The fishing industry ranks amongst the highest risk industries in Australia for safety, yet there are considerable barriers to basic safety training, including:

• Cost – operators cannot afford it
• Time – Courses are infrequent throughout the year. This does not meet the operational needs of the industry, where workers may be required at short notice.
• Location – Courses are usually delivered in major cities. This makes access to the training difficult for many workers, including once they are at sea.
• Context – Courses are usually delivered in a classroom setting with activities related to survival in emergency situations at sea. They do not address general workplace safety such as manual handling, electrical safety, fall protection, noise, fatigue, hazardous substances, personal protective equipment (PPE), etc.
• Access – The internet is rarely available at sea, making access to safety training and information impossible for much of the time workers are fishing.
• Demographic – workers in the fishing industry are largely represented by young, early school leavers with a high sense of adventure and risk appetite. Learning must be structured with this in mind to ensure the learner is engaged and the lessons are delivered effectively.
• Culture - the information both subliminal as well as overt sent out about safety.

The electronic LMS, which is the fundamental base for this project, is to be designed to address all of the above barriers, and provide a structured, cheap, easily accessible and timely safety course, in a manner which is readily absorbed and understood by the crew member undertaking the course. The training modules are to be delivered online and offline, making them accessible anywhere at any time and can also be tailored to specific industry sectors, while retaining the core units, and aim to achieve best practice in all aspects of WHS.

RIRDC initiated a project (attached) due to significant knowledge deficiencies in the area of commercial fishing occupational health and safety data and of the existing circumstances of the industry. The gaps in knowledge have arisen due to previous difficulties in collating and interpreting data, which have resulted from disaggregation of State data, creating difficulties in data analysis at the national level; availability of state data; and the nature of the fishing industry which results in many participants not being included in official statistics or records.

The report found that there was a lack of awareness of occupational health and safety, or safety
culture, and that it still fails to be effectively dealt with across all States of Australia. The OHS data identifies that the claims for fatal injuries in aquaculture and non fatal in marine (or wild capture) fisheries are both increasing. The most ‘at risk’ group in the industry are those between the ages of 20 to 24 years, with those aged 45 – 54 years being the next most at risk group, who will receive injuries from non powered hand tools to their upper bodies.

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.