Prev
Next

A cautionary Scottish tale

Malcolm Farr

by Malcolm Farr

30 Aug 05:50am

Must Reads

The Punch is moving house - this is a caption

The Punch is moving house

385

Will Pope Francis have the vision to tackle this? - this is a caption

Will Pope Francis have the vision to tackle this?

122

Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming” - this is a caption

Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming”

251

Filed under: Environment, Fishing, Super Trawlers

53 comments

Update: The Dutch super-trawler Margiris is due to arrive in the South Australian town of Port Lincoln today to spend five days preparing for it’s new role fishing the Southern Ocean.

The north-east coast of Scotland is a string of beautiful villages which for centuries have relied on North Sea fishing from small boats operated by generations of the same families.

Cruden Bay, on the north east coast of Scotland. Picture: Malcolm Farr

The town of Peterhead, the most easterly point of that coastline, has streets named after whaling captains. Some of the grander older houses were built by trawler owners. Fishing families grew up in tiny homes across the street from the boat berths.

Many harbourside homes and those in streets leading to the wharves have cramped rooms for the residents along with large spacious lofts where the nets once were hung to dry. And there are still lively ambitions to own a boat, hire a crew and exist off the sea. Those ambitions are being battered by huge fishing vessels which look more like tankers and warships than trawlers.

The prospect of the 9500 tonne Dutch-owned Margiris working off the Tasmanian coast is a sign that these monster fishing factories also can operate in the southern hemisphere and bring with them serious questions about the survival of fish stocks and the structure of the fishing industry.

Sucking the life out of more than just the fishing grounds… Picture: Greenpeace

There is no direct link between the Scottish circumstances and the current Australian debate, and it must be remembered the owners of the Margiris have not applied for a licence to operate here. And the big-haul operations are not without local support.

But the northern hemisphere experience might be a clue to emerging issues we will have to consider.

To get some perspective, Peterhead is the home of the 19m prawn boat the Amity II, skippered by Jimmy Buchan, which featured in the BBC series Trawlermen. The Margiris is 142 m long.

The tiny town of Boddom, south of Peterhead. Picture: Malcolm Farr

In 2011 there were 133,000 tonnes of fish landed at the town, worth around $250 million, making it Britain’s biggest white and pelagic fish port.

A fish market sells fresh catches by the box every morning, but only a tiny fraction gets processed locally. Much of it is pumped directly into trucks and taken to big cities, where the local jobs have also gone.

It can take months of dangerous work for the regular trawlers to fill their quotas. Well off shore is a small number of super trawlers who can exhaust their catch limit in a few days.

These boats can detect a massive shoal of mackerel, for example, and simply scoop it up, take it to a port, and leave again for more fishing.

In some minority cases, the quotas are filled so quickly the temptation is to pick up a bit extra. Last month there were instances of big boats being dealt with by courts for trying to sell more than their allocation on the sly, a move particularly despised by the ethical fishing community.

That community also is talking about other practices which, while perfectly legal, are galling and worrying.

The monster trawlers can cost tens of millions of dollars but such is their income capacity they can be paid off in a few years. Some owners, tired of seeing them idle most of the year because of the quota limits, have sold their boats, and along with them their quota for the coming season.

What galls many is that these companies usually are not British owned, and have been given, essentially for free, the quotas which they are trading for big money to another company, which is also likely to be registered outside Britain. And quite possibly reaping European Union subsidies as well.

The unhappy vision is of more fishing jobs and income going offshore.

In Australia operators pay for a licence and are granted a quota, which also is tradeable.

Fishing Minister Joe Ludwig and Environment Minister Tony Burke will be involved in the final decision should the Margiris apply for a licence. Mr Burke told ABC TV Monday night he was waiting for further advice on guarantees only the fishing targets - and not other seas and bird life - will be captured by the ship.

“The principal thing that I’m looking at is whether, at the same time that they’re targeting the particular bait fish that they’re going out for, what other marine species get taken as by-catch and get swept up in the nets at the same time,” he said.

