Watched that the other night,typical of a govt that has no idea and fixes ,or tries to fix everything on the run.The owners of the trawler have been ripped off through no fault of their own having followed all the correct protocol set out by the govt. When the public became aware and the possibility of losing votes was on the agenda they do a back flip and ban it.I dont think it should be here, and the govt should have picked up on the public outcry well before it left holland,now we the tax payer will be left to pay the legal side of the pending court case. A vote for labour is a vote for the greens and a vote for the greens is a vote for labour.

Very interestin, thanks bod

Seems like the owners of the joint venture got shafted but I still think super trawlers have no place in our fishery. I know you can't compare our fisheries management to West african nations but what they have done over there is nothing short of rape and pillage.

It also seems like some of the Recfishers concerns regarding the vessel fishing around the country was indeed true and they intended to use the vessel all over the country.

Goes to show what kind of people we have running this country! I'm agianst the idea of a super trawler fishing in our waters for a number of reasons but I do feel for its owners. They have invested stacks of cash into this venture and have jumped every hurdle this poor excuse of a government has asked only to be told once it arrives that it can't fish here. Its a win for Australia(for now), a huge lose to the boats owners and an even bigger lose to Australian tax payers!!

The Greens are only in this for their own political agenda!

I also wish that we could cut Tasmania's anchor rope and wave goodbye as it drifted off toward New Zealand......they are parasitic.

From what I could make out, aside from the increased quota based off old data (as per recfish concerns) the supertrawler actually appears beneficial on the environmental front - reducing bycatch and pumping funds into research that is obviously required. They seem happy to comply with all the environmental conditions set and by the looks are prepared to set the bar even higher. My concerns about the trawler are certainly not environmental.

I am against the Supertrawler for 2 primary reasons:

• Increased efficiency and profitability is at the expense of jobs (buying up other quota's and the current processing jobs involving smaller operators)
• An increase in foriegn ownership of the fisheries. More profit = less dollars spent locally and a large portion going straight offshore.

It reminds me of the timber industry where the small locally owned mills were replaced by multi nationals who took over their quota - it closed down whole towns.

Agree with the comments above re: sorry for the owners! - Wonder if this MINORITY Government will go down as the worst in history.

Bod, thanks I had missed it and really appreciate your time in putting up the link.

It is clear to me that we, the Australian tax paying public will be called upon to compensate the owners of the vessel - I also applaud the Tasmanian representative for his cool calmness when faced with the financial disaster he now faces as a result of the changing of the rules after or almost after the event.

I have a mate who is a professional  prawn fisherman operating out of the Gulf and have had many discussions on by catch and by catch exclusion devices but that was related to fish not mammals.  He initially hated bycatch excluders as they reduced his catch by his estimation by around 10-15% HOWEVER what he did discover was that that catch he did land was much less damaged and, as a result, well over 20% mnore of the prawn catch was able to be sold as premium and his nett financial returns actually improved. 

I still remain strongly of the view that we should not allow the super trawler to operate in our waters - if you have ever read the book "COD" you would quickly come to the realisation of how overfishing can collapse a massive resource very quickly, the spanish  tried to do the same thing with Pategonian Toothfish around the Heard aand McDonald Islands which are also aussi territory and the Tassies themselves with orange roughy which reduced biomass to critically low levels on a very slow growing fish 

I do not want to lock up all fisheries but responsible management for the benefit of AUSTRALIANS is the key - it is our resource in our waters