The Super-Ministry of Fish ‘n Chips …

*Pic: The original super trawler Margiris (later Abel Tasman) … banned!

Charles Wooley, 60 Minutes mode …

It’s my understanding with this column that by the time you get to the Last Word you have already been burdened enough with the worries of our small island.

Thus my job isn’t so much to report the news, as to explain that things are never as bad as they seem. In fact they are a lot worse, and the only good news is that now you are allowed to laugh. But only quietly.

The Small Pelagic Fishery Industry Association; you might not have heard of it, nor probably used it much in conversation.

How could you?

It’s easier to read than to say. It’s the kind of awkward and ungainly title that makes you feel sorry for television newsreaders. A name so long, viewers might change channel before it awkwardly trips over the presenter’s tongue. And if the unfortunate news reader has to repeat the title of this curious organisation, hopefully the copywriter will take pity and allow the acronym SPFIA, pronounced I presume ‘spfeeah’.

Try saying that without spitting on the lens. Which is kind of appropriate, because what this obscurely named outfit is actually about, has got a lot of Tasmanians spitting.

Most people I know, greenies and rednecks, are united in their opposition to ‘spfeeah’ once they know what it means. ‘Pelagic’ denotes the open seas, near to the surface, but that’s as far as they might easily get, because despite the sound of it, the ‘Small Pelagic Fishing Industry Association’ isn’t necessarily a happy band of small weekend fishermen who go out in little boats and catch a few fish.

Knocking off a few pesky seals and dophins into the bargain …

It might, alternatively, mean a small group of big people with even bigger boats who go out 24/7 and catch huge tonnages of small fish.

Get it? It’s actually the fish that are small and the boats that are big. The blokes from SPFIA (‘spfeeah’) must have had quite a time around the kitchen table, late one night, dreaming up a name that didn’t create the entirely false impression that the world’s biggest-ever trawlers were hoovering up all your small bait fish and knocking off a few pesky seals and dolphins into the bargain.

The horribly conflicted business of super trawling could curdle your morning café au lait, so I hope some simple explanation might make an otherwise dark and depressing matter at least a little more amusing.

So let’s understand at least one term. The ‘super’ in ‘super trawler’ doesn’t actually mean ‘fabulous’ or ‘excellent’ in the jolly old Enid Blyton (“Super! Scones and jam with lashings of cream.”) sense of the word.

No, it means ‘big’ and I mean bloody BIG. From what I understand, which isn’t much, because I only catch my fish one at a time, it means trawlers so big that the pointy end is fifty nautical miles out in Bass Strait while the round end is still at the wharf in Burnie, unloading industrial quantities of fish.

What wood chipping is to the forest, super trawling is to the sea. If you love your wood chipping you will love your super trawling and vice versa. Fish and chips, it’s a natural Tasmanian association. Rationally, it should be one government department.

Personally I’d give the job to Paul Harriss because he’s a bloke skilled at disguising the unattractive and making it sound like something else.

You can choose your own Minister for Fish and Chips. Personally I’d give the job to Paul Harriss because he’s a bloke skilled at disguising the unattractive and making it sound like something else.

In a recent press release, he almost managed not to mention woodchips in a splendid attempt to flog a dead (wooden) horse. While trying valiantly to revive the popularity of wood chipping, because losing $43,000,000 last year wasn’t nearly enough, he spoke cryptically and enthusiastically about ‘residue solutions’. Now that is masterful double-speak, which even George Orwell would have admired. And so do I. This is so good ……

“The Ministerial Advisory Council is investigating residue solutions as it develops the growth plan for the industry.”

To be fair though, you have to be a bit tricky in the Forest portfolio. Whatever the title, the Minister for Forests has always had to be, in reality, the Minister Against Forests so in his position it makes good sense to get rid of the F word and substitute the much more acceptable R word.

From ‘forest’ to ‘residue’ moves the argument a million miles from the greenies’ misleading impressions that we are clear felling the island and trashing our beloved bush.

In the Minister’s sanitized, alternative reality there aren’t any forests, just ‘residue’, trash and garbage, to be cosmetically removed. Like ‘ethnic cleansing’ or the ‘ultimate solution’, weasel words, anywhere, always treat the public’s intelligence with contempt and accordingly work very well.

Again in such an alternative reality, the deaths of a few seals and dolphins could easily be described as ‘unintentional by-catch’ or ‘collateral damage’ and that should be the end of the matter. Perhaps unlike our Forest Minister, the Federal Environment Minister, Greg Hunt doesn’t have a good spin-doctor because somehow, Mr. Hunt got carried away and became over zealous in his portfolio responsibilities. Surely he was being an over enthusiastic Federal Minister FOR the Environment when he declared that those killings of mere seals and dolphins were ‘unacceptable and outrageous’. I’m sure he will be spoken to.

Meanwhile at home, some good has come out of all this. Reducing the number of Tasmanian Government departments and ministries is a logical and urgently needed cost cutting measure and clearly, here is an outstanding case for amalgamation. Fisheries and Forests should obviously become a State Super-department.

Fish ‘n Chips Tasmania.

It’s kind of catchy isn’t it?

But I’ll take mine with more than a grain of salt.