 0447 525 822

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Tan, Sopheap (PIRSA)

From: brofish2 <brofish2@bigpond.com> Sent: Tuesday, 25 June 2019 6:07 AM To: Tim Whetstone MP; PIRSA:Minister Whetstone; Sloan, Sean (PIRSA);

neil@nmac.com.au; Steven Marshall Cc: brofish2@bigpond.com Subject: Pulling the plug on buying out of 100 license

Dear Rob & Steven

Re: your decision to pull the plug on buying out o f 100 license

What are you doing to your true Liberal voters, I have voted Liberal for 34 years and you can't honour and election promise.

We have made a family decision to purchase a Spencer Gulf prawn licence for 5.5 million on the fact that our licence would get bought out & so many other as well.

I'm so disappointed we have spent thousands o f dollars preparing a budget, valuations ect to purchase a prawn licence and now it could be all down the drain.

I have got m y bank manager ringing me tomorrow to go over some final questions from NAB credit and what do I tell them, I'm devastated

One big question will probably be about the buy back.

And to top it all of f we have paid our full licence fees for M189 net licence 10.5k for the year 2019/20 and as o f tomorrow we are SHUTTING IT DOWN so both my boys can come on board our crab boat Pot Luck 1(03 to learn to drive and catch crabs.

do you understand why im so upset and worried what am I going to do, you will ruin all o f our plans

Please over turn your decision, 30 mill and you could buy out 100 license and improve your votes with the recreational sector.

I'm pleading with you please.

K i n d Regards T o n y Simounds Brough ton Fisher ies P t y Ltd KO3 &M189 2 0 Everr i t t Ave F u l h a m Gardens Sou th Australia 5024 P h T o n y 0428836749

1

Sent from my Samsung Mobile on the Telstra Mobile Network

ALLOCATION O F CATCHES A M O N G FISHING SECTORS:

OPPORTUNITIES F O R POLICY DEVELOPMENT

by

Peter H. Pearse

Prepared for a Keynote address at the

SHARING T H E F I S H C O N F E R E N C E 06

Allocation Issues in Fisheries Management, Perth, Australia

February 26 to March 2, 2006

Allocation of Catches among Fishing Sectors: Directions for Policy Development

Peter H. Pearse

Introduction

The theme of this conference — the allocation of fish resources refers to a pervasive

challenge in fisheries management. Traditionally, it has also been a contentious subject, and

for centuries it has preoccupied fishers and fisheries managers. I have been asked to comment

on a narrow slice of the broad allocation problem; that is, the question of allocating catches

among the distinct groups or sectors of fishers that often share access to a fishery.

In preparing this paper I found that although there is now a wealth of literature on

fisheries allocation issues, there is not much on allocation among sectors. But I also found that

some new problems associated with sectoral allocations are emerging, and there is growing

interest in solutions. Devoting a session of the conference to this subject is timely.

To introduce this subject, I thought it would be most useful to begin with a brief outline

of the issue of inter-sectoral allocation and the arrangements fishing nations have usually

adopted to deal with it. I will suggest that the reason why this is so much more onerous an

issue in fisheries than it is in the management of other resources is not because fish are

common property but because of the way governments grant rights to the harvest. Then I will

turn to recent innovations in fishing rights, notably individual quotas, some new pressures

these are putting on sectoral allocation arrangements, and opportunities to improve them.

Throughout, I want to emphasize the link between the form of fishing rights held by fishers

and their ability to manage their fisheries, and draw attention to policies that will enable self

governance.

1

Fishing Sectors and Inter-Sectoral Allocation

I do not intend to focus my remarks on any particular country but, to begin, I want to

illustrate how my discussion fits into the general issue of allocation with reference to a fishery

I know quite well — Canada's Pacific salmon fishery. This fishery is based on five species of

salmon and hundreds of separate stocks that sweep down from the northeast Pacific along the

coast of British Columbia on their way to spawn in their natal rivers and streams.

Each year, with only meager advance information about the abundance of the stocks,

fisheries managers plan fishing operations to achieve a number of allocation targets. First,

they allocate the stock between the escapement needed to sustain the resource and the total

allowable catch. The allowable catch is then allocated between Canada and the United States

according to a formula prescribed in a treaty between the two countries. Next, from Canada's

allocation, the managers subtract the estimated requirements of the aboriginal 'food fishery'.

The remainder is allocated between the recreational and commercial fisheries. The

commercial allowable catch is then allocated among the three sectors of the commercial

fishing fleet — the seine, gillnet and troll sectors — according to established policies.

Finally, these allocations are broken down among the several species of salmon and

distributed among several fishing areas, to provide a 'target' allocation for each gear sector in

each fishing area.

As the salmon approach, information accumulates about the size of the runs, and

estimates are made of the potential catches for each sector in each area. The managers must

regulate fishing to allocate the fish among all the competing demands on them promptly and

progressively as the salmon pass through a succession of fishing areas.

To complicate matters further, the order of priority assigned to these demands is exactly

opposite to the order in which the fish pass through the fisheries. First, the stocks pass

2

through commercial and recreational fishers, mainly at sea; but these are the Department of

Fisheries' lowest priority. A higher priority, a constitutional requirement, is to provide for

aboriginal catches for food and cultural purposes, mostly in rivers and estuaries. And its top

priority, prescribed by statute, is to ensure enough spawners of each stock escape through the

fisheries and reach their spawning grounds in the headwaters of rivers and tributaries. So

managers must plan in reverse, providing for each of the main fishing sectors in anticipation

of higher priority demands on the fish further along their migration path.

This allocation procedure is admittedly an extreme example of the challenge faced by

policy-makers and fisheries managers, but it illustrates a number of general issues that I refer

to later. One is that the task of allocating stocks can arise at several levels, from allocations

among individual fishers to allocations among nations, both of which are subjects of other

sessions at this conference. Our session is concerned with allocation among sectors, which I

define as separately identifiable, and usually separately managed, groups of fishers sharing

the catch in a fishery.

A second observation is that sectors are identified in a variety of ways. Some are

distinguished by the gear they use, such as a seine sector and a gillnet sector that share the

catch. Sometimes sectors are identified by where they fish, such as an inshore sector and an

offshore sector. Others are distinguished by their purpose in fishing, such as the commercial,

recreational and aboriginal sectors. The task of allocating among commercial and non-

commercial sectors raises particularly challenging legal, social and practical questions.

Third, sectors are often subdivided into sub-sectors. A commercial fleet may be divided

into gear sectors. The recreational sector may consist of a commercial charter-boat sector and

an independent fisher sector. Moreover, a sector is often split into areas or management units.

3

And, as my salmon example illustrates, these various sub-sectors may call for separate

allocations.

Fourth, allocation policies rest on a variety of policy instruments — constitutional

rights, statute law, treaties and administrative policies and practices.

Fifth, allocations among sectors vary widely in terms of their specificity, from one

extreme of no deliberate allocations at all between competing sectors, to a specific number or

weight of fish at the other. Intermediate arrangements include a general priority assigned to

one sector over another, the 'target' shares I referred to in the salmon fishery which are not

binding on either the fishers or the managers, and percentage entitlements for each sector.

The important point for this discussion is that sectoral allocations are often loosely

defined and lack a secure legal or institutional foundation, which makes the rights of fishers

more uncertain. Later, I draw attention to commercial fishers' individual quotas, which often

give their holders a secure share of the commercial allocation. But where they share the catch

with non-commercial fishers and the allocation between them is not defined, the security of

their individual quotas is undermined.

The salmon example also illustrates certain difficulties governments face in allocating

catches among sectors. A major constraint is the differing legal foundation for claims on the

catch among sectors. Typically, aboriginal and treaty rights are accorded some priority. This,

and pressure from all fishing groups to protect their historical patterns of use, constrain

managers' scope for reallocating catches among sectors.

