Mallacoota abalone businesses forced out over allegations of shellfish behaviour
Mallacoota abalone divers, whose processing plant burnt to the ground on New Year’s Day, have been locked out of highly-valued local reefs.
BUREAUCRATIC bungling has granted one aquaculture operator exclusive rights to two Mallacoota reefs, blocking commercial abalone divers from the fire-ravaged town harvesting the sites for the next 21 years.
Over the past 18 months Victorian Environment Minister Lily D’Ambrosio and her departmental bureaucrats have quietly signed off on crown land leases granting Mallacoota’s Menke family exclusive rights over the highly-valued Gabo and Tullaberga Island reefs.
Fisheries insiders told The Weekly Times the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning bureaucrats “never meant to grant them (the Menkes) exclusivity”.
“It was just sloppiness and laziness by the decision makers. They just put it through the DELWP sausage machine.”
The Menkes have used the reefs for more than a decade to grow wild-caught abalone in cages, which are then seeded to produce pearls for their MAPA aquaculture business, with other users having free access to the sites they’ve harvested since 1965.
But now under the new leases the Menkes can not only exclude abalone divers from the nine hectares of reefs, but also local urchin harvesters, recreational anglers and divers.
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Four local abalone and one sea urchin harvesting businesses have taken Supreme Court action against Ms D’Ambrosio, arguing she did not have the power to grant the exclusive leases. But court documents show Ms D’Ambrosio is defending the decision, with her lawyers saying she had the power and right to do so.
Mallacoota locals say the Minister’s move is a kick in the guts for the small fire-ravaged fishing community, who witnessed their abalone processing factory, the town’s biggest employer, razed to the ground in the New Year’s Day inferno.
“Plus they’re wasting Victorians’ money defending the case,” one Mallacoota abalone diver said.
It is believed to be the first time an exclusive crown land lease has been granted over a marine site that was already being harvested by other commercial users.
Paul Menke said he sought the crown land leases to give his family greater certainty and security over their aquaculture business.
But it remains unclear whether Mr Menke knew he would be granted an exclusive crown land lease.
When asked, he told The Weekly Times: “I wasn’t fully aware that was the case.”
But when asked why he needed to exclude commercial abalone divers from the reef, he answered: “Because we see them as a genuine threat to our operations.
“Prior to the plaintiffs going forward with court proceedings we were working on an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) with user groups, to give them access,” Mr Menke said. “That MOU identified traditional owners, recreational use and commercial licensees.”
Mr Menke said other aquaculture licence holders in Victoria had exclusive rights of access.
“We would be exposed to litigation if anyone went on to that site,” he said.
Ultimately, Mr Menke said the family wanted to expand its business, by culturing abalone at the Victorian Fisheries Authority’s Queenscliff shellfish hatchery and then moving them to Mallacoota, creating a more sustainable industry that employed lots of locals.
But The Weekly Times understands the VFA and Mallacoota abalone divers have opposed the move, fearing it would spread the abalone herpes virus from central Victoria waters into East Gippsland.
Documents lodged in the Supreme Court by Ms D’Ambrosio’s lawyers state the Land Act empowered her to grant the leases and “the Gabo Lease and the Tullaberga Lease grant the Fifth Defendant (MAPA pearls) a right of exclusive possession of the sites”.
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In defending the decision the minister’s lawyers said section 134 of the Land Act empowered the minister to grant leases of any crown land, which “includes the seabed within Victorian coastal waters”.
Local abalone divers involved in the case said they did not want to comment while the case was before the Supreme Court.
Given the two reefs yield about eight tonnes of abalone annually, at $48 a kilogram, the loss of access over 21 years is worth about $8 million to the local abalone industry.
Ms D'Ambrosio office declined to comment because the matter was before the courts.
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