Some food for thought:
NSW scheme from their 2007-2008 figures:
Total available - $8.4 million dollars.
The total available was made up of allocations from the trust and amounts carried forward from the previous year.
Now NSW has a population of approx 7.04 million people.
Qld has a population of approx. 4.34 million people.
So..the NSW fishing fee equates to approx 84 cents per head of population
Then we use that figure for the Qld population and we have a total of $3.65 million available...less than half what NSW has.
NSW has a total coastline (including islands) of 2137 kilometres.
Qld has a total coastline (including islands) of 13347 kilometres.
NSW fees then equate to $3930.74 per kilometre of coastline
Qlds approximated fees would equate to only $273.47 per kilometre of coastline.
Now how big would a license fee have to be to equal NSW's? We would have to pay $1.93 for every person in the state as opposed to NSW's 84 cents and that would still only give us $629.00 per kilometre of coastline.
(This is based on the figures from the summaries of NSW DPI)
( I think my maths is correct but it is Saturday night and I should be away fishing)