Another complexity, where individual fishers' entitlements are not quantified, is that

managers cannot directly control the sector's catch. Under traditional open access or limited

licensing regimes, fishers have the right to as many fish as they can catch. To implement

allocations, governments must resort to manipulation of fishing effort through restrictions on

4

fishing times, places and gear. This makes it difficult to precisely achieve allocations. It also

aggravates the politicization and contentiousness of allocation decisions, and the likelihood

that they will not reflect any consistent economic or other criteria.

Finally, fishing sectors benefit in different ways from the fish they harvest and so value

them differently. Across the commercial, recreational and aboriginal sectors there is no

common denominator for the value of fish and no way of comparing the values of fish caught

in the various sectors. This makes allocation difficult if the objective is to allocate the fish

among sectors in order to realize the highest possible value.

This is not to say that the objective of fisheries management should necessarily be to

maximize the value of the catch; other social and legal considerations may call for priority in

managers' decisions. But economic benefit is usually at least one of the objectives of

fisheries policy. For the purposes of this discussion I will assume that the policy objective is

to maximize the value realized from the resource, bearing in mind that the economic benefits

generated, especially in non-commercial fisheries, are often difficult to measure.

Allocation and the Evolution of Fishing Rights

The task of allocating catches in a fishery is inextricably linked to the form of fishing

rights held by those who fish. To understand the opportunities for improving allocation

arrangements it is helpful to bear in mind the way fishing rights have been changing and are

likely to change further.

My colleague at the University of British Columbia, Anthony Scott, has traced the

origin and development of fishing rights in England and other western countries (Scott, 2004).

A major turning point was the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215. At that time most fisheries

were in rivers and estuaries, involving fixed gear such as weirs and traps attached to stream

5

banks and beaches. Consistent with this link to the land, rights to fisheries were held by the

owner of the bordering land. Landowners became upset when King John of England began

overriding their property by granting fishing rights to outsiders. So the barons inserted a

clause in the Magna Carta which committed the king to desist from granting exclusive fishing

rights in the Thames and other rivers and, with drawn swords at Runnymede, persuaded him

to agree.

Gradually, the courts expanded this to mean that neither the king nor anyone else could

grant exclusive fishing rights to anyone in any tidal waters. Therefore no one could hold

exclusive rights or exclude anyone else from fishing, which led to the doctrine of a general

public right to fish in tidal waters.

Two other legal concepts contributed to the demise of proprietary interests in fisheries.

One was the ancient 'rule of capture', which held that no one could own wild animals or fish

until they were caught. The other was the doctrine of the freedom of the seas articulated by

the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius in 1609, which meant that no one, and no nation, could own the

high sea or restrict anyone from fishing.

These three legal principles — the public right to fish, the law of capture, and the

freedom of the sea together left almost no scope for property rights in marine fisheries.

For centuries there appeared to be no need to ration access to ocean fisheries because

they were believed to be inexhaustible. It was not until the 20th century, with convincing

evidence of decline of heavily fished stocks, that the threat of overfishing was widely

acknowledged.

However, although governments had lost the power to grant fisheries as property, they

still had the power to regulate fishing, and the second half of the 20th century saw an

6

explosion of regulatory activity, mostly directed toward protecting stocks from overfishing by

burgeoning fishing fleets and free-for-all fishing pressure.

Some of the new regulations changed the allocation process, notably the limitation of

fishing licenses which spread quickly through western fishing nations in the 1970s to help

control the overexpansion of fishing fleets and excessive fishing pressure. Once licenses were

limited, license holders, collectively, held an exclusive right to the catch. The licenses took on

a market value, and the allocation of rights of access began to be influenced by market

transfers of licenses. But governments still had no direct way of allocating catches among

individual fishers, and their allocation among sectors in a fishery could be accomplished only

indirectly, by manipulating gear and fishing effort.

Almost any regulation of fishing gear, seasons or locations affects commercial,

recreational and aboriginal fishers differently. To achieve objectives of equity as well as

conservation as they expanded their regulatory control, governments were forced to adopt

different regulations for each sector. Doing so undoubtedly had the effect of defining, and in

some degree creating, separate sectors and sub-sectors, each with its own permitted methods

of fishing and regulatory regime.

These events, coupled with the common property character of fisheries and the difficulty

of measuring the value of fish in alternative uses, left governments with the increasingly

onerous task of allocating catches among sectors. Contention is inevitable because more to

one sector means less to others. It has sometimes proven so difficult that governments have

acceded to pressure to increase the allocation to one without offsetting reductions in others,

leading to overfishing, stock depletion and ultimately losses for all. The dismal state of many

of the world's ocean fisheries owes much to this difficulty.

7

The introduction of individual quotas in the late 1970s and 1980s was a new turning

point. The economic effects of defining fishing rights quantitatively have been profound,

because the specification of each fisher's entitlement to the catch eliminates the wasteful

competitive race for the fish and the associated overexpansion of fishing capacity, high costs

and dissipation of resource rents.

Moreover, individual quotas have increased the value of catches by enabling fishers to

take the time and effort to clean and process fish for higher prices. And perhaps most

important in the long run, they have created strong economic incentives for fishers to

cooperate in conserving and enhancing stocks and in managing fishing, as these measures all

increase the value of their fishing rights. Increased profitability has also facilitated cost

recovery which, coupled with fishers' participation in managing their fisheries, has improved

administration and management through increased transparency, outsourcing, and pressure for

cost efficiency.

The individual quota management system, pioneered by New Zealand, Iceland,

Australia and Canada is now an important element of fisheries organization in many western

countries and in hundreds of fisheries, and is associated with widespread improvement in both

the management of stocks and the economic performance of commercial fisheries (Arnason,

1996).

Through this evolution, rights to fish have gradually acquired the attributes of property,

with increasing duration, security, exclusivity, transferability, divisibility and flexibility. Back

when anyone could fish, fishers held no property rights because their rights were no different

from those of everyone else. When they were required to hold licenses, and licenses were

restricted in availability, these fishing rights began to take on these characteristics of property,

and they have been progressively strengthened in some of the more advanced fishing regimes

8

through longer duration, even perpetual terms, greater transferability and divisibility

(especially under individual quotas) and increased security against interference from

outsiders.

Often, in the face of anxieties about "privatization" of the fisheries, governments have

denied that they were creating property rights, and there has been a good deal of analysis of

the law on this question (Department of Fisheries, 2005). The legal issue varies among

jurisdictions, but governments everywhere claim the right to regulate fishing and, as Anthony

Scott has explained, it was their progressively restrictive regulation to protect stocks from

overfishing that led to restrictive licensing, individual quotas and other fol ns of fishing rights

that, incidentally, have the attributes of property needed for efficient organization of

economic activity.

Inter-Sectoral Allocation and Transferability

In the multi-sectoral fisheries I know, the distribution of the catch among sectors,

whether they employ individual quotas or not, is not highly systematic, precise or logical.

Allocations among sectors are often based on vague criteria, influenced more by established

positions than by analysis of the benefits of alternative ways of utilizing resources; and they

offer little security to the fishers involved. Moreover the rights held by fishers are limited in

important respects. Some are not transferable, or their transferability is restricted. Where

individual quotas are employed, they typically deal only with allocation of the catch within

the commercial sector. Transferability rarely extends to transfers from one sector to another,

even between sectors of commercial fishers, and even when they all employ individual

quotas.

9

Today, the arrangements for allocating catches among sectors are becoming strained in a

number of countries, and there is growing interest in methods of redistributing allocations.

Pressure to change catch shares is not a new phenomenon, of course; it is to be expected

wherever there are two or more sectors in a fishery. But particularly notable today — and the

issue worth noting — is the increasing difficulty in reconciling the individual quotas of

commercial fishers with the demands of aboriginal and recreational fishers.

