The state government is accused of putting commercial fishers into a situation of picking “the money or the box” when it comes to the net-free fishing zones compensation.
Legal firm Law Essentials asked the government this week to amend its guidelines to enable fishers to make an informed decision before signing the settlement scheme.
Under the current guidelines, fishers were being forced to “jump the gun” and panic them into accepting the current settlement for fear of missing out on compensation altogether, the firm noted.
Fishers were entitled to compensation under the Fisheries Act 1994, but were being compelled to make a decision by December 2.
The Queensland Seafood Industry Association’s executive officer Eric Perez said industry had some marginal hope during Parliamentary speeches last month, but this compensation was “any but appropriate”.
“The Net-free Fishing Zone policy undermined the businesses of net fishers in central and north Queensland and was purely introduced as an ALP ‘thank you’ to a sub-set of recreational fishing zealots for the support at the 2015 election,” Mr Perez said.
Many commercial fishers may get more compensation under the Fisheries Act, however they would not know how much and many could not risk losing their offered amount under the compensation scheme, he said.
According to Law Essentials, the offer made under the scheme is not a guaranteed amount, and may extinguish on or before December 2.
The settlement scheme guidelines also note that QRAA, which is handling the scheme, can only accept an application if its assistance funds are sufficient to pay the relevant amount and applications would only be considered in the order they are received.
“Put simply, if the government for example reached their imposed monetary goals under the scheme, then a fisher who leaves their return application until the deadline may miss out altogether,” Law Essential’s Chris Thompson wrote to Premier Annastacia Palaszcsuk and Minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Bill Byrne on Monday.
“This will force fishers to ‘jump the gun’ and panic them into returning their applications quickly, so as to better ensure they at least receive something for being closed out of the areas they previously netted.
“The scenario playing out is presumably exactly what the government wants to happen,” Mr Thompson wrote.
The law firm has asked instead that whatever the fisher is offered under the scheme be guaranteed; if a fisher intends to make a claim under the Fisheries ACt 1994 then the settlement scheme offer remain in trust until the outcome of that claim; if that claim is more than the scheme’s then allow the fisher to accept the claim; and if the claim is less than the scheme, allow the fisher to accept the scheme.
“A similar ‘freezing’ of initial simple offers was accepted by the Federal Government in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Restructure Assistance Scheme in 2004, whereby the Government correctly identified that fishers were unfairly forced to choose a simplified restructure amount due to unreasonable deadlines, before their full restructure claims were processed,” Mr Thompson wrote.
