Cuts to fisheries officer positions that come into effect next week, could not come at a worse time, with abalone poaching on the increase in East Gippsland.
That is the view of Gippsland East Nationals’ MP, Tim Bull, who has continually called on the State Government to restore these positions.
It comes as two different poacher groups were reported operating at the same time in Cape Conran just this month.
One was on East Cape and one was on West Cape.
Mr Bull said he had seen the video filmed after dark with heat sensor technology that clearly shows the illegal operations.
“With this sort of activity on the increase, it is ludicrous Minister Dimopoulos and the Victorian Fisheries Authority (VFA) were pushing ahead with the cuts,” Mr Bull said.
“The stupidity of it all is when you raise these sorts of scenarios, the VFA says it is growing its Major Crime Task Force but will not provide any detail on how much it will grow, which suggests it will not be growing by much, if at all.
“Regardless, it will continue to be Melbourne based – so a fat lot of good it will do for this sort of illegal activity in our region. We need fisheries officers on the ground,” Mr Bull said.
“This comes on the back of the VFA admitting there are 100,000 recreational anglers in the State who do not abide by the rules.
“It has repeatedly said there are one million recreational anglers in the State and 90 per cent do the right thing – that means 10 per cent (or 100,000) are not.
“In response to this, the VFA says people with one fish over the bag limit, or one fish undersize, is not important, but this is selective and silly commentary to defend their cuts.
“The reality is a number of these offenders are taking well over their bag and catch limits, are taking many undersize fish, and purposely doing the wrong thing on a much bigger scale.
“VFA knows this and VFA also knows that with less fisheries officers, this will grow.
“The reason it is being done is the State’s finances have been grossly mismanaged to the stage we are to hit a debt level of $192 billion with interest repayments alone of $28.8 million per day.
“This is the simple reason we are seeing cuts across the board.
“We need a government that will restore the State’s balance sheet to a respectable level, because under Jacinta Allan it is out of control. Labor cannot manage money and Victoria’s fisheries and fishers are paying the price,” Mr Bull said.