“I am challenged by some of the reports that I’ve seen. There were questions that I still had after I’d met with the person who owns the fish quota, and I’m waiting for that information before I can make a decision.”

Comments on this post will close at 8pm AEST.

Most commented

53 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • Little Joe says:

      06:56am | 30/08/12

      What are you worried about??? The fishing industry in Australia is being killed off by current Governments. With a decrease of approximately 30% in the catch of wild fish over the past decade Australia is becoming more reliant on imports ..... we not import approximately 70% of the seafood we consume.

      And all this is before the expansion of ‘no-go-zones” for fishing that has been bought in by the current government!!!

      Let’s keep going backwards!!!

      Reply

    • Fromage67 says:

      09:12am | 30/08/12

      Mate, you haven’t got a clue, do you? Decades of overfishing have stuffed our western rock lobster and various prawn fisheries, I can tell u this from experience.
      I expect that is the case with the rest.
      The government should expand the no fishing zones more to protect and enhance our fish stocks.

    • Borderer says:

      09:20am | 30/08/12

      Little Joe,
      Going backwards is an understatement, they are ignoring the lessons the rest of the world have learned to thier regret, that is idiocy of the highest order.
      Ludwig and Burke have to be fools to agree to this, please place a call to the Lord Mayor of the city of Hull in the United Kingdom, ask him what happens when you allow foriegn super trawlers to fish in your national waters, he would be old enough to remember. He may give you a better understanding of what happens in the wider community than a study of quaint little village in Scotland.

    • Lil Pumpkinhead says:

      10:08am | 30/08/12

      How is the creation of no-go-zones (marine sanctuaries) a bad thing?
      If you think this is going backwards, you really need to have your head examined.

      You really need to get your head together. You’re making the rest of the conservatives angry by posting such dumb comments that reflect on them.

      And by the way, ” we not import approximately 70% of the seafood we consume. ” WTF does this mean? We certainly don’t import 70% of the seafood we consume.

    • Borderer says:

      12:37pm | 30/08/12

      Lil Pumpkinhead
      How is the creation of no-go-zones (marine sanctuaries) a bad thing?

      He never said it was, the current policy lurches between “ban everything” and “free for all”. So why are they condsidering allowing a super trawler fishing rights when they place so many restrictions on local fishermen?
      The local fishermen have their catch quantity and size checked and where they can fish, the foriegn vessel sails around unchecked, harvesting fish and never lands in an Australian port. This tells you there is no sound management of the resource in place.

      And by the way, ” we not import approximately 70% of the seafood we consume. ” WTF does this mean? We certainly don’t import 70% of the seafood we consume.

      Go to your local Woolies or Coles, check out the seafood section and more importantly the frozen seafood section, note the origins of the product. Everyone likes the idea of getting fresh seafood from the markets at Christmas but what about the rest of the year? Most of the seafood for sale comes out of Asia.

    • Little Joe says:

      02:38pm | 30/08/12

      Sorry Borderer & Lil Pumpkinhead

      My editing sux ..... and it can be even worse at 6.00am.

      Australians certainly do import 70% of the seafood we consume. It enters in a variety of ways ...... frozen, tinned, processed, whole, filleted, smoked etc etc.

      http://www.amcs.org.au/Sustainable-Seafood-Guide-Australia.asp?active_page_id=704

      One of the great things that Australian fishing boats do is police the waters and report illegal fishing. Having Australian boats fishing their quota in Australian waters helps ensure that only the quotas are taken.

      I believe in quotas and no-go-zones but the extremes that the Labor and the Greens have proposed ensures that Australia will continue with the unsustainable and high Carbon Footprint practice of importing highly processed foods will continue.

    • stellar says:

      05:51pm | 30/08/12

      little joe
      Australia exports as much seafood as it imports.
      The seafood products that Australia exports are high value seafood, tuna, salmon, prawns and lobsters.

      The seafood that Australia imports is low value seafood such as canned tuna and farmed fish like the basa you find in your frozen fish and at coles and woolworths.

