Fisheries

Supporting the right to fish

There are more than four million recreational fishers in Australia. It’s one of country’s most popular pastimes. Recreational fishing also contributes about $11 billion to the economy each year, and supports about 100,000 jobs – most of them in regional areas.

The right of Australians to go fishing is being increasingly restricted. Poor management of recreational fisheries over the past decades has led to overfishing in some areas, and now many fishing authorities at both Federal and state level are locking recreational fishers out of large parts of the ocean, or severely restricting catch limits.

Ensuring stocks for future generations of recreational fishers always requires some regulation, but One Nation would like it kept to a minimum. It’s often the case that recreational catch limits and lockouts are based on flawed, biased or obsolete data about fish stocks. Environmental activists and animal rights extremists also work very hard to lobby governments to restrict – and ultimately ban – recreational fishing.

One Nation supports the right to fish. We’ll support the recreational fishing sector by:

  • resourcing and implementing up-to-date monitoring and assessments of recreational fish stocks in both state and Commonwealth waters;
  • establishing minimal limits – rather than unreasonable limits – to protect fish stocks for future generations while ensuring all fishers can still enjoy their favourite pastime; and
  • halving the fuel excise for at least 12 months – with an option to review and extend – so that it’s cheaper to take boats out fishing and travel to regional coastal areas to go fishing.

Supporting the Australian seafood industry

The Australian commercial seafood and aquaculture sector is valued at about $3.5 billion per year and supports about 17,000 jobs. While job numbers in aquaculture have been steady over the past 15 years, there has been a significant decline in the commercial fishing sector with jobs falling from 16,000 in 2006-07 to 10,000 in 2021-22.

Australia has one of the largest national fisheries in the world – more than eight million square kilometres of ocean – and we also exploit international fisheries. However, Australia is also a net seafood importer. More than 60% of the seafood we consume each year is sourced from overseas. While our seafood exports are valued at about $1.3 billion, we import around $2.2 billion.

This is partly due to the fact that Australia has one of the most restricted national fisheries in the world, with strict total allowable catch (TAC) quotas, and also due to the fact that much imported seafood is cheaper. Environmental and animal rights activists are active in this space as well. They’ve been partially successful in locking away large areas of ocean from commercial fishing, for example buying licences and their quotas so they can’t be filled. They have even tried to have the entire Coral Sea declared a ’national park’ where commercial fishing would be prohibited.

One Nation will support the Australian seafood industry by:

  • resourcing and implementing up-to-date monitoring and assessments of commercial fish stocks in both state and Commonwealth waters;
  • prohibiting the purchase of commercial fishing licences and quotas by any entity other than commercial fishers;
  • prohibiting the purchase of commercial fishing licences and quotas by foreign entities and prohibiting foreign-flagged vessels – especially ‘factory’ vessels – from the national fishery;
  • opposing any moves to declare parts of the national fishery as national parks;
  • exploring initiatives to increase the volume of Australian seafood available for purchase in Australia, and reducing imports;
  • exploring incentives to promote more local on-shore processing and packaging of Australian seafood;
  • reversing Labor’s changes to industrial relations law damaging small businesses; and
  • halving the fuel excise for at least 12 months – with an option to review and extend – to reduce operating costs for commercial fishers.