Simon Lloyd

*OFFICE OF THE LIBERAL LEADER

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ABC South East SA Stan Thomson 9:19AM ACST Tuesday, 3 August 2004.             

Producer: Mr Michael James 08 8724 1000                                        

Thomson interviews SA Shadow Minister for Agriculture  Caroline Schaefer       

discussing the introduction of regulations to protect King George whiting fish 

stocks, acknowledging  there was a need to examine the process of change, but  

says  SA Agriculture Minister Rory McEwen seems to have made an  inequitable   

decision by placing restrictions on recreational fishers rather than it being an

equitable sharing decision  of both amateur and commercial interests.          

Phil Farina, Bordertown Recreational Fisherman says it will  be pretty much    

uneconomical to basically catch twelve fish  per day and a total of thirty-six 

fish in your possession at the end of a given week, saying that recreational   

fishers  wouldn't have been upset to have a new size limit of  thirty-two      

centimetres.                                                                   

Schaefer says she has always maintained that if a government is going to put   

someone out of business then there should be a buy back and in the case of     

recreational fishers who have  been angling for many years they may want to    

retire, with an incentive to do so, surprised at the decision made by  Minister

McEwen and he didn't take the opportunity to look  at a total allowable catch  

for the species.                                                               

Farina says in one night last week at Whyalla, a group of  long line commercial

fishers took one tenth of their total  allowable catch in one night last week  

and when they net,  there is a lot of undersize bio mass that has to be put back

as there are environmental concerns too.