13 April 2015

The 45th AFMA Commission meeting was held in February 2015, below is a summary from the Chairman, Norman Moore.

  • The Commission met in Port Lincoln on 25 to 26 February 2015, reflecting its intention to hold the majority of its meetings in fishing ports.
  • To this end Commissioners met with fishing operators, undertook a field visit to tuna and kingfish farming operations, and met with Mr Brian Jeffriess, CEO, Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association for discussions on economic, operational and environmental issues affecting the Australian tuna industry.
  • Senator the Hon Richard Colbeck, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, joined the Commission meeting on Wednesday 25 February.
  • Key decisions taken by the Commission covered:
    • setting total allowable catches (TACs) for each species in the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery for 2015-16. TACs reflected extensive consultation including through management advisory committees (MACs) and resource assessment groups (RAGs). The Commission also noted that catches for a number of species were significantly less than TACs but that AFMA was investigating ways to address this.
    • agreeing to amend the starting dates for the fishing season for the Macquarie Island Toothfish Fishery.
    • setting the undercatch and overcatch arrangements for the 2014-15 southern bluefin tuna fishing season.
    • setting the undercatch and overcatch provisions for the Western Tuna and Billfish Fishery for the 2015 fishing season.
    • agreeing to measures to reduce the complexity and cost to industry through simplifying undercatch provisions in a number of fisheries.
    • agreeing to measures to improve AFMA’s operational efficiency through adjustment of delegation arrangements, and use of templates in the Committee Management System.
    • appointing ScallopMAC members.
    • approving the draft goals and strategies for AFMA’s Corporate Plan for 2015-18.
  • The Commission discussed a number of fisheries management developments including for the Small Pelagic Fishery; AFMA’s strategies for managing high risk and overfished species and the positive outcome to date with biomass improvements for the orange roughy stock; the reports from recent meetings of MACs and RAGs; and the financial, human resources and regulator performance status of the Authority.