Thus, in New Zealand, expanding recreational catches in some fisheries, and the

resulting erosion of commercial fishers' quotas, has become an urgent issue (Edwards, 2000).

Similar concerns are developing in Australia, Canada and the United States. Both New

Zealand and Western Australia have recently launched major reviews of their policies on

allocation among sectors. Other jurisdictions are examining ways o f transferring fishing

rights among commercial sectors, and a number have been developing arrangements for

transferring rights from commercial to aboriginal fishers.

The new pressures being felt in a number of countries arise from the conflicting interests

of commercial fishers operating under individual quotas and non-commercial fishers which do

not. The general problem is that the allowable catch available to the commercial sector, to be

allocated among the individual quota-holders, is determined by subtracting from the total

allowable catch, an allowance for the non-commercial sectors. These allowances are not

fixed, and the criteria for determining them are more or less vague. Commonly, the demands

o f both the aboriginal and recreational fishers have been growing, and so have their catch

allocations. As they grow, the residual catch available to the commercial fishers shrinks,

undermining the security of their fishing rights.

The contribution of the individual quota system to this conflict is the increase in value it

has generated for the commercial sector; the substantial value capitalized in fishing rights has

10

raised the stakes in this erosion of commercial access to resources. Otherwise secure

individual quotas are rendered insecure by the uncertainty about sector shares. This problem

is particularly acute: where the catch is shared and highly valued by both commercial and

non-commercial fishers but the entitlements of each sector are not defined; where only the

commercial sector employs individual quotas and; where the recreational catch is growing—

such as snapper in New Zealand and Western Australia, and halibut in the United States and

Canada.

This conflict between the sectors with individual quotas and those without has led

some commentators to suggest that when quota systems are adopted all sectors should be

included. This advice comes too late, of course, wherever individual quotas are already in

place for commercial fishers. And, as a more general matter, if the quota system had to be

acceptable to all sectors before being introduced, there would probably be few in place today.

Moreover, there might be some confusion about the root of the problem. It is not due to

the lack of individual quotas in all sectors — it is due to the lack of a clear definition of each

sector's share in the total catch. The difference is important; the solution requires only a clear

specification of each sector's share of the catch.

Improving Inter-Sectoral Allocations

There are two broad avenues for improving allocation methods: build on the

governmental model and provide for market mechanisms. The governmental approach leaves

the determination of sectoral shares to political or administrative decision-making. The

advantage is that it builds on existing processes, has structural simplicity, and is responsive to

values and interests other than economic ones. But it preserves all the shortcomings of

governmental decision-making, especially insofar as it does nothing to encourage utilization

11

of the resource to best economic advantage; it aggravates competitive lobbying among groups

with the governmental authority at the centre of contention; and it maintains a competitive

barrier to cooperation and collective action among those who share the rights to fish in a

fishery.

An efficient inter-sectoral allocation system must meet two requirements: certainty

about catch shares so fishers can organize their operations efficiently, and some means of

redistributing the shares to ensure the most beneficial utilization as conditions change.

Governmental decision-making does not lend itself well to reconciling these needs. To

calculate the optimal sectoral allocations governments would need enormous amounts of

information and they would inevitably have difficulty altering sectoral shares. But this is a

role markets play often and effectively, as demonstrated in the allocation of individual quota

rights among commercial fishers. With minimal information other than the price of fishing

rights, fishers can bargain with other fishers to solve these problems, which governments

cannot do.

The present obstacle to harnessing market forces is that the rights held by fishers in one

sector are typically not transferable to other sectors and, even if they were, market trading

among sectors would be frustrated wherever the catch share of any sector isn't clearly

defined. To correct this; well-defined initial shares in the catch must be established for each

sector in the fishery, and these shares must be divisible and transferable.

The Need for Defined Sectoral Shares

For markets to function efficiently in allocating fishing rights among sectors to best

advantage, the rights must be well-defined and secure in all sectors. This calls for an initial

allocation for each sector. Establishing starting positions has often proven to be the most

12

difficult step in introducing individual quotas, but for sectoral allocations there are usually

established positions, priorities or targets of some sort already in place. The problem is that

they are typically vague, often encumbered by policies giving preferential treatment to one

sector over another, and for other reasons unreliable and insecure. The need is for a clearly-

defined share of the catch for each sector, secure enough to serve as a basis for bargaining and

trading in fishing rights.

The benefits of well defined shares for each sector extend beyond their stimulus to trade.

They also sharpen incentives to invest in stock rebuilding and enhancement, otherwise

blunted by uncertainty about how much of the increased yield may be taken by others. They

will facilitate treaty settlements with First Nations who, in treaty negotiations in Canada at

least, have sometimes been reluctant to accept fishing rights to be transferred to them from

commercial fishers because the commercial rights, being calculated net of growing

recreational allowances, are seen as too uncertain. And defined shares focus the incentives

and effort of fishers in all sectors of the fishery on opportunities to improve their resource

base and management efficiency.

It should be emphasized that clear specification of each sector's share of the catch will

be beneficial, whether the sectors employ individual quotas or not, though the financial

implications will be greater for fishers holding individual quotas. Moreover, defined sectoral

shares will be beneficial whether market trading is to be adopted or not, though their

implications for long-term efficiency will be much reduced with subsequent trading.

The Need for Inter-sectoral Transferability

Defining each sector's share of the catch will alleviate the uncertainty and conflict

where one sector could otherwise expand at the expense of another. But to enable market

13

processes to effectively provide for reallocations to rationalize fishing among sectors the

shares must be divisible and transferable between sectors.

There are varying constraints on meeting this need.

The communal ownership and non-transferability of aboriginal and treaty rights to fish

inhibit redistribution, though such rights can often be transferred temporarily. Usually,

customary and subsistence fisheries are accorded some priority over other fishing, and in

countries such as New Zealand and Canada recreational fishers also claim they have, or

should have, a general priority over the commercial sector. Not surprisingly, groups enjoying

a priority resist any disturbance to their position.

Nevertheless, there is plenty of scope for markets in fishing rights to function in

reallocating shares in the catch among sectors to best advantage. The provisions needed

depend on whether individual transferable quotas are already in place. I f they are in place for

all sectors, the problem is relatively simple: government must ensure that there are no

impediments to the divisibility and transferability of the quota rights among sectors, as well as

within them. The allocation among sectors will then be determined by the purchases and sales

of quota among individual quota-holders in different sectors.

Many fisheries involve only commercial sectors, distinguished by the gear they use or

the areas fished. Here, market transfers between commercial sectors can be accommodated

relatively easily, as illustrated by the legislative provisions to do so in Australia and Iceland

(Kaufmann et al., 1999; Runolfsson, 1999).

A couple of caveats to this simple facilitation of trade are needed. To ensure that

transfers of fishing rights to vessels that use different gear, or fish in a different location, do

not frustrate management of the stock, inter-sectoral transfers should, in general, be subject to

regulatory approval, as provided for in Australia's legislation. In addition, all individual

14

quotas must be denominated in terms of the same base that is, as shares of the total

allowable catch (and not shares of a sectoral allocation as is often the case at present).

In the more challenging case in which one or more sectors in a fishery does not employ

individual quotas, fishers have no individual entitlement to any part of the catch, so they

cannot trade in fishing rights. To adjust their allocation through trading the fishers in such

sectors need an organization with authority to represent them, hold their sector's total

allocation, raise and hold money, and buy and sell fishing rights on their behalf.

These changes are currently underway in Canada's Pacific halibut fishery, which is

dominated by a commercial sector organized under individual quotas. The expanding

recreational sector has recently been assigned a percentage share of the allowable catch and

the Minister of Fisheries has declared that he expects recreational fishers to turn to the market

to acquire more quotas if they want to increase their share in future. Meanwhile, the

recreational sector's initial allocation exceeds its catch, and the commercial sector has leased

the recreational sector's uncaught surplus in return for cash.

