The WRLC needs generally-accepted methods for setting the annual quota that is robust to many of the differences that exist throughout industry but underpins within an acceptable harvest range, resource sustainability. The approach to be adopted needs to take into account MEY analyses, changing price relationships in the market, known risks facing the rock lobster industry, future catch and biomass projections and limits on harvest rates. Uncertainty towards moving to a larger quota can be accommodated by adopting an iterative approach to quota setting built around better industry understanding of the market and other relevant factors. Ideally an annual quota setting process needs to be underpinned by sustainable stock conditions and take into account information derived from ongoing monitoring of market conditions and industry trends. This would enable risk factors to be taken into account balancing the competing requirements of optimising price, preventing oversupply and excessive price investment instability.
The failure of Industry to reach consensus on an agreed methods for future quota setting could result in other parties setting the agenda.

Preferably, as most of the financial risks fall within industry, the industry has a primary role in annual setting of quotas with a transparent accountable decision framework within an appropriate governance, reporting and dispute resolution framework (if necessary) that is supported by government and industry.

The recent change to quota management for the Western Rock Lobster fishery has resulted in significant changes in fishing behaviour which has affected the ability to use the long standing empirical catch rate indices that have been a major component of the assessment of lobster stocks (e.g. catch rates of legal, undersize and breeding lobsters). A recent FRDC funded study (2009/019) examined the possibility of using alternative data sources unbiased by effort to monitor biomass levels and exploitation rates using change-in-ratio techniques. The project concluded that:
1. The current data sources available to the fishery had too many unknowns including size and sex specific timing of growth and movement to enable the assessment of exploitation rates using these techniques.
2. A robust tag-recapture study using multiple release periods across different fishing seasons could generate independent assessments of legal biomass and exploitation rates providing an additional baseline level to improve the interpretation of post quota catch rate indices.
A comprehensive tag-recapture study would also provide increased resolution of the movement dynamics of lobsters, especially the rate of migration between management zones. Such information is considered vital by industry in their discussions of the potential benefits of voluntarily reducing quotas to generate increased localised catch rates.