Eyre Peninsula/Aquaculture Debate - ABC Radio Precis 24/7/03
Submitted by SARFAC Friday, 25th July 2003
Reference : 639ABC Morning Radio Show Thursday, 24 July 2003

639ABC Morning Radio Show Thursday, 24 July 2003

Radio precis 24/7/03

Claim the needs of Eyre Peninsula have been unfairly ignored

It's claimed the needs of Eyre Peninsula have been unfairly ignored with a State Govt decision to offer a rescue package to an air service in the State's north. The State Govt has put together a $40,000 package to help save air services to Coober Pedy and boost tourism to the region.

Liz Penfold says the Govt's recent refusal to subsidise services to Central Eyre Peninsula is unfair :

"Now the only thing you can think is, that perhaps there's a political motive. It happens to be a Labor electorate and not Liz Penfold's Liberal electorate. That's how I feel about it."

"I don't mind Coober Pedy getting assistance but let's be fair. You know, what about Cleve and Wudinna, what about Streaky Bay and Elliston? You know, they've all lost services, why not give them a subsidy and a little bit of help along the way. That's all we asked to try and keep the service back in Cleve and Wudinna."

Michael Wright says the State Govt isn't being biased and other calls for airline infrastructure assistance are welcome :

"An arrangement like this where we can provide a one off infrastructure grant to help with the maintenance of the airport, where other players such as the council, Rex, tourism Commission also come to the table with dollars. This just makes good business sense and any.. any region around South Australia, if they come forward with a business case of that type, it will certainly be judged on its merits."

Radio precis 24/7/03

Grant Hobson, National Convenor, Friends of Scale Bay - Problems with aquaculture

(Male : ... it's not necessarily all good news, not for everybody ... Grant ... if I say aquaculture to you, what does it mean?) ...

I guess I would probably need to relate to our experience ... a proposal that was made for a fish farm in Scale Bay ... aquaculture came to us a confrontation to marine environments we knew as pristine and perfect and it was going to be something that was going to threaten it ... going through process of struggling to have the fish farms removed from our sphere of reference ... educated us all about what aquaculture was ... what it potentially could do to the marine environment

(Male : ... as you've worked through this ... said Ok we don't particularly want it there ... visual side ... environmental questions ... what sorts of things are you discovering from other parts of the world ... ) ...

you only need to pick up the Australian newspaper ... find out in Qld ... there's a two hectare finfish farm proposal in a marine national park being put forward by an ex politician from Tasmania ... they're pursuing this proposal with the same amount of vigour that they pursued the proposal of a 20 hectare fish farm adjacent to a sea lion colony ... fifth largest breeding colony in the world ... in Qld they are stating, they're using an economic argument ... crucial thing that's required but they're employing the environment in a trade-off situation ... that is unfair ... as the ... former Mayor of Qld equated ... it is the equivalent of having 1,000 pigs in Moreton bay desiccating in there every day ... in Scale Bay we would have had ten times the volume of waste that would have been produced every day with 20 hectare fish farm ... equates to 25 tonnes of nitrogen waste every year being pumped into these environment ... inshore environment's can't handle it ...

( Male : Is there a necessity that they have to be inshore ... is there a way they can do it, 20, 30 miles offshore?) ...

I would say ... common sense equation to look at ... the inshore environment don't have the ability to distribute that volume of waste ... environments used for recreation, fishing ... quite often environment animals like Australian sea lion and other bird life and animals exist in ... require to use as their feeding grounds ... seems as a convenient option to use these inshore environments ... when they're destroyed or when they're fouled, then they take their operations offshore ...

(Male : ...what was the response from people around the regions to your opposition to this ... ?) ...

in these coastal environments you have a large group of people that live there because they're passionate about the ocean, their recreation involves the ocean and their whole outlook involves the ocean ... these are pristine ocean environments in these inshore areas ... we didn't encounter any opposition to our fight against the fish farm because people could quite obviously see that you couldn't locate a 20 hectare finfish farm adjacent to a breeding colony of sea lions ... because the animals would have died ... would have been caught in the nets, drowned and bludgeoned ... even though Primary Industries are stating all the way up to the final point that they have options to keep these animals out but ... wider scientific community basically said no you don't, there's nothing to suggest that you do ... it wasn't really an argument on a community level of jobs being put out of place, it was a common sense logical argument that Scale Bay's a pristine environment and it should be preserved as such ... and it will be in the forthcoming marine protected area process in 2006 ...