Thus rights to fish can be made transferable between sectors in a fishery through market

mechanisms even where fisheries are not organized around individual quotas. But individual

quotas will undoubtedly facilitate inter-sectoral transfers. A prominent example is the way

New Zealand's quota management system has facilitated the transfer of fishing rights to

Maori to settle aboriginal claims. Soon after the system was introduced, it was found to be in

breach of the treaty with New Zealand's aboriginal people and thus triggered a Maori claim.

But the quota management system also provided the government with a mechanism for

satisfying the claim, by purchasing quota from commercial fishers for redistribution to Maori

— a direct transfer of rights to the catch which would not have been possible under the earlier

open-access fishing regime. Through these governmental reallocations and further purchases

15

of quotas by Maori themselves, the Maori have become major players in New Zealand's

fishing industry and their fishing rights have been integrated with the commercial sector's

quota management system ( Nelson, 1995).

In Canada, recommendations a colleague and I recently made to the governments of

Canada and British Columbia would introduce individual quota licenses in the salmon fishery

and similarly accommodate treaty settlements with First Nations by enabling direct transfer of

shares in the catch from commercial to aboriginal fishers (McRae and Pearse, 2004).

Individual quotas can be expected to facilitate inter-sectoral transfers in other ways as

well. With individual quotas in all sectors, fishers do not have to depend on an organization to

carry out their trading; individual fishers can transact directly themselves. Further, where

individual quotas are employed in all sectors, they provide the sectoral shares with an

underpinning of entitlements, making the quota rights more secure and marketable.

Recent developments in recreational and aboriginal fisheries suggest that the path of

development in the non-commercial sectors is likely to be opposite to the one we have

witnessed in the commercial fisheries. In commercial fisheries, adoption of defined

allocations to individual fishers has provided the stimulus for them to organize themselves

into sectoral organizations to advance their collective interests and enable them to participate

in management. In the recreational and aboriginal sectors, the sectoral organization might

have to come first, and when the organizations have become sufficiently developed they

might take responsibility for determining how their share of the catch should be distributed

among their members and how their fisheries should be managed.

Thus the Nisga'a people, a large tribal group in Canada, having recently reached a

comprehensive treaty settlement including substantial provisions for fisheries, quickly

organized their own fisheries management arrangements and introduced their own individual

16

quota system, all well integrated within the wider governmental management arrangements.

This example illustrates both the capability of an established organization to organize fishing

among its members and the effect of a clear and secure share of the catch on incentives to

participate in management.

Aboriginal groups, once equipped with a defined share of the catch, can relatively easily

take the further step of participating in a fishery-wide individual quota scheme, as the

aboriginal organization holding the entitlement can, like a fishing corporation, be treated as

one 'individual' quota holder and organize its fishing as it sees fit. Locally-based recreational

groups might similarly seek an allocation of the recreational sector's share and participate in

an individual quota system.

This "bottom-up" organization implies a reduced role for government in initiating and

administering allocations within recreational and aboriginal sectors, but it also suggests that

governments wanting to encourage fisheries self-government should give high priority to

helping these groups to organize themselves. Aboriginal people typically have organizations

already, based on tribal or other traditional groupings, and in Canada, United States, New

Zealand and Australia these organizations are taking increasing responsibility for managing

'their' fisheries. Recreational fishers also appear to be trying to organize themselves in many

jurisdictions, often in reaction to the strengthening position of commercial fisheries.

Recreational fishers undoubtedly face the most daunting organizational task, because

they are usually so numerous, disparate, dispersed and varying in their interests and

commitment to fishing. Often, they have little enthusiasm for participation in management,

preferring to rely on government.

Most urgent, where recreational fishers share the catch, is the resolution of their

allocation. As noted earlier, recreational fishers often resist defined catch shares, viewing

17

them as restrictive of their opportunities. Whether this is an accurate perception or not

depends, of course, on their potential allocation relative to their present position. In the

Canadian halibut example mentioned earlier, the recreational sector benefited from an

allocation that exceeded its catch, the opportunity to sell their surplus and build an

endowment fund, and the opportunity to acquire a larger allocation in the future. There are

many other possible ways to make a sharing arrangement attractive, such as provisions for

sharing the increase in catch resulting from investments in stock rebuilding and enhancement.

Defined shares will encourage organization, but organizations of recreational fishers,

particularly, need support to get started, at least. Most importantly, they need to be

empowered to take on management responsibilities, including the right to organize

themselves and to require everyone they represent to become members to protect against free

riders, to levy fees to finance their activities, and to make rules and enforce them. In addition,

most need help with capacity development, finance and other resources.

Property Rights and Self-government

The extent to which fishers, responding to economic incentives, can be relied upon to

allocate catches and manage their fisheries for maximum value depends critically upon their

ability to control their supply of fish, which in turn depends upon the scope of their fishing

rights. In my opinion, this link between the rights of fishers and their ability to manage is key

to the successful development of market-based fisheries management regimes. At the risk of

oversimplification, I can summarize my comments in terms of this relationship.

For centuries, fishers had no rights and no control over other fishers or potential fishers.

This was appropriate as long as the supply of fish exceeded demands and fish were (or were

18

perceived to be) inexhaustible. In these circumstances, fishers had neither the means nor the

incentive to organize themselves and participate in management.

Gradually, demands grew. To protect the stocks from overfishing, governments, lacking

the power to grant exclusive property in fisheries, applied restrictions on fishing methods.

They also prohibited everyone from fishing except those issued a license or other

authorization, who thereby acquired collective exclusivity of access. Fishers now had rights,

but the rights were too weak to assure them of a secure supply of fish in the face of increasing

competition for the catch (Scott, 2000).

A solution was found in individual quotas, which have substantially strengthened the

rights of fishers and restored their control over their catches. Their right to a defined harvest

has eliminated the wasteful competition and interference from others. The right to transfer

their rights has enabled them to rationalize their operations. And their proportionate interest

in the catch has given them an incentive to cooperate with each other to manage their fishery

and the resources they depend upon.

These rights, providing they are well crafted, are sufficient to enable fishers to manage

their fisheries effectively in the simplest case where the fishery consists of only one sector and

is not affected by other fisheries or external activities.

But the control afforded by individual quotas is not sufficient where two or more sectors

are involved — unless the entitlement of each sector is clearly defined. If not, the rights of

fishers in all sectors are at risk. In that case the solution parallels the prescription for

individual transferable quotas: assign each sector an explicit, initial share of the catch to

restore certainty and establish starting positions, and; make the shares divisible and

transferable among sectors to enable fishers to realize the gains from rationalizing fishing

among sectors. Defined shares can be expected to sharpen fishers' incentives to cooperate in

19

management, and trade in catch shares will tend to reduce the barriers between sectors and

broaden the ambit of management organization from sectors to whole fisheries.

Other circumstances call for developing fishers' rights in different ways. Where two or

more fisheries are interdependent that is, where one stock is linked to another by a

predator-prey relationship, where two or more species compete for common food or where

one is affected by the process of fishing for another — there will almost certainly be

opportunities to increase the aggregate value o f production from the fisheries combined by

increasing production of higher-valued species at the expense of lower-valued species.

Fishers will be able to effect such trade-offs and maximize the aggregate value of production

only if their rights extend to negotiating the size and catch of their stock with the fishers in

related fisheries.

Thus, in New Zealand, the Challenger scallop and the Nelson dredge oyster fisheries

occupy overlapping areas and the harvesting and enhancement activities of each affects

production in the other. In this case, many of the fishers hold quota in both fisheries, and they

have joined in an effort to maximize the return on the two fisheries combined.

