Our licence fees at work?

Dazza writes:
Heard a report second-hand of a pro netting 2500 snapper from the footy ground reef at Williamstown during last week, No wonder I didn't get a touch there on Friday. So, isn't that great. Good to see we're getting good value for our licence fees in the bay.
(28 August 2001)

David Moore replies:
I am not surprised to hear this. It does appear that our licence money has been wasted in attempting to buy out the pro netters. If you listen to discussions going around about the buy-out, it frustrates the hell out of you.
      They are saying that many of the pro licences were idle. They were not being used. They were licences that have been handed down from father to son, where the son does not use the licence. So therefore they received a nice bonus for nothing. The good thing about this is that supposedly these licences will never be re-issued to anyone else.
      Other licences were apparently bought out from guys that were getting long in the tooth. So sooner or later these guys would have disappeared. But again, these licences will never be re-issued.
      The frustrating thing that I have heard is that the pro netters that are left over from the buy-out are reaping in more fish than they did prior. Even some of the netters that were bought out are pooling their mony with netters that still exist, making their netting more effective in cleaning out the bay.
      The only way to have made all of this work is for either all of the netters to be bought out, no ifs or buts, or for legislation to be made to make Port Phillip bay a net free enviroment.
      Anyway, the buy-out appears to have totally removed netters from some areas such as Andersons Inlet, so hopefully these areas are benefiting.
(28 August 2001)



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