Australia’s Largest Christian News Site

The WA premier’s attitude in restricting fishing of certain species parallels his pandemic policies. There was no community consultation with experienced interest groups, and the “science” used to justify the ban is flawed.

Western Australian Labor premier Mark McGowan is mandating a 7-year lockout on recreational fishing for demersal scale ocean bottom feeders.

The annual mandated 9-month ban is an emergency measure the premier exclaimed, was necessary, because without a “drastic change, there won’t be any fish.”

McGowan, who led one of Australia’s most fanatical lockdown responses to COVID-19, claimed the recreational fishing lockout was designed to ‘rebuild stocks of demersal scale fish by 2030.’

Reporting on the sanction, the ABC said the lockout restricts recreational fishing for dhufish, baldchin groper and pink snapper.

Aghast

Answering widespread dismay at the decision, WA Fisheries Minister Don Punch told Perth radio, the government was “following the science” on this, adding, “I understand people are angry but…there are other fish out there to catch.”

Commercial fishing, considered to be an “essential service,” Punch explained, will continue all year round, albeit at reduced hours.

Recreational fishing lobby group Recfishwest expressed ‘bitter disappointment’ at the Labor government, especially for their alleged refusal to take on board ‘key recommendations put forward’ by the group.

CEO Dr Andrew Rowland acknowledged the need to get ‘sustainability right,’ however, he said, ‘the Government’s proposals fail to protect spawning dhufish, are inequitable and represent a “complete failure of fisheries policy.’

According to The West Australian, McGowan responded to threats of legal action by ‘opening the door to the potential for financial compensation for small businesses impacted by the changes.’

McGowan mocked concerns, stating, “What’s a government supposed to do? Just let all the fish stocks go? Let them all disappear?”

Repeating the same justifications for his vicious vaccine mandates, Communist Chinese style policing, and unconstitutional hard border closures, McGowan thundered,

“Governments have to actually listen to the science.”

The WA premier stated,

 ‘[Governments have] to do what’s required to preserve the fish stocks. Otherwise, in 10 years’ time current fisher people or their children or grandchildren won’t have anything to catch.’

Unjustified

Opposing the 9-month annual lockout, former CEO of Recfishwest, Frank Prokop alleged the science was flawed, arguing that “the number of fish had not been accurately calculated.”

“The west coast fishing zone,” he said, “was an “artificial construct” made up by the Fisheries Department and lacked the scientific backing to manage different parts of WA’s fishery.”

Prokop then asserted,

“To say they know the answer is ludicrous — it is nonsense and grossly insulting to the people who have worked so hard for decades to ensure sustainability.”

PerthNOW relayed a message from leaders within the recreational fishing industry warning that the lockouts

‘would cause widespread devastation, including the immediate closure of many fishing-related businesses, and ultimately causing significant damage to the many towns that rely on the pastime for economic viability.’

Tyrannical

The lack of consultation and consideration of community feedback is another illustration of McGowan’s authoritarian grip on power.

Distrust of the Western Australian government is well and truly justified.

Throughout the CCP virus, alarmism employed by State governments in Australia allowed bureaucrats to use fear as a behavioural control technique.

This psychological abuse gave bureaucratic overreach a power beyond anything ever witnessed — or ever deployed — in Australian history.

Bureaucrats went beyond “science” and demanded cult-of-the-leader compliance.

Those same leaders awarded themselves “emergency powers” and used scare tactics to force through abhorrent policies such as “vax or the axe” mandates, which killed off the right to informed consent.

The tentacles of tyranny reaching for mum and dad recreational anglers is an extension of this overreach, carried out by a one-party state-minded government that uses the absence of strong opposition to strong-arm its citizens.

Whether they be lockouts or lockdowns, it’s the same devil, similar tune.

McGowan’s fanatical COVID-19 response looks more and more like a strategic blueprint for spin that best serves the interests of the Australian Labor Party, over against the interests of the Australian people.

___

Photo by The Lazy Artist Gallery.