Radio precis 24/7/03

Paul Holloway, Minister for Fisheries & Primary Industries - Problems with aquaculture

(Male : ... would you describe yourself as a fan of aquaculture generally?)

I guess that's fair enough ... I think there's no doubt it offers enormous potential for economic development and if it's properly managed ... just like land based agriculture ... if you don't manage it sustainably, then you'll have problems with it ... it will enable a lot of communities to thrive and survive and keep the young people in the area ... more than that it also will provide some antidote to the depletion of wild catch fisheries ... lot of evidence throughout much of the world ... our wild catch fisheries are being severely depleted

(Male : Seems that the face of it ... there must be a common ground there somewhere where you can get the benefits of saving your wild catches as well as trying to find a way to make sure these things are managed properly ... is there any reason we can't look further offshore to farm fish?)

I think that's happening with some industries ... look at the tuna farming which has been our most successful aquaculture ventures ... idea is certainly move those farms into the deeper waters where the problem of nutrients and so on will be better managed ... that's going to come ... whole lot of different activities with aquaculture ... people shouldn't forget that just the oyster growing sector's worth about $60m by itself to the State and employs over 500 people ...

(Male : ... in Ireland and Hawaii ... there is a real concern in many ways having aquaculture projects very close to shores is almost colonising the access to the beach ... locking off large tracks of coastline as well ... is this something that you the Govt is aware of or is looking at trying to prevent in SA?)...

always a potential for that ... if you compare us with Ireland ... fortunately our coastline is much greater ... our population's considerably less ... I think we can resolve those problems ... it will take up some areas of coastline ... important thing we have our coastal reserves that enable our native fish species to thrive ... also we look after our native habitats ... fortunate enough here, we can have it both ways ...

(Male : ... is there ever a look at the long distance future for aquaculture and what we can do to continue to really maintain it ... given its potential, it almost seems to be something which is still in its infancy?) ...

I guess aquaculture ... in Australia ... is relatively new ... it began with the tuna farms in Pt Lincoln in early 1990's ... has been practiced overseas for much longer ... I think we've got the potential here to get it right ... our Acquaculture Act under which aquaculture ventures are now managed ... provides a model for other parts of the world about how to properly manage aquaculture to ensure you do get the sites right ... that you do manage the ventures properly ... as we've seen with some of those Kingfish farms ... sometimes you will get issues that arise if you're trying a new species of fish in a new area ... important thing is to have the flexibility in your management structures to deal with those problems as we've seen this year ... sometimes the answer is new technology such as steel cages that have been trialled ... also of course we do have to spend a fair bit of money on research ... SARDI is doing a lot of work to ensure we keep up with the best management practices around the world ...

(Male : ... better technology in SA ... perhaps you can move to other parts of the world, even if you're not selling them any fish, you can always sell them the techniques you're developing?) ... aquaculture in Australia ... Atlantic Salmon in Tas ... in fact some Tasmanian companies have developed techniques for feeding those fish actually sell technology throughout the world ... some of our aquaculture ventures here use that technology that was developed in Tas ... we have the opportunity as well to be at that cutting edge in technology ... ensure not only we have sustainable development ... we get the benefits from this use of this technology ... sale of this technology to rest of the world

(Where would you like to see the aquaculture industry be in five years from now...?) ..

. have to ensure the industry is economically as well as environmentally sustainable ... some of our ventures, particularly some of the finfish there's obviously been a few teething problems ... lot of significant amount of investment that's needed to get this right and obviously lot of returns for that industry don't come for a number of years so I'd like to think that we're in a position in five years time where we are providing lots of jobs and employment in the State ... that also the income the industry is generating is sufficient to ensure that the there'll be further investment in the industry that will have achieved the confidence ... above all that ... importance of aquaculture is that the people of the world are able to provide fish ... no doubt that wild catch fisheries around the world are under a lot of pressure ... if people are to eat fish ... very good for us ... for people to get that at a reasonable price throughout the world ... obviously that will only come from aquaculture ... it is important we can develop sustainable aquaculture

