Globally, freshwater fish are going down the tubes as competition for water use intensifies (domestic, industrial, agricultural, environmental). It has recently been identified that there are at least 3,700 additional large hydropower dam planned or under construction worldwide, and in 2013 in Australia the Abbot Federal Government came to power with an election promise of the construction of an additional 100 large dams. There are currently 37 freshwater fish species listed as threatened under the EPBC Act, but 60 are listed by ASFB, a sign of the trend of future EPBC listings . As new species are described, many go straight onto threatened species lists (e.g. 9 of 14 recently described Galaxias spp.). What does the recent Commonwealth Threatened Species Strategy mean for freshwater fish? Is the newly appointed Threatened Species Commissioner interested in fish? How are Australia’s threatened freshwater fish faring, and what is their prognosis for the future? This presentation outlines the history of threatened fish declarations in Australia, what we are doing to recover them, and what we need to do better.