We might need to have a few fishos starve to death from lack of fish Cormorant to get the funding the cyclists do.
And herein does lie a problem. Cyclists are non-polluting road users that don't suck up big licks of health care funds. Fishos are polluting, drinking, smoking, resource consuming, habitat damaging .....
And fishos only comprise about 16% of the Qld population.
So it's kind of understandable that the perception of the other 84% of the population is that we shouldn't be receiving government funding for our pleasure to further go about polluting, drinking, smoking ......
And the government's ear would be leaning the way of the 84%.
So although we might expect gov to come up with the funds, why would they? They don't know that net free regions are a conservation measure that will improve the commercial fishery. They don't know that our fisheries are even in trouble - FQ seem to be keeping that from them and there might be a motivating factor for that. They (gov) don't know that fishos from all around the world are going to come to fish our net free regions - or that they won't because we have none. They don't know about nets spooking fish and evolutionary changes and reduced fecundity.