The purposes of this project are:
To design and implement a national bycatch report system, facilitated by the FRDC, that meets the current and foreseeable medium term future needs of all Australian fisheries management agencies, including for reporting within jurisdictions and internationally.
- To ensure that this report system is initially feasible using available information, but that it is also scalable to be able to

Over the past decade, increasing awareness or international efforts on the need for protection of certain vulnerable species groups, such as seabirds, marine mammals and turtles, has already resulted in numerous plans of action, fisheries management plans, increased monitoring and development of mitigation measures to reduce impacts on these species. This project would pull together the reporting requirements under all of these individual initiatives to provide guidance on reporting across all Australian fisheries.

There are existing Australian requirements for bycatch and protected species interaction reporting driven by environmental legislation, such as the reporting requirements for species listed or nominated for listing, or requiring export approval, under the Commonwealth EPBC Act. The emphasis on requirements for improved reporting of bycatch and discards under policies such as the revised Commonwealth Bycatch Policy (DAWR 2017), and increased government and public expectation for improved reporting on broader aspects of fisheries environmental responsibility, has increased the need for regular reporting on bycatch.

Most regional fisheries management organisations, including those of which Australia is a member or cooperating party (the Commission for Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna - CCSBT, the West and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission - WCPFC, the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation - SPRFMO and the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission - IOTC) have requirements to mitigate risks to specified protected species groups, and to report on interactions with such species. Increasingly, other governments (such as the United States and European Union) are also requiring fish imports to meet requirements relating to risk reduction for bycatch and protected species.

Australia has experienced many of the crises of confidence relating to government decisions that have arisen internationally, such as those relating to pesticide use and human health concerns. In Australian fisheries, the most recent crisis of public confidence, and the direct impetus for this proposal, was the public and media debate in 2012 and 2013 on the reliability of scientific information used to support opposing views on the impacts of introducing a super-trawler into the Commonwealth Small Pelagic Fishery. This public debate criticised or questioned much of the scientific information used in support of recommendations and decisions relating to this fishery, as well as the processes whereby this information was obtained, analysed and provided in support of those decisions.

The need for some form of scientific quality assurance standard for Australian fisheries science arose initially from development of the Research and Science Information Standard for New Zealand Fisheries in 2010, and recognition that Australia did not have such a standard, despite facing many similar questions regarding quality and trustworthiness of science information. The events surrounding proposals to introduce a super-trawler into the SPF provided the final impetus for a proposal to develop a similar standard for Australian fisheries research and science information.