Such arrangements can be extended to respond to the growing pressure in advanced

fishing nations to shift the focus of management from individual fisheries to whole aquatic

ecosystems (McClurg, 2002). Where many interdependent species and fisheries are involved

a management plan designed to maximize the economic return from the whole ecosystem may

involve a large number of trade-offs, costly biological and economic information, and

complicated compensatory payments among quota holders. In these circumstances fishers

are likely to seek efficiency in a single enterprise or cooperative to hold the fishing rights for

all the interactive species and internalize the benefits and costs of all the adjustments needed

to maximize aggregate returns (Amason, 1999). Such an organization could accommodate

20

non-commercial interests, such as sport fishers wanting to purchase quota for certain species

from the enterprise for their own recreation, or environmental organizations who wished to

acquire but not exercise rights to the catch, to reduce exploitation of the species.

A step in this direction is being taken by fishers in a cluster of groundfish fisheries on

the coast of British Columbia. Hitherto, the fisheries have been separately organized and

managed, most under individual quotas, but the fishers in each fishery incidentally take

significant quantities of the other species which they have been obliged to discard. They have

recently formed an umbrella organization and negotiated amendments to their fishing rights to

allow them to trade quota among fisheries — one species for another — thus improving the

efficiency of operations and eliminating waste (Diamond Management Consulting Inc., 2005).

These examples are intended to illustrate the strengthening of fishing rights needed to

cope with progressively broader sources of interference with fishers' control over their fish

supplies — from other fishers, other sectors, and other fisheries. Although this leads beyond

the terms of reference for this discussion, I should add, for completeness, the challenge of

allocating ocean space among fish production and other competing uses of the sea, such as

navigation, mining, aquaculture, waste disposal and preservation of the natural environment

as well as fisheries.

Where fish production competes with other uses of ocean space or marine environments,

market mechanisms can determine the most beneficial use or combination of uses only if the

rights held by each interest group include the right to make trade-offs in their demands on the

ocean. This may call for a super- organization of fisheries groups capable of bargaining over

fisheries production with parallel organizations of industrial, environmental and other

interests with demands on the same ocean space (Scott, 2006).

21

The Essential Role of Government

Throughout this presentation I have emphasized the scope for harnessing market forces

and the resources of those who hold the rights to fish to manage fisheries. I will conclude

with a comment on the role of government.

Much has been written about the shortcomings of the traditional regulatory approach to

fisheries management in terms of its inflexibility in the face of changing conditions, its

unresponsiveness to differing circumstances, its demands for information, its conflict with the

incentives of fishers and its costliness. And it has now been widely demonstrated that the

development of new forms of fishing rights, notably individual quotas, by aligning fishers

incentives with the public interest, has enabled wholesale shifts in responsibilities for fisheries

management from government to the fishers themselves, with generally beneficial effect.

However, while experience shows that the holders of fishing rights, under suitable

institutional conditions, can safely be given wide responsibility for managing fishing, some

responsibilities must remain governmental. As governments shed their traditional roles in

regulating fishing and allocating catches the onus on government actually increases in respect

of two responsibilities in particular.

One is establishing a clear and comprehensive framework of policy and administration

within which those who depend on fish can conduct their affairs efficiently and with certainty.

Fisheries jurisdictions vary widely in their response to this need. Australia's fisheries policy,

introduced 15 years ago, is a model of clarity and rigor with its legislated statement of

objectives for the fisheries, specification of management organization and of the

responsibilities of the various parties and agencies, and clarification of the fishers' legal

rights, and financial and other obligations.

22

At the other extreme are Canada's vague and inconsistent arrangements, based on

antiquated legislation and developed piecemeal in response to more than a century of

pressures and crises, and which lack the clarity and security needed to support modern

fisheries management (Burke D.L. and G.L. Brander 2000).

Significantly, the countries that have led the reorganization of fisheries and have

benefited most from it — notably Australia, New Zealand and Iceland have all adopted

new legislation and administrative structures to accommodate their new regimes.

A carefully crafted, clear policy framework is especially important for a management

regime that depends on efficient participation of fishers and non-governmental parties. Given

the opportunities for self-government in fisheries, the most critical function of government

might ultimately be in maintaining the legal and institutional framework to enable those with

rights to fish to govern themselves.

The other increasingly important function is to protect the broad public interest in the

face of harvesting and management of fish by those having a primary interest in the catch.

This is largely an environmental responsibility, calling for basic rules to protect aquatic

habitats and sea life which may be endangered by fishing activity, to control pollution and

preserve aesthetic values. These are true public goods; the benefits accrue to society as a

whole, not just to those who harvest or consume fish, so they must be provided for, if at all,

by government. The governmental task is to articulate and enforce the public's long-term

conservation objectives and standards of performance to be achieved. These basic

requirements can be expected to leave wide scope for the holders of fishing rights to manage

their fisheries for maximum economic benefit.

23

Li te ra tu re cited

Arnason, Ragnar. 1996. Property Rights as an Organizational Framework in Fisheries: The

Cases o f Six Fishing Nations. In: Taking Ownership (B.L. Crawley, ed), Atlantic

Institute for Market Studies, Halifax

Arnason, Ragnar. 1999. Advances in ITQ Fisheries Management. In: Individual Transferable

Quotas in Theory and Practice (R. Amason and H.H. Gissararson, Eds.), University of

Iceland Press, Reykjavik. pp. 31-42.

Burke, D.L. and G.L. Brander. 2000. Canadian Experience with Individual Transferable

Quotas. In: Use o f Property Rights in Fisheries Management (Ross Shotton, ed.,

Proceedings o f the Fish Rights 99 Conference in Fremantle, Western Australia,

November 1999) FAO Fisheries Technical Paper 404/1. Rome. pp. 151-160.

Department o f Fisheries. 2005. Nature and Extent o f Rights to Fish in Western Australia

(Final Report) Fisheries Management Paper No. 195. Perth, WA.

Diamond Management Consulting Inc. 2005. Commercial Industry Caucus Pilot Integration

Proposal. Victoria, Canada. 65 pp.

Edwards, M. 2000. The Administration o f Fisheries Managed by Property Rights. In: Use of

Property Rights in Fisheries Management (Ross Shotton, ed., Proceedings o f the Fish

Rights 99 Conference in Fremantle, Western Australia, November 1999), FAO Fisheries

Technical Paper 404/1. Rome. pp. 75-88.

Kaufmann, Barry, Gerry Green and Sevaly Sen. 1999. Fish Futures: Individual Transferable

Quotas in Fisheries. Fisheries Economics, Research and Management Pty. Ltd., Kaima,

NSW, Australia.

McClurg, Tom. 2002. Foundations for effective marine ecosystem management. Fisheries in

the Global Economy. Proceedings o f the eleventh biennial conference o f the

International Institute o f Fisheries Economics and trade. Wellington, NZ.

24

McMurran, J. 2000. Property Rights and Recreational Fishing: Never the Twain Shall Meet?

In: Use o f Property Rights in Fisheries Management (Ross Shotton, ed., Proceedings of

the Fish Rights 99 Conference in Fremantle, Western Australia, November 1999). FAO

Fisheries Technical Paper 404/1. Rome. pp. 184-187.

McRae, D.M. and Peter H. Pearse. 2004. Treaties and Transition: Towards a Sustainable

Fishery on Canada's Pacific Coast. Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Vancouver.

Nelson, Lindie. 1995. Recognising Maori Rights to Fisheries. Common Property Resource

Digest, June 1995. pp. 8-11.

Pearse, Peter H. 1991. Building on Progress: Fisheries Policy Development in N e w Zealand.

Report prepared for the Minister o f Fisheries. Ministry o f Agriculture and Fisheries,

Wellington, NZ.

