The last national recreational fishing conference was held in 2008. It is recognised within the fishing industry, and supported by FRDC, that industry sectors need to hold a conference every 2 years to allow the sectors to showcase their achievements and provide a high level forum for issues affecting the industry. By 2012 it will be 4 years since the last recreational fishing conference.
Key industry bodies Recfish Australia and AFTA have recognised the need for another national conference for some time. The Recreational Fishing Advisory Committee, as part of the Recreational Fishing Industry Development Strategy, has also recognised the need for a national conference.

For the conference to be world-class, there is a need for participation to be broadened to encompass parts of the industry that have not been previously involved (eg boating) and to include agencies whose decisions impact on recreational fishers (eg marine park agencies). The conference will focus on the future of recreational fishing in Australia and addressing issues related to that in a practical and innovative manner. The conference also needs to build on the Recreational Fishing Industry Development Strategy.

There is also a need to develop the leadership skills of the next generation of recreational fishers by exposing them to issues and areas of concern that they will need to address in the future. The concept of succession planning is of paramount importance to the future management of the industry. The conference will allow current and future leaders to develop key strategies to improve the engagement of recreational fishers in decision making that impacts on recreational fishing.

There is a need for a consolidated national report on the status of key wild catch Australian fish stocks, focusing on commercial and recreational target species. One pitfall of guides like the Australia’s Sustainable Seafood Guide is their focus on entire species, without considering differences among stocks within each species. Consequently, a poor status determination for one stock can result in a poor status determination for all stocks of that species regardless of whether or not the other stocks are healthy. Government can avoid this pitfall by clearly articulating the status of individual fish stocks. Australia’s different jurisdictions have demonstrated their capacity to work constructively together to achieve common goals (e.g. joint stock assessments for shared stocks). However, the current differences in scope, depth, terminology and benchmarking in jurisdictionally based Fishery Status Reports make it difficult to readily compare the status of stocks across jurisdictions and build a coherent national status of key species.

The National Fishery Status Reports would not be promoted as an eco-labelling guide but rather as a government produced instrument designed to simplify comparison of the status of key wild capture fish stocks around Australia both within and among jurisdictions. This information would be available for the general public, policy makers and industry to make informed decisions in relation to the actual health of various stocks. The reports would also provide an important and accurate information source for international organisations (e.g. FAO). The process of producing these reports will improve communication between the jurisdictions, leading to a better understanding of the status determinations made by each jurisdiction and how these compare. One of the main outcomes already achieved from the recent jurisdictional planning workshops is the convergence on a common system of benchmarking and terminology for use across jurisdictions.

On 25 October the Chair of the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation (FRDC), the Hon. Harry Woods, announced to the National Seafood Directions Conference that the results from the last community perception study of the seafood industry was poor and that something needed to be done to rectify this situation. As a result, Mr Woods announced that FRDC would pro-actively promote the results of research to the Australian community, media outlets and seafood consumers, and formally respond to factually incorrect media stories or information in the public arena.

Some activities are areas of work where a few stakeholders will work together. For example: + developing briefing notes on specific fishery issues, such as by-catch or interactions with non-target species.

This project supports this new FRDC direction.

The current Harvest Strategy Framework has no formal process for deciding whether the Tier harvest strategy applied to a stock is appropriate or not, there is thus no formal process for deciding when to use a lower Tier. Even worse, when a Tier4 assessment is deemed inappropriate in the SESSF there is no lower Tier available for use. There is thus a need to establish guidelines for identifying when a Tier method is inappropriate for a stock, and also a need to develop an array of alternative harvest strategies for use as a Tier5 when Tier4 is deemed inappropriate. As there is such a wide range of potential Tier 5 procedures, many with the same data requirements, testing is required to allow an informed decision about which are best to implement - particularly in the SESSF context.

Section 6 of the DAFF public discussion paper for the review of the Commonwealth fisheries Harvest Strategy Policy (see FRDC project 2012/225) investigates questions of uncertainty about assessment approaches, the level of data required to maintain species within a given Tier and when to switch between Tiers. The proposed project directly addresses known issues in the SESSF that relate to this question, and timing of the review allows this project to tailor analyses to specifically address review recommendations and advice.

A parallel and complementary project (FRDC 2012/202) provides a study of the trade-off among ecological and economic risks associated with harvesting, the benefits of harvesting and the costs associated with management. This is concerned with strategic considerations over all Tiers, whereas the current project looks more specifically at data requirements within SESSF Tiers, and alternative Tier procedures for data poor species in the SESSF.

Australian rock lobster fisheries, similar to their New Zealand counterparts, are coming under increasing pressure to forfeit access to fishing grounds and to shares of available yields as a consequence of a well organised and resourced marine protection lobby and opportunistic political decision making. In recent seasons the situation for the Australian lobster industries has been made more difficult because of Federal Government marine protected area agendas and difficulties in brokering direct export to the lucrative China market. Industry capacity that might otherwise be committed to improving reputation and efficiency and promoting economic growth and investment has instead been diverted to protecting existing access and utilisation opportunities. The rock lobster industries will directly and indirectly benefit from cooperative approaches to current and emerging challenges (the most recent being biotoxin events for example) and from collaborative efforts to agree and implement growth and consolidation strategies based on good science and credible decision making. The 'sharing of knowledge' which is a feature of each Lobster Congress draws greater numbers of industry participants into agreed work plans and creates wider understanding and awareness across the industries as to he need for responsible fishing, strategic responses to external forces, and wise and credible political lobby and positive profiles within the wider community.