MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Australia amends bill to tackle illegal fishing

To counter the alarming increase in the number of foreign vessels fishing illegally in Australia's northern waters, Parliament passed the Border Protection Legislation Amendment Bill on 10 August.

In a bid to intensify prosecution measures for illegal fishing and remove regulatory inconsistencies, private contractors will now be allowed to arrest illegal fishers, who will be subject to more stringent penalties, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Moreover, quarantine officers will be provided with the resources necessary to better monitor illegal fishing, and an onshore facility will be set up for arrested fishermen that are currently being held in their vessels upon arrest, in Darwin Harbour.

Although opposition was expressed by the Labour Party to have the legislation forbid fisheries officers from making arrests, meaning that only government officers should be allowed to do so, Parliament gave the go-ahead for fisheries officers to make the arrests themselves.

The bill also cleared fisheries officers to carry out strip searches and to demand that suspected wrongdoers present personal identification. Arresting officers are still being ordered to read detainees their rights, however.

"We are grappling with a very real problem in the north of Australia," said Fisheries Minister Ian Macdonald, adding that the government had been forced to step in to protect Australia's national waters from illegal fishing.

"Our government is determined to enhance and give powers to our officers and our officials to do their duties in the best possible way," he added.

A member of the Labour Party, who opposed the bill on grounds that he was concerned about fisheries officers being allowed to make arrests, finally acquiesced to the bill because the Labour Party managed to get arrested fishers moved out of their boats and into a Darwin Harbour facility.

"Recent revelations about the performance of private contractors in running migration detention facilities, and especially in exercising power over detained people, have added weight to Labor's view that only federal, state or territory public employees should be engaged in this task," said Labour Party frontbencher Kerry O'Brien. (FIS/MP).-