Alex's Column 27 November 2025
- NAFA
- 13 hours ago
- 4 min read
It was a full house at the AFANT AGM last week.
Sadly, I was unable to attend but I had a great chat with AFANT CEO, David Ciaravolo.
Deputy Chief Minister and Fisheries Minister Gerard Maley attended the meeting and David said that AFANT was very pleased that the Minister was so forthright about the Government’s intention to complete the closure of commercial barramundi gillnetting by the end of its current term.
“He was very clear about that and made several positive statements that they wanted to allocate the barra stocks away from the commercial sector to the recreational and fishing tourism industries.
“We’re confident that it will happen, and we pointed out to him that we really needed it to happen by the end of the 2027 commercial season which is the logical time for the fishery to wind up.
“It would be pointless to commence a new commercial barra season in 2028 and then have it wrapped up by July ready for the election.
“That would mean a fishing season of about four months and it would lack the clarity and direction required heading into the election,” David intonated.
“Time is of the essence now and there are just two barra seasons left to sort it out and get the closure completed.
“AFANT also made it clear to the Minister that we don’t want to see any non-gillnetting commercial barra fishing in the future in any places that are already closed; eg Shady Camp or the Daly River,” David said.
“Although they’ve said they’re getting rid of gillnetting, they haven’t indicated stopping other forms of commercial barra fishing; eg trap nets, line fishing and other types of net.
“A school of threadies busting up could be purse seined easily enough, so should any of these alternative commercial barra fishing techniques be allowed to take place, we don’t want them in any waters currently closed to commercial fishing or other prime recreational fishing grounds.
“Really, what we’re saying now is that the Government just rule out commercial fishing in those areas.
“The Minister made it clear that he found it difficult to foresee allowing alternative fishing styles to take place but he wanted to get feedback from all sectors first,” David explained.
There was important discussion about golden snapper closures, including that future management of the fishery is unlikely to be just one thing but there would be a range of measures.
The Minister said that Fisheries had started collecting brood stock golden snapper to start a stocking program
“There were a number of questions from the floor about the efficacy of stocking golden snapper when there are plenty of juveniles in estuaries like Darwin and Bynoe Harbours,” David told me.
“There were mixed views from the floor given there are quite a lot of juveniles anyway.
“Fisheries were unable to provide any info about whether any of the golden snapper previously stocked around 2019 had been recaptured.
“They tagged 500 and as far as we know none were recaptured.
“They said they were working on methods to tag or mark the stocked fish.
"AFANT had previously proposed that, if you’re going to close areas, how about we create reefs or habitat inside the closed areas,” David explained.
“We pointed out that millions of dollars from the oil and gas industry are being invested in fish habitat through Recfish WA and it’s not happening here.
“AFANT is pursuing this: we flagged that next year AFANT would be working on our organisational renewal and reform for the future.
“We do not have all the resources to do all the work that the community and the recreational fishing industry need.
“We want to leverage the CLP Government’s commitment to improve AFANT’s funding by creating opportunities for the corporate or private sector to invest in programs that make fishing better.
“AFANT put that up as a policy at the election and Government said it would look at it – the department ran with it as both the Minister and AFANT liked it.
“But we believe we should control the running this project and Fisheries can regulate it.
Ultimately, it will come down to whether the Government is serious about a commitment,” David said.
“I think the Government will work with us on it, and create an avenue for investment by the private sector.
“WA has so much investment coming from the private sector and we think there’s an avenue for it to happen here,” David said.
At the meeting, Megan Brown was awarded life membership following her more than 10 years on the board; she was deservedly recognised for her service to AFANT and the community.
Dave reiterated that the Government really wants to get its skates on re closing commercial gillnetting.
“We need to have certainty as soon as possible because we’ll soon need to be investing in infrastructure and access agreements because those traditional bottlenecks remain the biggest challenges to the growth of the Territory recreational fishery and subsequent lifestyle.
“It’s all to do with whether we are still the barra capital?” David joked, knowing the answer was a no-brainer.
“We have access issues to remote areas: we’ve lost access to the Finniss and to Mini Mini.
“If we’re closing down all gillnetting in the Daly, let’s secure good access right to the river mouth,” David said.
