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Federal Government silent on dodgy science for Queensland fish stock assessments

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Fisheries Queensland has been under immense pressure from fishers who have had their livelihoods destroyed. Despite declaring the stocks of Spanish Mackerel “sustainable” as recently as 2018, a change in assumptions and modelling hugely cut the quotas that fishers were allowed to take.

These changes to the model have been labelled unscientific by industry groups and scientific reviews. I thought the Australian Fisheries Management Authority had at least reviewed the changes to see if they were scientifically sound, but unfortunately this wasn’t the case.

One Nation will continue to fight for fishers to ensure that fair quotas are issued based on proper science.

Transcript

Senator Roberts: Thank you for being here today. Can you please discuss some of the background on the Spanish mackerel fisheries management, especially in Queensland? I understand that in recent times there have been significant changes in the management and the quotas are being reduced. Do you have more information on exactly what has happened?

Mr Norris: I’m afraid I don’t. The Queensland Spanish mackerel fishery is managed by the Queensland government. The only things I know about it are what I read in the media and from talking with colleagues. I don’t have a lot of insight to offer, I’m afraid.

Senator Roberts: Maybe I can share a couple of points and you can chime in. I understand that in 2018 the stocks of Spanish mackerel were considered sustainable, but a change in modelling has turned that on its head.  There is a lot of scientific disagreement about whether the new modelling is sound. Have you seen that?

Mr Norris: I have seen that play out in the media, yes.

Senator Roberts: On the new changes and a previous mackerel stock assessment, one reviewer named Klaer in 2021 said, and I quote: I am unable to support the conclusions regarding future harvest levels for the east coast Spanish mackerel stock until reservations regarding the most appropriate central value for steepness for the base-case are resolved.  Does AFMA have a view on whether robust science has been applied by Queensland fisheries setting the Spanish mackerel quotas?

Mr Norris: Perhaps I can make some very general comments. All fishery stock assessments are very sensitive to the assumptions built into the model. This concept of steepness is a particularly heavy driver. Certainly we have encountered disagreements about what steepness values should be in some of our assessments of Commonwealth fisheries. In terms of whether or not I am confident with the science done by Queensland, as I say, I haven’t reviewed the science because it is not a fishery we are involved in or manage. I would say as a general observation that I have a very high respect for the fishery scientists who work for the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries in Queensland. As I say, I haven’t been through the technicalities of this.

Senator Roberts: Could you tell us about steepness?

Mr Norris: Steepness is a value that comes from part of a stock assessment model called the stock recruitment relationship. What the stock recruitment relationship tries to explain is how many adults you need in the water to produce a certain number of babies for future cohorts. Traditionally, you might think it is probably linear; the more adults you have, the more babies you get. While that is true, it is very rarely a nice straight line. It’s a curve, and it is very difficult to estimate. Steepness is the gradient of that line.

Senator Roberts: I must say that you hit the nail on the head. A lot of people are disagreeing with the model used. The models have cut the quotas as a result of the modelling and the underlying assumptions; that is my understanding. We also had a really disastrous, I would say almost fraudulent, basis for the reef regulations that are decimating the east coast in Queensland. We questioned the scientists themselves at an inquiry that the Senate held in Brisbane. We showed just how false the science is; there is no basis for them. That is why a lot of fishermen are also now upset about the modelling and assumptions for their fishery quotas. So, what you are saying makes perfect sense. Thank you very much. Thank you for your clarity.

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QLD Government fishing ban based on dodgy science

The Queensland Government has announced a catastrophic 80% reduction in commercial Spanish Mackerel quotas in addition to six weeks of closed season.

This devastating blow to both recreational and commercial fishers is based on rubbish science that has been refuted by Industry and peer-review.

As Dr Peter Ridd outlines:

The Queensland government claims the number of mackerel is down to just 17% of what existed before European settlement. This is rubbish – and the scientist selected by the government to peer-review this conclusion strongly disagreed with the methodology to make this claim. The 17% number is based on a new computer model where they chose some unreasonable input parameters.

It is sometimes said of models: rubbish-in then rubbish-out. But in this case, it is carefully selected rubbish-in, the answer they want out. The model also used data on fish catch going back to 1912. But there is no decent data going back that far. They essentially made up the data for before the 1940s: the use of this bogus data is crucial to how the model calculated the 17% figure.

https://www.facebook.com/DrPeterRidd/posts/pfbid0L83VJ3TQJkHjuMPH5FFRN5BLQmii7FCipzZQki9grra1tZxWu94TdD6PUkRpBnwYl

This move from the Queensland Government will destroy livelihoods. To do so on such a flimsy and deceptive scientific basis borders on criminal.

The Queensland Government must cancel the proposed closed season and quota reduction. The junk science this decision is based on must be immediately withdrawn.

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Labor betray Cairns tourism operators

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Pepe Iovannella is one of the largest tour operators in Cairns. Cairns have suffered more than any other city in Australia because of COVID restrictions which has decimated the tourism industry.

Pepe tells us that even though the Labor government promised to dredge Trinity Inlet to allow large boats to increase opportunities, they have reneged on the deal.

Transcript

[Malcolm Roberts]

Hi, I’m Senator Malcolm Roberts and I’m in Trinity Inlet in Cairns. You see a Cruise Ship here, Trawler behind us and recreational boats and Trawlers on the other side of Trinity Inlet. Now I’m with Pepe Iovannella. How’s that?

