Suffering from AFMA.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)

SIR: The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA), as mentioned in the article "Regulation and the Regulatory Burden" by Chris Berg (June 2008), would be a prime example of regulatory burden to the point of industry extinction. Its origin in the 1970s when new entrants to fisheries were curtailed and catch restrictions instigated was one thing, but when public natural resources were then privatised and handed over to certain fishermen as private property and could be traded, as confirmed in the High Court, the cultural bomb exploded. A licence which originally cost a few dollars was soon worth thousands. Today, an abalone ticket is worth millions.

However, licence holders were soon obliged to finance fisheries management. In the early years no one objected because they had been handed a virtual monopoly. It was when "precautionary management" appeared and severe restrictions were applied that things went badly wrong. A host of absurd regulations of all kinds appeared and the resources, in effect, were locked up. The number of fishing vessels has declined by 75 per cent and today management costs are some $100,000 and more per vessel!

With the third-largest fishing zone in the world (and largest on a per capita basis) we cannot provide ourselves with enough fish. Imports now amount to some $2 billion annually. Thailand with a zone of no more than 5 per cent of ours sustain-ably produces ten times as much as we do without any "management".

Ironically, under international agreement, fishing by foreigners may be carried out if the legal owner does not fully exploit its resources. Already a foreign tuna vessel has arrived in Australia and the outcome is awaited with interest.

Last year there was an interesting event. The chief of AFMA, high priest of precaution, addressed a group of academic environmentalists, telling them that Australia "has the best managed fisheries in the world ... Seven full-time lawyers ..." ...