Runolfsson, Birgir Th. 1999. ITQs in Iceland: Their Nature and Performance. In: Individual

Transferable Quotas in Theory and Practice (R. Amason and H.H. Gissurarson, Eds.),

University o f Iceland Press, Reykjavik. pp. 103-140.

Scott, A. 2000. Introducing property in fisheries management. In: Use o f Property Rights in

Fisheries Management, (Ross Shotton, ed., Proceedings o f the Fish Rights 99

Conference in Fremantle, Western Australia, November 1999). FAO Fisheries

Technical Paper 404/1. Rome. pp. 1-13.

Scott, A. 2006. Phases in the evolution o f property in sea fisheries. In: Advances in the

Economics o f the Fishery: Festschrift in Honour o f Professor Gordon Munro

(forthcoming).

25

ALLOCATION OF CATCHES AMONG FISHING SECTORS:

OPPORTUNITIES FOR POLICY DEVELOPMENT

by

Peter H. Pearse

Summary - Nathan

The important point for this discussion is that sectoral allocations are often loosely defined and lack

a secure legal or institutional foundation, which makes the rights o f fishers more uncertain.

Another complexity, where individual fishers' entitlements are not quantified, is that

managers cannot directly control the sector's catch. Under traditional open access or limited licensing regimes, fishers have the right to as many fish as they can catch. To implement allocations, governments must resort to manipulation of fishing effort through restrictions on fishing times, places and gear. This makes i t difficult t o precisely achieve allocations. It also

aggravates the politicization and contentiousness o f allocation decisions, and the likelihood that they will not reflect any consistent economic or other icriterial.

These events, coupled with the common property character o f fisheries and the difficulty of measuring the value of fish in alternative uses, left governments with the increasingly

onerous task o f allocating catches among sectors. Contention is inevitable because more to

one sector means less to others. It has sometimes proven so difficult that governments have acceded t o pressure t o increase the allocation t o one without offsetting reductions in others, leading to overfishing, stock depletion and ultimately losses for al( The dismal state of many of the world's ocean fisheries owes much to this difficulty.

In the multi-sectoral fisheries I know, the distribution o f the catch among sectors, whether they employ individual quotas or not, is not highly systematic, precise or:logical.

Allocations among sectors are often based on vague criteria, influenced more by established positions than by analysis of the benefits of alternative ways of utilizing resources; and they offer little security to the fishers involved

Today, the arrangements for allocating catches among sectors are becoming strained in a number o f countries, and there is growing interest in methods of redistributing allocations.

Pressure to change catch shares is not a new phenomenon, o f course; it is to be expected wherever there are two or more sectors in a fishery. But particularly notable today — and the issue worth noting — is the increasing difficulty in reconciling the individual quotas of commercial fishers with the demands o f aboriginal and recreational fishers.

This conflict between the sectors with individual quotas and those without has led

some commentators t o suggest that when quota systems are adopted all sectors should be ncludeci, This advice comes too late, o f course, wherever individual quotas are already in

Commented [NB1]: e.g. Snapper

Commented [NB2]: This is the history o f the MSF

Commented [NB3]: While PIRSA have an Allocation Policy (catch shares) i t is based on the poor recreational data, Catch Shares are monitored retrospectively PIRSA removed the trigger points from the Recreational Management Plan (toothless).

Commented [NB4]: We have the opportunity to do this right first time in the Ara.

place for commercial fishers. And, as a more general matter, i f the quota system had to be acceptable to all sectors before being introduced, there would probably be few in place today.

Moreover, there might be some confusion about the root o f the problem. It is not due to the lack o f individual quotas in all sectors — i t is due to the lack o f a clear definition o f each sector's share in the total katchl. The difference is important; the solution requires only a clear specification of each sector's share o f the catch.

Commented [N85] : Again lets do i t right.

There are two broad avenues for improving allocation methods: build on the governmental model and provide for market mechanisms. The governmental approach leaves the determination of sectoral shares to political or administrative decision-making. The advantage is that it builds on existing processes, has structural simplicity, and is responsive to values and interests other than economic ones. But it preserves all the shortcomings o f governmental decision-making, especially insofar as it does nothing to encourage utilization of the resource to best economic advantage; it aggravates competitive lobbying among groups with the governmental authority at the centre of contention; and it maintains a competitive barrier to cooperation and collective action among those who share the rights t o fish in a [fisher{. Commented [NB6]: This is the current Allocation Policy

An efficient inter-sectoral allocation system must meet two requirements: certainty about catch shares so fishers can organize their operations efficiently, and some means of redistributing the shares to ensure the most beneficial utilization as conditions change. Governmental decision-making does not lend itself well to reconciling these needs.

The present obstacle to harnessing market forces is that the rights held by fishers in one sector are typically not transferable to other sectors and, even if they were, market trading

among sectors would be frustrated wherever the catch share of any sector isn't clearly defined. To correct this; well-defined initial shares in the catch must be established for each sector in the fishery, and these shares must be divisible and transferable.

The benefits of well-defined shares for each sector extend beyond their stimulus to trade. They also sharpen incentives to invest in stock rebuilding and enhancement otherwise blunted by uncertainty about how much o f the increased yield may be taken by[otheri

These changes are currently underway in Canada's Pacific halibut fishery, which is dominated by a commercial sector organized under individual quotas. The expanding recreational sector has recently been assigned a percentage share of the allowable catch and the Minister o f Fisheries has declared that he expects recreational fishers to turn to the market to acquire more quotas i f they want to increase their share in uturd Meanwhile, the recreational sector's initial allocation exceeds its catch, and the commercial sector has leased the recreational sector's uncaught surplus in return for icasl.;:,

In commercial fisheries, adoption of defined allocations to individual fishers has provided the stimulus for them to organize themselves into sectoral organizations to advance their collective interests and enable them to participate in management. In the recreational and aboriginal sectors, the sectoral organization might have to come first, and when the organizations have become

Commented [NB7]: A point o f different in Australia a system which promotes pros and recs to work together build the stock?

Commented [NB8]: A divorce form politics

Commented [NB9]: SAFA maintain that the 2007/2008 rec survey overstates their catch and in turn their share. Therefore, the excess leased to industry may well be a way to fund the recreational entity. Needed to manage their shares.

sufficiently developed they might take responsibility for determining how their share of the catch should be distributed among their members and how their fisheries should be managed

Most urgent, where recreational fishers share the catch, is the resolution o f their allocation. As noted earlier, recreational fishers often resist defined catch shares, viewing them as restrictive of their opportunities. Whether this is an accurate perception or not depends, o f course, on their potential allocation relative to their present position.

But the control afforded by individual quotas is not sufficient where two or more sectors

are involved — unless the entitlement o f each sector is clearly defined. If not, the rights of fishers in all sectors are at risk. In that case the solution parallels the prescription for individual transferable quotas: assign each sector an explicit, initial share o f the catch to restore certainty and establish starting positions, and; make the shares divisible and transferable among sectors to enable fishers t o realize the gains from rationalizing fishing

among sector i

In these circumstances fishers are likely to seek efficiency in a single enterprise or cooperative to hold the fishing rights for all the interactive species and internalize the benefits and costs of all the adjustments needed to maximize aggregate returns (Arnason, 1999). Such an organization could accommodate non-commercial interests, such as sport fishers wanting to purchase quota for certain species from the enterprise for their own recreation, or environmental organizations who wished to acquire but not exercise rights to the catch, to reduce exploitation of the species.

A step in this direction is being taken by fishers in a cluster of groundfish fisheries on the coast o f British Columbia. Hitherto, the fisheries have been separately organized and managed, most under individual quotas, but the fishers in each fishery incidentally take significant quantities o f the other species which they have been obliged to discard. They have recently formed an umbrella organization and negotiated amendments to their fishing rights to allow them t o trade quota among fisheries — one species fo r another — thus improving the efficiency o f operations and eliminating waste.

