Super trawler on the way?

In a press release from the office of Senator Richard Colbeck, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture, we are told that the vessel Geelong Star has been nominated under the Fisheries Management Act 1991 to fish the Small Pelagic Fishery within the Australian fishing zone.

Colbeck said that the operator of the Geelong Star is Seafish Tasmania, an Australian fishing company, and that the vessel will be operated by a largely Australian crew.

We had a bit of a dig into the history of the Geelong Star and found that she is currently in the Netherlands, from where she is managed, and has had a recent name change (in February) from Dirk Dirk KG 142 to Geelong Star ROS 7 (see photos).

From what we can ascertain, she was flagged in Faeroe Islands which is an autonomous country halfway between Norway and Iceland. She was also owned by a company based in the Islands.

According to Colbeck’s press release the vessel is now Australian flagged which was probably done to legitimise it taking our resources in our waters. Is this a snow-job?

Have we forgotten the Margiris which was renamed the Abel Tasman and re-registered in Australia? Was that not the same Tasmanian-based company which tried to get the super trawler into our waters last year?

Prior to being the Dirk Dirk, Geelong Star was named the Naeraberg and German flagged. Clearly the Geelong Star/Dirk Dirk/ Naeraberg is a gun-for-hire fishing machine that is leased out to the highest bidder, and there’s nothing illegal in that.

But what we’d like to know is where are our fish going to end up?

These super trawlers are capable of taking hundreds of tonnes of fish out of our ecosystems at a time and Colbeck is going to allow them to have up to 7.5 per cent of our small pelagic fish: "Australia adopts conservative catch limits for all Commonwealth fisheries. The Small Pelagic Fishery catch is currently set at 7.5 per cent of the total estimated fish population…” he said in his press release.

So where will the fish go? What will they be used for? Mulched up for cat food and cheap fish pellets to be taken offshore?

And what about the vast profits from the ravaging of our seas? Where will they go?

Come on Mr Colbeck, can we have some more information please…