Page 3434 - Week 10 - Tuesday, 17 September 2019
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So what are we doing to support recreational fishing in the ACT? Today we are bringing in more laws, and I ask myself why we are doing this and why is this a priority? The explanatory statement for this bill states:
Comments and submissions received during public consultation showed that there is a perceived lack of enforcement of the Fisheries Act amongst the ACT recreational fishing community. Respondents reported observing non-compliance.
So here we have the ACT recreational fishing community telling the government that they believe that there is a lack of enforcement of the current laws, and the government’s response is to bring in more laws. ACT fishers also note the government’s lack of success against the benchmark set in the act.
A Canberra Liberal government introduced the Fishing Act in 2000, and one of the listed objects was to provide high quality and viable recreational fishing. The strong view of many in the fishing fraternity is that successive Labor governments have failed in this objective. Evidence of this failure includes: permitting pest fish species to dominate ACT waters over recent years; the limitations in stocking sporting fish species, suitable for ACT waters; and the closure of high-value streams, including the Cotter River completely above the new Cotter Dam.
Even the government’s own tourism agency VisitCanberra finds it difficult to promote Canberra fishing. If you google “Best fishing spots in Canberra” the number one result is VisitCanberra where it says there are some great rivers for boat and shore fishing: Moruya River, Tuross Lake, Clyde River and Wagonga Inlet. That is an interesting result from VisitCanberra.
The fact is that the ACT is already highly regulated for recreational fishing. Many would say that the sector is over-regulated and that the government is driving recreational fishing out of the territory. The truth is that the ACT has limited opportunity for recreational fishing and it is now being limited even more by direct government actions.
A high percentage of ACT rivers already have fishing bans. Fishing is currently banned in the Tidbinbilla River within the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, Orroral River upstream of the bridge west of the site of the former space tracking station, Cotter River catchment upstream of the Bendora Dam wall including Bendora and Corin reservoirs, Cotter River and the reservoir above the Cotter Dam wall to the junction with Condor Creek, and the Murrumbidgee River downstream of the concrete crossing at Angle Crossing to the junction with the Gudgenby River.
Why are all these streams locked out to fishers? Access has been banned in recent years on the Cotter River to protect native fish but anecdotal evidence suggests that few anglers ever caught a native fish in over 15 years of fishing the Cotter River. Locked gates have now been installed and signs erected threatening fines that are greater than those for many criminal offences.
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