(Would you like to see a limit on the amount of aquaculture operations that are able to operate in the Gulf?) ...

your listeners would be well aware ... some of the problems we had late last year, early this year in relation to escapes ... we've slowed down ... approvals in relation to those areas are subject to us being sure we're on top of that escape problem

(Is there any feel at this stage that you would consider perhaps legislating for a particular standard of mesh ... metal mesh?) ...

what we do ... through our codes of practice ... we regularly meet with the industry ... they have a strong incentive themselves to get this right ... if fish are escaping ... they're not going to be making money ... so it's going to threaten the viability of the industry ... obviously very much in their interest ... they get on top of these problems ... with the research work we're doing through SARDI's ... trial and technology that we work with industry ... the pace in which we develop will obviously depend ... on how successful we are in addressing the problems ... at the moment we're awaiting the outcome of some of that work from SARDI ... we have tended to slow down the growth of the industry until we're certain we're on top of these problems ...

(Male: In a sense, without actually having applied a moratorium, you're saying, let's back off approving these until we get those results?)

essentially yes ...

Alan Seuter, Deputy Mayor, Ceduna (639ABC 8.54-8.59) - Aquaculture

Firstly whilst I am the Deputy Mayor ... I cannot speak on behalf of council on this issue ... isn't really a council position in regard to this ... can speak as a President of the West Coast Professional Fishermen's Assoc

(Male : Well that sounds better than Deputy Mayor anyway ...are you a fan of aquaculture?) ..

I am ... one particular form of aquaculture that we believe is poison ... tuna farming is a very desirable activity which creates a lot of economic activity and lot of employment ... same goes for oysters ... disaster however is Kingfish ... do not believe it will ever be either a viable or desirable industry ...

(Male : Idea of Kingfish farming, is there a potential here ... if structures are already in place for Kingfish farming were to be changed ... do you think ... argument to be looking at a difference species?)

... any other species yes ... problem with Kingfish is multi faceted ... it's not economically attractive ... only been propped up by Govt grants ... really would be good to know how many millions of dollars the Govt has very foolishly poured into this particular industry ... they acknowledge that it's costing them $6-$7 a kg to grow Kingfish and they're only realising between $4.60 and $7.50 ... I think I've heard $8 once in the markets ...

(... doesn't it seem that if Kingfish are as easy to grow that the market, simple laws of supply and demand are going to mean ... sooner or later you're going to have an oversupply of Kingfish anyway?)

they've already achieved that ... in fact the Japanese production of Yellowtail Kingfish dropped from 171,000 tonnes to 130,000 tonnes in three years and they're spiralling downwards ... for the first time ever the Japanese producers are exporting Kingfish because they simply cannot sell them in Japan ... they are rapidly changing to other species as quickly as they can ... it just isn't a viable fishery

(Are there any ideas about what you could do with these leases now ... aquaculture leases for Kingfishing?)

suggest try something else ... in the meantime ... the SARDI research initially has found that they are creating a massive problem with wild stocks ... The Advertiser 26th May ... and I quote 'an investigation into the massive increase in the number of juvenile Kingfish in Spencer Gulf waters has found they are escapees from fish farms' and the Minister hasn't really acknowledged this but that finding confirms the views that professional and recreational fishing groups have had right from the beginning and at times we've been ridiculed for suggesting that they are escaped fish

(Have to pretty stupid fish if they weren't to escape ... if you bang the bottom of the boat and they come up and expect to get fed)

everybody knew that other than the Minister and the Director of Fisheries who continually refused to acknowledge it and even after the SARDI advice was in The Advertiser, there hasn't really been an acknowledgement ... still waiting really for an apology ...

(What's the feeling among communities ... you're somebody who's been involved there in Ceduna ... have you noticed a change, it seemed there was a certain amount of enthusiasm in the initial days ... ?) ...

not for Kingfish ... there was only ever enthusiasm from a minority ... community opposition to Kingfish farms was overwhelming ... there's been support for ventures like oysters, abalone and we would love to see tuna farms here ... we don't have anything but admiration for tuna farming ... community support for aquaculture is extremely high in this area and most areas ...