Cleveland Meeting

[NeilD]

Is anyone else heading down to Cleveland for the Finfish Conultation meeting on Wed evening. I think its pretty important to get our ideas across before the decisions are made.

Hope to see a few Ausfishers there

Cheers

Neil

[choppa]

neil,,,, without being negative towards your post,,,,you are 100% correct,, in asking who may be attending

i went to the bribie meet,,,and i have various reports from those already held,,,

much the same outcome,,,,,,, but unless the same questions/queries are asked all over,, the message may be lost in the smokescreen,,,,,,,,

on other sites,,,the response is mixed,,,, seems to be more agro towards those who didn't attend,,, versus the report on what actually happened,,, get my drift???????

[skippa]

Yeah I'm heading down.

[NeilD]

Hopefully a few more of us will decide to have some input as to the future direction for our fisheries.

Neil

[finga64]

I'll be making an effort to attend.

[jeffrey_h]

see you there


Jeffrey

[seatime]

It was well worth the effort, pretty good attendance at Cleveland I thought, though haven't been to the others.
Even though the time slot of 7-9pm was for recreational/community, it was good to hear from a couple of commercial fishers who were in attendance. Rec and Pro seem to be together on the issue of sustainability in Moreton Bay.
DPI appear to be listening and taking note of points raised, however the proof will be in the pudding. They reiterated that several issues were common to other meetings held so far, and they understand the importance of public access to fisheries in the future.
I was surprised to hear that DPI had a say in the GNS closures, they need beating with a stick for that one!
Also DPI has a voice in urban development of foreshores, not sure what they think they're doing allowing mangrove removal for development (politics, no doubt).
On the issue of enforcement, I had a chat to Boating Patrol, there are now only 6 Water Police Officers in Moreton Bay with the quals to issue Fisheries infringement notices, add to that the 9-5 workday/ 5 day week of boating patrol, and it's no wonder enforcement is so thin on the ground.
They avoided or forgot my dugong question, IMO they could use dugong as they used the GNS to close areas in Moreton Bay, but could be wrong, hope I'm wrong.
If you're able, get along to the remaining meetings.

regards
Steve.

[S.S.]

I'm heading down to the Southport meeting tonight. Sounds like it's worth the effort.

[NeilD]

I was pretty uncomfortable after the meeting. I felt that the facilitators were steering the discussion in the directions they wanted. When uncomfortable topics were brought up such as trawler bycatch they were dropped like hot potatoes.
My overall impression is that we are in a spot trouble with the DPI running the show as their emphasis is on primary industry and not sport and recreation or secondary industries that evolve around recreational fishing. They made it quite clear that they will also bend over and take whatever rubbish the EPA wants to put forward such as no recreational trolling in Gey Nurse Protection Zones while the pro are allowed in.

Neil