Insane violence against public servants

Sinister gangs are “plundering” some of Australia’s most valuable products with fears more violence could be coming.

A chilling warning has been issued that a public servant could be killed after they faced a number of violent incidents including being shot at, threatened with knives and baseball bats or had cars driven at them.

As a result fisheries officers across NSW have begun industrial action and are demanding the NSW government issue them with protective equipment like stab-proof vests and capsicum spray.

The union representing the fisheries officers has said fears have emerged that crooks, poachers and organised criminals like outlaw bikie gangs have taken over the state’s rivers, oceans and estuaries and are now plundering valuable species like abalone and rock lobster.

As a result of their safety fears, officers are now refusing to complete inspections of commercial trawlers at night-time.

Illegal abalone haul seized by Fisheries NSW. Picture: Supplied

A fisheries officer is going to get killed if the NSW Government doesn’t take action, said The Public Service Association assistant general secretary Troy Wright.

“Fisheries officers are being shot at, run down, having fishing knives pulled on them, someone’s going to get killed,” he said.

“Fisheries officers have no way of knowing if a boat or car we inspect is going to be filled with bikies from outlaw motorcycle gang – they’re blind compared to fisheries officers in other states.

“People 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.”

Fisheries Officer Joe Wright. Picture: Nigel Hallett

The NSW cohort want the same powers as fisheries officers in other states where they can check boat and car registrations, conduct surveillance, undertake investigations, and do real time GPS tracking of the entire commercial fishing fleet.

“In other states’ 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’t do that,” Mr Wright added.

“It’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.”

The NSW Fisheries vessel in Bondi. Picture: Sunday Telegraph

Mr Wright said NSW fisheries officers have no powers of investigation – not even being allowed to use binoculars or cameras when in other states they can apply to a magistrate to put a tracking device on a boat.

“We 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’t have a GPS vessel monitoring system for our commercial fishing fleet. One day Fisheries Officers will board a boat and they’ll get killed,” he warned.

“This is why the NSW fishing fleet is so appealing to drug traffickers to pick up cocaine shipments off the continental shelf.

“In 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.”

Illegal abalone haul seized by Fisheries NSW. Picture: Supplied

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’t hesitate to hurt them if it means avoiding jail time”, he claimed.

“Fisheries 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.

“Fisheries officers often can’t call police for backup as they are tracking poachers in the dead of night on remote beaches or miles offshore on trawlers.”

There’s big money in poaching, he added, with every abalone worth $50 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,” he said.

“Go for a bushwalk on the south coast and you’ll see where illegal fishers have removed the abalone shell and guts, but they keep the meat which attaches to the rock, they’re highly prized in Asian cuisine.”

Joe is a fisheries officer and union delegate who is talking about the industrial action officers are taking due to their workplace being unsafe. Picture: Nigel Hallett

In Victorian or Queensland to be a commercial fisher you need 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’t get a licence, Mr Wright explained.

The union is calling for this requirement to be introduced into NSW in the next six months.

“It’s 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,” he added.

Fisheries officers in NSW can’t even run a rego check on a boat they physically pull up alongside, unlike in QLD where they can track every boat via GPS, so they know where each boat is, who’s the skipper and what they’re doing, he noted.

The NSW Department of Primary Industries launched a trial of capsicum spray on the state’s south coast as well as an upgraded body-worn camera system, but has not released the results.

The department took the matter to the NSW Industrial Relations Commission on Wednesday, with the two parties ordered into arbitration in October.

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Originally published as Insane violence against public servants