Fisheries Officers take industrial action over safety concerns
Fisheries Officers across NSW have begun industrial action over safety concerns after a number of violent incidents where they were shot at, threatened with knives and baseball bats and had cars driven at them.
The Officers are demanding they鈥檙e issued with protective equipment like stab-proof vests and capsicum spray.
Fisheries Officers are now avoiding certain areas and individuals at the very time fears have emerged that crooks, poachers and organised criminals like outlaw bikie gangs have taken over the state鈥檚 rivers, oceans and estuaries and are now plundering valuable species like abalone and rock lobster.
Without direct Police assistance on operations the Officers are now refusing to complete inspections of commercial trawlers at nighttime.
The Department of Primary Industries, which employs Fisheries Officers, attempted to force them back into dangerous night work earlier this week by applying to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission but the Commission refused to make such an order.
The Officers also want the same powers as Fisheries Officers in other states to check boat and car registrations, conduct surveillance, undertake investigations, and real time GPS tracking of the entire commercial fishing fleet.
They also want to see the introduction of a 鈥榝it and proper person鈥 test for commercial fishing licence holders and their crew within six months.
A Fisheries Officer is going to get killed if the NSW Government doesn鈥檛 take action says Troy Wright the Assistant General Secretary of The Public Service Association which represents Fisheries Officers.
鈥淔isheries Officers are being shot at, run down, having fishing knives pulled on them, someone鈥檚 going to get killed,鈥 said Mr Wright.
鈥淔isheries Officers have no way of knowing if a boat or car we inspect is going to be filled with bikies from outlaw motorcycle gangs, they鈥檙e blind compared to Fisheries Officers in other states.
鈥淧eople say they care about the marine environment but the 100 or so Fisheries Officers in this state are now saying publicly our oceans, rivers and estuaries are being plundered and there is nothing they can do.
鈥淚n other states鈥 Fisheries Officers have access to car and boat licence records like Police, they can find out if people are violent offenders and avoid dangerous situations, they can see if someone has a history of crimes against the environment – in NSW we can鈥檛 do that.
鈥淚t’s harder to get a RSA certificate to pull schooners at the local pub than it is to get a commercial fishing licence, you can get one and start taking thousands of kilos of fish by filling out an online form with no 100 points of ID, with no background checks.
鈥淚n Victorian or Queensland to be a commercial fisher you need to to pass a fit and proper person test, so if you have a prior history of crimes against the environment, or violent crimes you won鈥檛 get a licence.
鈥淚t鈥檚 an absolute joke, to flick a line in at the local wharf mums and dads have to pay for a licence and have it with them, but to run a commercial fishing operation you can have 15 people all pulling out hundreds of fish who have zilch paperwork.
鈥淔isheries Officers have no powers of investigation, they can鈥檛 even use binoculars or a camera, in other states they can apply to a magistrate to put a tracking device on a boat, here can鈥檛 do that, why?
鈥淲e know drug traffickers have infiltrated the commercial industry, miles off the coast in the dead of night we need to board boats, yet unlike other states we don鈥檛 have a GPS vessel monitoring system for our commercial fishing fleet, one day Fisheries Officers will board a boat and they’ll get killed.
鈥淭his is why the NSW fishing fleet is so appealing to drug traffickers to pick up cocaine shipments off the continental shelf.
鈥淚n 2020 a fishing trawler called Coralynne was caught carrying 1.8 tonnes or $850 million worth of cocaine it had picked up from a larger ship in international waters, if Fisheries Officers had boarded this boat they might have been killed.
鈥淔isheries Officers can鈥檛 even run a rego check on a boat they physically pull up alongside.
鈥淚n Queensland they track every boat via GPS, so they know where each boat is, who鈥檚 the skipper and what they鈥檙e doing.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not just miles off the coast, Fisheries Officers are intercepting poachers with thousands of dollars worth of abalone and rock lobster at all hours of the night, and these crooks won鈥檛 hesitate to hurt them if it means avoiding jail time.
鈥淔isheries Officers need more defensive protective equipment, stab proof vests, capsicum spray so if someone comes at them with a fishing knife they can put some distance between them and if they close that distance they can spray them so they can escape.
鈥淔isheries Officers often can鈥檛 call Police for backup as they are tracking poachers in the dead of night on remote beaches or miles offshore on trawlers, I鈥檓 telling you someone is going to get killed.
鈥淭hey need cars with crimson flashing lights and a siren and power to effect vehicle stops.
鈥淭here鈥檚 big money in poaching, every abalone is a $50 note, and all you need is a wetsuit and a knife and you can lever a couple of 100 off the rocks in a few hours, it’s big money.
鈥淕o for a bushwalk on the south coast and you鈥檒l see where illegal fishers have removed the abalone shell and guts, but they keep the meat which attaches to the rock, they鈥檙e highly prized in asian cuisine.
鈥淚f you care about our state鈥檚 fish stocks, especially of endangered species like abalone and rock lobster, you need to hear this distress call from Fisheries Officer鈥檚 because if they鈥檙e ignored you might wake up to the news one day soon that these species are extinct,鈥 said Mr Wright.
Contact: Tim Brunero 0405 285 547