A New South Wales parliamentary inquiry report has at last acknowledged the uncomfortable truth about the harmful and biased enforcement actions against Aboriginal fishers in the state, according to Oxfam Australia.
The NSW Legislative Council committee report found that enforcement actions, which have seen Aboriginal people fined, prosecuted and jailed in massively disproportionate numbers, are “unacceptable and creating perverse outcomes inconsistent with the NSW Government’s commitments to the Closing the Gap Agreement”.
Oxfam welcomes the committee’s key recommendation to allow a cultural fishing amendment passed by the parliament in 2009 to commence from June 30 next year.
Significantly, the report partly backed Oxfam’s call for a review of prosecutions, although it stopped short of supporting an independent review. It said the government should review and withdraw penalty infringement notices issued to Aboriginal individuals on the South Coast who were practising cultural fishing, and to cease all surveillance, compliance actions and prosecution actions against Aboriginal cultural fishers until the amendment commences.
“The report sets out a positive agenda for the NSW Government to engage with Aboriginal people who are practising their culture, supporting their communities and living a healthy lifestyle,” said Dr Paul Cleary, Policy and Advocacy Lead for Oxfam’s First Peoples Program.
“But we question the need to make the amendment subject to further regulation, as recommended in the report, when industry is still being allocated massive quotas for the harvesting of seafood that is fundamental to the wellbeing of First Peoples in New South Wales.”
While the report calls on the government to invest in Aboriginal communities that also want to pursue commercial opportunities, Dr Cleary said there was potential to go much further by looking at the co-management model in the Torres Strait.
Meanwhile, Aboriginal community leaders and other groups, including Oxfam, remain concerned about the NSW Government seeking to politicise this issue ahead of an election with a new amendment to strengthen enforcement powers.
“We call on the Premier and Opposition Leader to commit to introducing all of the recommendations of this inquiry,” Dr Cleary added.