A carefully crafted, clear policy framework is especially important for a management regime that depends on efficient participation of fishers and non-governmental parties. Given the opportunities for self-government in fisheries, he most critical function o f government might ultimately be in maintaining the legal and institutional framework to enable those with rights t o fish to govern themselves1

Commented [NB10]: Regardless o f the current uncertainty about who caught what and when) the market will sort it

Commented [NB11]: This is the leadership role of government not getting down in the weeds.

Bray, Sara (PIRSA)

From: eo@marinefishersa.com.au Sent: Thursday, 18 July 2019 11:03 AM To: Bray, Sara (PIRSA) Subject: FW: Sharing the Fish Attachments: PeterPearse.pdf; Summary Allocations.docx

Categories: relevant FOI, Blue Category

Hi Sara,

FYI - I have sent this to Fraser and Peter.

Craig and Graham and challenged them to aim for best practice too.

Regards

ithan

From: eo@marinefishersa.com.au Sent: Thursday, 18 July 2019 10:56 AM To: 'Fraser" Subject: FW: Sharing the Fish

To the Hon Fraser Ellis MP,

The current Snapper crisis is a symptom of a broken and disparate (pro and rec) Marine Scalefish Fishery (MSF) management framework. Punctuated, by decades of political point-scoring, adversarial sectors, and departmental paralysis.

While we are in the process of reforming the Commercial MSF sector, its success or failure, depends upon how well it integrates all stakeholders (a dead fish, is a dead fish, is a dead fish).

1̀1- please see attached the keynote address at the 2006 Conference in Perth, "Sharing the Fish" and a summary I Ad previously provided my Executive Committee members.

While this document is now 14 years old, its concepts are still visionary, relative to the glacial development of fisheries policy in this State. As Pearce suggests a common-trading platform (ITQ) is the panacea. Harvest TAGs are an example of a basic mechanism to administer such a system (including cost recovery).

We can and must be aiming for transformative reform of the MSF (pro and rec). Reform that promotes; collective responsibility, optimum utilisation, and a divorce from politics (once and for all stakeholders).

Regards

Nathan Bicknell Executive Officer

**Note Email Change** eo@marinefishersa.com.au

a Marine Fishers Association Inc

1

08 7221 1961 I 0407 551 826 PO Box 2099 Port Adelaide SA 5015 Qual i ty produce, local producers since 1836

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2

Bray, Sara (PIRSA)

From: cf1etcherm259 <cfletcherm259@bigpond.com> Sent: Monday, 24 June 2019 6:25 PM To: Bray, Sara (PIRSA); b.and.m.butson@bigpond.com Subject: Re: MEDIA RELEASE - Hughes - Fishing buyback scrapped

Categories: relevant FOI, Blue Category

Hi Sara Thanks for that,Nathan also fwd me your email. During the over prolonged period o f the last government,their poor financial commitment and poor decision making into the fishery,saw fish stocks in SA decline at an alarming and unprecedented rate. They committed a financial amount towards reform without really knowing the extent o f the issue. Without the commitment o f an independent, (Geoff Brock) the financial commitment would have not been made. I am looking forward to tomorrow catching up with yourself, the Minister, Fraser,Bart and Brian. I have known Brian for a long time.We may differ on some stakeholder aspects but are in unison on the fact o f deteriorating fish stocks and a need for change in many areas o f science ,compliance and management. i.d,ards

Craig

Sent from my Samsung Mobile on the Telstra Mobile Network

Original message From: "Bray, Sara (PIRSA)" <Sara.Bray@sa.gov.au> Date: 24/6/19 5:55 pm (GMT+09:30) To: b.and.m.butson@bigpond.com, cfletcheim.259 <cfletcherm259@bigpond.com> Subject: MEDIA RELEASE - Hughes - Fishing buyback scrapped

Hi Gents,

Just ahead o f our meeting tomorrow I wanted to flick this unnecessarily stressful release through to you.

Sara Bray

Ministerial Adviser - Fisheries and Forestry

Office of Hon Tim Whetstone MP

Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development

GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 I DX 667

P: 08 8226 1188 M: 0402 465 349

1

The information contained within this email is confidential and may be the subject o f legal privilege. This email is intended solely for the addressee, and i f you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, copy, use or distribute this email or any o f its attachments. I f you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately via reply email, delete the message and any attachments from your system, and destroy any copies made. It is the recipient's responsibility to check the email and any attached files for viruses or other defects.

From: Perre, Pamela <Pamela.Pen-eparliament.sa.gov.au> Sent: Monday, 24 June 2019 2:58 PM Subject: MEDIA RELEASE - Hughes - Fishing buyback scrapped

EDDIE HUGHES MP

Shadow Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development

Monday, 24 June 2019

Liberals scrap critical Marine Scalefish fishing licence buy back

The Marshall Liberal Government has scrapped South Australia's $20 million marine scalefish fishing licence buy back just days before it was to come into effect.

The multi-million structural reform package was an initiative of the former Labor government and would have ensured snapper, whiting and garfish stocks would be available for future generations of South Australians to catch and enjoy.

The buy back would have also boosted sustainability and provided fair access for both commercial and recreational fishers. The buy back scheme targeted the removal of 100 commercial net and longline licences and was to come into effect from July 1.

2

Importantly, SA Labor also planned to introduce commercial quotas given the daily catch limits do not go far enough when it comes to ensuring the future of the snapper fishery.

New figures released by the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) show 90 per cent of the snapper stocks have disappeared from Gulf St Vincent since 2014.

SA Labor is calling on the Marshall Liberal Government to immediately reverse this short-sighted decision and help replenish marine scalefish stocks.

Quotes aftributable to Shadow Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development Eddie Hughes

. Labor listened to proposals and advice from recreational and commercial fishers before announcing this reform package.

Overall the feedback was that the buy backs strike the right balance between commercial and recreational fishers, as well as supporting economic growth in regional towns.

Now, with a stroke of a pen from penny-pinching Treasurer Rob Lucas, this hard work has completely unravelled.

I appreciate the research undertaken by SARDI in relation to these alarming statistics.

i figures are not surprising and many fishers have reported how dire the current situation is.

Yet there was no consultation done with the industry and the Marshall Liberal Government tried to hide its cruel cut in this year's State Budget papers.

Once again South Australians are being ripped off by a Liberal Government that has a trail of broken promises in its wake.

Pamela Perre 0447 525 822

3

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4

Bond, Fiona (PIRSA)

From: brofish2 <brofish2@bigpond.com> Sent: Monday, 10 June 2019 9:52 PM To: Sloan, Sean (PIRSA); PIRSA:Minister Whetstone; Nathan Bicknell Cc: brofish2@bigpond.com Subject: M189 licence buy back

To Sean & Tim & Nathan

We are writing to let you know that we are ready to be the first to hand in there marine scale net licence to the voluntary licence buy back when available.

Asking price to surrender net fishing scale licence M189 is $600000.00 + gst.

As we need the money to diversifi into another fishery.

