This new proposal would require fishermen/boats that do not (yet) work for Seafish Tas to work with them, right?

Many of whom opposed the ‘super’ trawler, right?

It’ll be interesting.

What is actually cynical is the Greens’ and green groups’ continuing attempts to prevent compliant Tasmanian company Seafish Tasmania from fishing its government-allocated quota of mackerel, a quota about which there were zero complaints when it was allocated.

The arguments about the size of the supertrawler, the size of its nets, and the possibility of localised depletion because it doesn’t have to dock very often, are now invalid. Yet the pposition based on outright lies continues unabated. (ie, has the supertrawler really been banned for two years as Rebecca Hubbard of ET alleges above? Really? No.)

And who gains from this ongoing idiocy?
1) politicians who want to be seen to be doing something, anything, because they are part of a coalition that has politically neutered them;
2) other politicians who want to be seen as greener than the greens;
3) environmental groups keen to stem the loss of financial members in Tasmania;
4) recreational fishers worried about the effect that commercial fishing for abundant mackerel will have on their recreational fishing for critically endangered tuna; and,
5) vegetarians ideologically opposed to all commercial fishing off Tasmania.

I don’t expect that logic will have much to do with this new debate, much as it was absent from the first. However, it would be valuable if people who joined the campaign of opposition last time around acknowledged that the majority of the concerns raised at that time are now invalid, raising serious questions about why the opposition is continuing, and why those opposed feel the need to stretch the truth with such regularity.

No2, Ben, the way the spf was to be allocated was unknown, it was about mid year in 2012 that there was a realization of what had occurred by rec fishers.
Your comment that people against the Margiris are lying is offensive; perhaps you can tell us what the lies actually are; we have opinions like you do.  Those opinions have arisen from all the facts that has been presented. One fact being that the “science” behind the quota is up to ten years old. Another fact being that there has never been a depm survey conducted off the East Coast of Tasmania.

You ask who gains by being against over fishing of the spf; it becomes a very interesting when that question is turned around, doesn’t it Ben? Literally, only a handful benefit; don’t they Ben, at the expense of many.
You talk about logic not being part of those opposing the small pelagic fishery; so you consequently say that logic incorporated in Alan Longhurst’s scientific papers and those of Professor Meeuwig is not there.
All I can conclude is that we would all be right if we believed exactly what you do Ben, quite an immature attitude.
How can you expect to be taken seriously when you hide behind a nom deplume.

Ben,
I think you should have a proper look at who opposes industrial scale fishing like this in Australia. Yes you are right there are green groups in opposition to it. What you don’t mention is the large recreational fishing sector that has also been extremely vocal in protest to this kind of exploitation of our fish stocks. You are wasting your time green bashing, Gerry Geen and Richard Colebeck tried that in the lead up to the two year ban on Super Trawlers. Let’s just get on with the detailed science and see what comes of that.

1# James, “many who opposed the ‘super’trawler,right?”  Wrong.  There’s lots of professional fishermen who support the supertrawler.

Ben, Well put. And your right about a new debate, it’s going to be interesting hearing all the new and modified arguments.
#4 I’ll mention the rec sector. A lot of recreational fishers don’t like commercial fishers.It’s always the same whinge, “why can they take so many when I can have only a few”

#6, mikey, small commercial fishers and rec fishers have banded together in their opposition to Seafish Tasmania. At all the rallies held so far there have been commercial fishermen; this a fact, I have been present at rallies already held. You are only trying to create a red herring.
You congratulate Ben on his speculation where he has not provided any evidence to support what he stated. Are you able to give any evidence about all the speculative matters he proposed?

@#5 mikey: I didn’t say otherwise?

6. No new debate here it’s the same issues just being put up in a different format. It’s the same as writing a story in a different font, the villain is still the villain. The only new thing here is Gerry has gone to the back room and they roll out Joe as the fresh face.
As for Rec fishers perspective on Commercial fishing, the only negative comments I hear are the ones about greedy trawler men depleting local fish stocks.

#9 I could have been writing this one myself if you leave out the bit about the villain and Gerry and Joe. So how many comments have you heard about ‘greedy’ trawlermen. Are they all greedy? They must have been taking the rec fishers fish. Apparently there’s thousands of rec fishers out there but they couldn’t deplete local stocks and I wouldn’t be surprised if more money was spent on law enforcement of greedy rec fishers than commercial fishing.

well, them fisheries boyz sure know how to remove value from our fish!

they needs to drop this jack mack caper and find an aussie fish, one that lives here in smallish numbers

then put a tiny quota on it!

there is no need to take 5000 tonnes of a fish, take only 500 single fish!

value adding is the key.

now herez how you do it ...

those few fish you have, they are now a rare item

and the asian nations love eating rare stuff

so you put chunks of your ‘rare’ aussie fish into tiny medicene bottles, with some secret pickle recipe or whatever, put a flash label on it, and price it highly

then you spread rumours on the world wide web that this bottled fish gives you a ... let’s just say, a happy wife

the foreign buyer sees these tiny jars of rare fish, sees how it is so expensive for so little, and thinks, this stuff must be good!

so the jar of aussie product goes home to impress the dinner guests

and you have added huge value to your fish!

there are other benefits - freighting little bottles is cheaper than shipping cold-store fish

and it sits on the shelf longer too!

might i suggest the australian lungfish is the perfect candidate

now i am not saying fisheries people generally are dumb.

on the contrary. a similar plan was employed with tuna

by catching so many tuna the fish became a scarce item, now worth hundreds of thousands per fish. so i am not exactly a pioneer in my thinking. but they did it the hard way with tuna. it took years of work

jack macks, they are like flies, it could take years to reach the point of high value, even with mega trawlers

so dump the chump (the jack mack) and start building a profitable, sensible business model around lungfish

Fuck off Seafish Tasmania.