Fish authority admits it broke the rules

15 Sep 2012, 11:27 am   -   Source: AAP
(AAP)

(AAP)

The fisheries authority admits its advisory committee failed to comply with legislation when it allowed a super trawler operator to join fish quota talks.

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It was wrong to allow the director of a super trawler operator to participate in fishing quota deliberations despite a declared conflict of interest, the Commonwealth ombudsman says.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) has admitted its advisory committee allowed Seafish Tasmania director Gerry Geen to participate in discussions.

Seafish Tasmania is the operator of the controversial super trawler Abel Tasman.

Laws that would see the trawler slapped with a two-year ban passed the lower house of federal parliament on Thursday, after Environment Minister Tony Burke told parliament "serious" questions had been raised about processes at AFMA.

In a letter addressed to Independent MP Andrew Wilkie on Friday, senior assistant Ombudsman Rodney Lee Walsh said Mr Geen had declared a conflict of interest in the matters to be deliberated by the South East Management Advisory Committee at a February meeting.

Although the committee did not seek a final position from Mr Geen about the total allowable catch for jack mackerel, he "was allowed to remain in the meeting and to participate in deliberations".

"By allowing Mr Geen to remain in the meeting while the total allowable catch matter was deliberated, after noting his conflict of interest as the holder of statutory fishing rights for the fishery, the committee chairperson failed to follow the process set out (in the Act)."

Mr Walsh said AFMA was taking steps to address the breach and had accepted that a letter it sent to Mr Wilkie explaining why Mr Geen had been allowed to remain in the meeting was incorrect.

He said the ombudsman was in the process of considering "other matters" that had come up in the course of its investigation.

Mr Wilkie said he had lodged a number of complaints with the ombudsman over AFMA's conduct regarding the super trawler's quota.

"No less than the Commonwealth ombudsman has agreed AFMA has acted unlawfully, and this should rule a line under the whole sorry super trawler saga and compel the Senate to kill the project forever next Monday," he said in a statement on Saturday.

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