Kind Regards Tony Simounds Broughton Fisheries Pty Ltd 1(03 & M189 20 Everritt Ave Fulham Gardens South Australia 5024 Ph Tony 0428836749

Sent from m y Samsung Mobile on the Telstra Mobile Network

1

Doc 12

From: Sent: To: Subject:

Good morning Forwarding below email. Kind regards

Chaffey EO <Chaffey@parliament.sa.gov.au> Friday, 10 May 2019 9:47 AM PIRSA:Minister Whetstone FW: Reform

Hon. Tim Whetstone MP 'EMBER FOR CHAFFEY

P (08) 8582 4230 I A PO Box 959 BERRI SA 5343

W www.timwhetstone.com.au _ _

From: Sent: Friday, 10 May 2019 9:08 AM To: Chaffey EO Subject: Reform Dear Honourable Member Minister Tim Whetstone

I wish to remain anonymous please,

Just so you are aware we have executive members from the MFA telling fishers that we are going to have an ITQ. You should be aware that nearly all of the itq system throughout Australia have lead to the privatisation o f the fishery and bankruptcy o f many cottage based family businesses throughout rural Australia. 'lave information that shows the original intent which lead to a small minority within the industry to work behind

me scenes to get an itq. It originally came from the net fishery which has a poor reputation, they thought it could prolong there existence and reasoned at least they could make a quick buck with what quota they had before they were removed. Further I have information from the president of the MFA saying the "line fishery" never had representation. So the vast majority of fishers never were represented. We asked the MFA for a industry survey which had direct questions regarding the reform and they refused it at the executive level. The southern Yorke Peninsula professional fishers came together and put out its own survey which shows a unanimous "no" to an itq. Shane Bishop has that information. The East and West fishers are the same. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of the situation..

Kind Regards

This is some information from Queensland, NSW has a court battle going on, Victoria has massive depression where professional fishers were just wiped out...:-

Seafood Bites May 2019

1

Do Politicians understand they are privatizing the people's fish.

For those who fail to understand fish quota's or individual transferable quotas (ITQ's) fish shares or as the Qld government likes to call it "quota, fish shares". They always leave out what this type of fish management really does - it is the privatisation of the people of Qld's fish.

Currently fish are regulated by input/output controls, some by TACC and area management. These principle fishing N1/N2 endorsements are down to around 200 commercial fishers for this vast east coast of Qld. The net fishery is regulated by what these endorsements can catch on behalf of you, the seafood consumer, as it's a catching endorsement. Most fishers are happy with this type of licence, as it keep's Queenslanders as owners of that fish resource and puts fish in the market place on your behalf.

This proposed new form of fish shares via ITQ's rewards some and destroys many others. It's management of the worst kind for domestic fish stocks and gives no protection from consolidation ownership within Australia or offshore. The Productivity Commission never recommended that such heavily regulated older fisheries by ITQ's as is proposed given that catching endorsements are 1/6th of 1994.

She notes that a professor in Marine Affairs and previously an advisor to the EU fisheries, pointed out that worldwide implementing ITQ's is simply a mechanism for privatising public resources and forcing industry participants to cannibalise their industry as aptly summarised by as "ITQ's or catch shares, privatisation is nothing more than a not very well disguised hostile takeover of the ocean. This enviro-capitalist resource takeover or privatization usually involves a quite ruthless process of buying off or cajoling or crushing any opposition as their "ocean business plan" rolls along. It's the money "experts scamming, for all their worth, to create a new opportunity, a new economic driver, for investors with no regard whatsoever for the people who have to live with the consequences, and no regard for where exactly the money came from or how it was made".

This just about describes what is going on within this Qld fisheries reform. Why is Qld Labour supporting the privatizing of the people's fish? Do the politicians not understand what ITQ's really do? Most of the Old inshore commercial fishing sector do not want this. The big Qld fish selloff under the ITQ process comes with costs, even wasted fish. Yes, differing species of fish will have to be dumped because the fisher may have little or no quota for that species. Stupidity at its best is what

call it. "We do not support ITQ style quota and the flow on impacts which will impact dolphin f -ding fish supplies as the biddies are often with whiting catches".

A much-respected long-term Gympie Times journalist, has picked up on the people's fish being privatized/denationalised by self-serving bureaucrats. Longer term residences should recall that was instrumental in bringing the truths out about the now defunct Traveston Dam.

Arthur Gorrie, Gympie Times "Our View" (Something Fishy on reforms) April 16, 2019,

"We need a political party that represents the little people. But we already have one of those, don't we? Where do the little people go when state governments effectively nationalise fishing licence Investments and then package up the public fish resource for "privatisation", that is, sale to big and even foreign-controlled corporations? That is what Is happening right now as state bureaucrats work on selling off the people's fish, packaging the resource into tradeable interests that may well end up in foreign hands. If you haven't heard of this, you may be even more surprised to know that, by a process called consultation, the bureaucrats are now claiming that it was all your idea. Because they have consulted you and this is what you want, they say. I do not personally remember being asked and I would imagine most of you are in the same boat. At the other end of the scale are the fisher families, young and long-term locals will be impacted and receive no compensation, and nor will we when all our local wild fish resource is sold off?"

That's why many fishers across the industry are calling for a CCC enquiry into the fisheries reform. 2

Stay Safe

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Tan, Sopheap (PIRSA)

From: PIRSA:Minister Whetstone Sent: Wednesday, 15 May 2019 12:48 PM To: 'A.J.Fisheries@internode.on.net Subject: eA187094 - Wade Wheeler - acknowledgement from the office of the Hon Tim

Whetstone MP

eA187094

Wade Wheeler

Email: A.J.Fisheries@internode.on.net

Dear Mr Wheeler

—hank you for your email of 10 May 2019 to the Hon Tim Whetstone MP, Minister for Primary Industries and Regional Development regarding the Marine Fishers Association and Individual Transferable Quato.

Your email is being considered and a response will be sent to you as soon as possible.

Thank you for taking the time to write to the Minister on this matter.

Yours sincerely

Meg Partridge Senior Business Officer to the MINISTER FOR PRIMARY INDUSTRIES AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Office o f t h e M in i s te r f o r Pr imary Industr ies and Regional Development

Level 10, 1 King William Street Adelaide SA 5000 GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 DX 667 Tel 08 8226 29311 Fax 08 8226 0844 j Minister.Whetstonegsa.gov.au

The information contained within this email is confidential and may be the subject of legal privilege. This email is intended solely for the addressee, and if you are not the intended recipient you must not disclose, copy, use or distribute this email or any of its attachments. If you have received this email in error, please advise the sender immediately via reply email, delete the message and any attachments from your system, and destroy any copies made. PIRSA makes no representation that this email or any attached files are free from viruses or other defects. It is the recipient's responsibility to check the email and any attached files for viruses or other defects.

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Government of South Australia

Email:

Dear

Thank you for your email of 10 May 2019 regarding the proposed reform of the Marine Scalefish Fishery (MSF), where you express concerns about the potential impact the introduction of an Individual Transferable Quota management system will have on the fishery's cottage-based family businesses.

I note and appreciate your concerns on this matter, and your views on the level of support there is amongst the industry for the introduction of such a system.

As you are aware, one of the Marshall Government's election commitments was to investigate and implement key reforms in the MSF so as to unlock the industry's potential and provide long term sustainability and a secure future for the fishery. The reforms to be investigated include key aspects of zoning, fleet rationalisation and a modern management regime. As such, I have appointed the Commercial Marine Scalefish Fishery Reform Advisory Committee to work with industry to develop a reform package for my consideration. I have requested a report on the preferred management options to be delivered to me by 31 October 2019.

As you may know, the various industry sectors are involved in the process of developing these management options through their member representation on the Marine Fishers Association Industry Forum. Additionally there will be a 6 week public consultation period being held from mid-August to late September which will involve regional meetings with licence holders, These measures will ensure everyone has the opportunity to have their say in the development the MSF reform package.

If you have any further questions in relation to the reform process, please call Mr Jon Presser, Manager of Fisheries Reform with P1RSA Fisheries and Aquaculture, on

Yours sincerely

Hon Tim Whetstone MP MINISTER FOR PRIMARY INDUSTRIES AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT

4 - / /2019 Min is ter f o r Pr imary Industries and Regional Development

Level 10, 1 king William Street Adelaide SA 5000 I GPO Box 1671 Adelaide SA 5001 DX 667 Tel 08 8226 29311 Fax 08 8226 08441 Minister,Whetstone@sa.gov.ati