It is now 25 years since the Australian Government announced a major policy initiative concerning the future management of Commonwealth fisheries. The “New Directions” policy commenced in 1990 and mandated the use of Individual Transferable Catch Quotas (ITQs) under a biologically determined Total Allowable Catch (TAC) as the preferred management control. In 1992 ITQs were allocated across sixteen of the main species in the trawl sector of the South East Fishery (SEF). The new policy had three simple objectives: to ensure the conservation of fisheries resources and the environment which sustains them; to maximise the economic efficiency of the industry; and to collect an appropriate charge from fishers who were exploiting a community resource for private gain.
A review of developments in the SEF since the implementation of quota management suggests that none of the three objectives have been successfully achieved. In 2014/15 fishers in the SEF landed only 40% (7,718 t) of the total TAC (18,965 t) for the sixteen main species. For seven of these species the TAC was very significantly under-caught (<25% of TAC landed). The TAC was more than 50% caught for only five species out of the sixteen. The status of many stocks in the SEF can be described as ‘concerning’ - i.e. the stock has declined, or appears to be declining, to a very low level.
The actual economic status of the SEF is difficult to determine, but there is strong evidence that real net economic returns in the trawl sector declined by more than 50% between 1995 and 2011. This was despite two rounds of Government funded structural adjustments in 1997 and 2007 which removed significant numbers of vessel permits (and some quota) from the fishery. Resistance by fishers to the introduction of quotas, and the overfished status of some of the main stocks, appears to have prevented the collection of any ‘resource rent’ from fishers for the use of publicly owned resources.