Scott,
This very subject is being considered by ECOfishers Qld and been brought up in discussions with various Gov bodies and committees recently.
Here is one part I personally do not like:-
2) Administration costs to manage the program would be capped at 10% from License contributions This employs government staff to administer & manage the program.
Trust me, there are ample people already within the department that could do this job and not impinge of their current work load..... That was a nice way putting it.
I personally believe that there is sufficient funds collected through GST and taxes on recreational anglers to buy out all neccessary commercial licences in Queensland and have plenty left for research.
Having said that, the importance of recreational fishing in not only Queensland, but the whole of Australia, far outweighs the benefits provided by current commercial practices.
This is where Qld Tourism, State Development and DPI&F need to step up to the plate. You simply have to look at what has happened in the NT in recent years to know that one fish can contribute many thousands of dollars to an economy, whereas if it gets caught by commercial fishers, it provides very little.
Queensland is on the brink of either establishing one of the worlds best recreational and tourism based fisheries or seeing it collapse under misguided government policy.
Thanks for this post and it has been discussed before. I just hope people see the big picture and are not lead to believe that a recreational fishing licence would be the saviour of the recreational fishery in Qld. I know the NSW model has provided some great outcomes, in particular " estuaries ", but we must be aware of what happened recently in the Moreton Bay Marine Park licence buy-back scheme, where many licences were bought back only to see the " effort " reduced by about 2%. That was one hell of a stuff up. Even the commercial operators told the gov this would happen.
Cheers Phill
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