[Pepe Iovannella]

Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Thank you.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Perfect.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Pepe’s family is the owner of the largest tour operator Australian family owned tour operator in Cairns. They did tours to the Reef and he’s got many other businesses.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Yap.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Cairns depends on tourism, right Pepe?

[Pepe Iovannella]

We’re a key element of Cairns. We’re probably in the top five if not the first. It’s crucial for our business and obviously in a COVID year we’ve been struggling and if it wasn’t for JobKeeper, we’d be definitely, most of operators be closed by now.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Right. So the government’s restrictions around COVID state and federal have gutted Cairns. Cairns has suffered more than any other community in the country. It’s income gross domestic product has gone down 16%. It’s economy is folding.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Yes.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And it needs to come out of that. And what Pepe is doing, is he can see that the trend is toward larger Cruise vessels to get higher turnover. And yet the Port Authority is being restricted by the state government. So we kinda, you won’t get those larger boats.

[Pepe Iovannella]

So back in 2016, when they announced to dredge to allow larger Cruise ships, which are crucial to Cairns they bring millions of dollars of money and passengers and tourist numbers. They promised us four million cubic metres of dredging. After they got elected.

[Malcolm Roberts]

So just before the election.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Before the election.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And before the election they promised 120 million dollars.

[Pepe Iovannella]

All parties agreed and Labor were last to come on board. They finally agreed to dredge and give us the money for four million cubic metres. If they won, and whoever won that election and Labor won the election. So they had to commit to honour their commitment and promised us four million cubic metres. Two years later we got 700,000 which essentially is our maintenance dredging for the year.

[Malcolm Roberts]

That’s about 16% of what they promised.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Correct.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And so it’s very important to understand that Trinity Inlet is fed by creeks and just like every other inlet fed by creeks and rivers silt comes in. Silt builds up when it hits the stagnant water or the steady water of the ocean and silt fills up the Harbour. And so you have maintenance dredging to keep the Harbour at the right level.

And then you have capital dredging, which expands, deepens, widens the Harbour. And so Cairns is gonna miss out. It would missed out on the maintenance dredging and it is gonna miss out on the capital dredging to get these bigger cruise vessels.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Yeah. You know obviously as time goes on the Cruise ships get bigger. We need to cater as, even as the commercials our commercial vessels have got bigger over time. Cruise ships get bigger. We need to cater for Cruise ships. And that’s why it’s imperative that we get back and do the four million cubic metres of dredging that was promised by the Labor Party.

[Malcolm Roberts]

But Cairns, I didn’t realise this. Cairns has the largest, has the largest number of vessel movements of any regional port in Australia. Correct?

[Pepe Iovannella]

Correct. Yeah we got the largest number of class one vessels, class three vessels. We have the highest number- the Trawler industry is huge in Cairns. We have Reef boats that go out. The Coral Princess goes out taking passengers over board. So we got all those apart from our day passengers.

So we’ve got a whole plethora of combination of boats that run out of Port and and which makes us the number one port in Australia.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And what happened to this port was that somebody in their wisdom, and without any scientific evidence the state government moved the port limit, sorry moved the National Park limit to within the port. So that stopped any dredging within the port. I mean, this is dumb. It goes completely against the science.

So that then led to a large fight but you’ve also got not only the state government but the globalists and the federal government people like Greg Hunt at the time who all bowed to the almighty people in the WWF and the other UN led organisations which are now choking Cairns. That’s basically it.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Correct, yeah. So we’ve got the largest fleet in Australia running out of port, and yet we’re not a priority port. You know other ports, there’s four other ports in Queensland that are priority ports.

[Malcolm Roberts]

Townsville, Gladstone, Mackay and Hay Point.

[Pepe Iovannella]

And yet we’re the number one port for movements. Number one port for maintenance. People relying on boats that earn their income, Trawler industry, and yet we’re still stifled by the Labor government, by not allowing us to have priority. So if we had priority port status, that would fix a lot of our issues.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And this is so stupid. We’ve got cruise liners anchored off the coast here and passengers being ferried in and out. We’d have far more people, if they could put their feet on the ground. If they tied up here at a decent wharf and could get out and spend their money at service stations, motels, entertainment, restaurants and that’s what Cairns is missing out on.

Cairns is being belted by international tourism shutdown because of the airline traffic, being belted by the Cruise industry being shut down. But when you finally get out again you wanna thrive and you can’t do that with these dopey buggers in government

[Pepe Iovannella]

We’re the ideal port to be a turnaround port for Cruise ship industry. There’s the Brisbane port has been increased and they’ve spent a billion dollars on Brisbane port yet they don’t wanna spend a cent here in Cairns. So they’re stifling Cairns growth.

[Malcolm Roberts]

And get this, they see tankers taking oil from Northern countries down to Brisbane, putting it on road tankers and transporting it up by truck to Cairns. How stupid is that when these tankers should be unloading here? I mean, they’re just holding the North back holding the state back.

[Pepe Iovannella]

The stupidest thing is that sugar industry can’t even pick up from the sugar terminals anymore. ‘Cause obviously the ships are bigger, so they can’t fill the capacity. So we’re only half filling the sugar ships out of Cairns.

[Malcolm Roberts]

We blame the United Nations for the blue and the green tape but we especially blame the people who just bow to the UN. State and federal globalists, and that’s it. They’re the ones destroying the city.

[Pepe Iovannella]

Absolutely, 100% agreement.

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