Fish control laws to shut down professional gill net fishing in Gulf, mayor warns

Enjoy the Queensland barramundi fillet as part of your Christmas seafood feast because it could well be your last, a Far North Queensland mayor has warned.

Carpentaria Shire Mayor Jack Bawden.

Enjoy the Queensland barramundi fillet as part of your Christmas seafood feast because it could well be your last, a Far North Queensland mayor has warned.

Carpentaria Shire Mayor Jack Bawden said new fish control laws to be introduced from January 1 were based on “flawed or non-existent scientific evidence’’.

Mr Bawden said the move would shut down professional gill net fishing in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

“The federal and state governments are looking at closing down gill net fishing on the Great Barrier Reef and also the Gulf of Carpentaria, and it is being done under the covering blanket of the World Heritage organisation UNESCO,” he said.

The Queensland Future Fishing Taskforce has set out a summary of several potential net-free zones in the Gulf of Carpentaria, including all rivers and creeks, the area surrounding Mornington Island, and a large section off the northwest of the peninsula.

Mr Bawden said a letter from the federal Environment Minister to UNESCO in May this year said the East Coast would be shut down, followed by the Gulf of Carpentaria.

“UNESCO’s jurisdiction does not include the Gulf of Carpentaria and we are not in any way connected with the Great Barrier Reef,’’ he said.

“There has never been any data released justifying the closures – there is none.’’

Mr Bawden said the research commissioned by his council found the conservative estimate of the annual impact was a loss of 41 local jobs and $8.39m in output.

“In a town the size of Karumba – with a population of 487 – the economic impact of 40-plus full time jobs gone will be devastating,” he said.

“Another question is: Where will Australians get their wild caught seafood from?’’

The state government says the phase-out of gill net fishing in the reef will occur over the next 3½ years.

Additional net-free zones will be established in the Gulf of Carpentaria from the end of March 2024, with the entire Great Barrier Reef intended to be gill net free by mid-2027.