    • TomTom says:

      06:06pm | 30/08/12

      I was speaking to someone with in depth knowledge of the Western Rock Lobster fishery on Sunday who said there are plenty of lobsters, the scientists were not looking at all the grounds where the juveniles live and miscalculated on the future numbers. Having said that he said the introduction of the quota system is beneficial.

    • Warren says:

      07:38am | 30/08/12

      The fishing industry in Australia is in decline because there is not much left to catch in Australian waters caused by over fishing.  The no-go-zones are an attempt to revive fish populations.

      Reply

    • Alfie says:

      08:05am | 30/08/12

      Rubbish. Australia is in no way ‘over fished’. By international standards, our waters are relatively under fished.

    • Little Joe says:

      08:57am | 30/08/12

      So why do European ships travel round the world to fish around Australia??? Why do illegal fishing boats still come from indonesia??

      If you knew anything about the current state of our oceans you would trying to stop the unmitigated deforestation in Asia and the Sth Pacific. Unfortunately these practices result in massive sediment loads washing into reef and mangrove breeding grounds, destroying the environment and significantly reducing the numbers of oceanic fish.

    • Warren says:

      11:17am | 30/08/12

      Fish stocks in Australian waters are in decline. Just because they are not falling as fast as other waters does not mean the business are currently sustainable, or that other nations will not try to fish the stock that still exist.

    • the cynic says:

      11:55am | 30/08/12

      You want to see over fishing? Take a trip up to Tokyo and visit the Tsukiji fish market. Every morning there are fish from 1 inch long piled high on wooden pallets to giant tuna like wise stacked high, and everything, and I mean everything, in between including sea plants and other unidentifiable sea creatures. If lives in the sea, moves or not,  it’s on sale there. It is inevitable that more and more of these giant rapers of the sea will be seen in our waters.

    • acotrel says:

      07:38am | 30/08/12

      Perhaps we should undertake fish farming on a massive scale, by dropping fish food made from the crops we plough in every year, onto selected reefs and fishing grounds ?  And owners of ships like the Magiris could pay a levy to fish there ? If we are to have a globalised free market , perhaps control of international waters for fishing purposes should also be globalised ? Otherwise the Dutch can FARK OFF !

      Reply

    • nihonin says:

      07:55am | 30/08/12

      Great idea acotrel, but how would you get a ship that big in the fish farming dam?

    • Gregg says:

      08:48am | 30/08/12

      And you know those crops are suitable fish food do you acotrel and would not just be damaging the environment more?

    • Freeman says:

      09:06am | 30/08/12

      @ Acotrel,

      I bet the Blue Gropers would just love our cabbage and the farm chemicals would be great for the reefs! I bet Tony Burke is now wishing he thought of that! *Not!*

      You’re like a mad scientist….......but without the grasp of science.

    • Freeman says:

      09:09am | 30/08/12

      I’m now thinking acotrel was instrumental in the pink batts scheme.

    • acotrel says:

      09:32am | 30/08/12

      @Gregg
      ‘And you know those crops are suitable fish food do you acotrel ‘

      There is something which we scientists call research and development - we are not educated and trained for nothing !

    • gnome says:

      09:33am | 30/08/12

      It pains me to agree with acotrel Gregg, but if you feed the bottom of the food chain there is a trickle upwards effect.  Fertilising the oceans would pay off, but sending the return to the investor would be a problem.

    • Freeman says:

      10:09am | 30/08/12

      Gnome

      acotrel is speaking nonsene. Such aquaculture could only occur in a controlled enviroment, not on wild reefs.

      Look up what Ganglioneuritis has done to the abalone industry and human’s role in spreading it, then tell us it’s a good idea.

    • Tubesteak says:

      07:57am | 30/08/12

      Newsflash: the world has moved on from tiny little villages, with tiny little people operating tiny little boats. That is no longer the way things can be done. There are 7 billion people on this planet and we need operations that reflect that.

      Reply

    • Joan says:

      08:27am | 30/08/12

      I give up. Don’t expect anything intelligent decision coming from Labor- look at Combet turn around just 2 months after Carbon Tax implementation, another 150 asylum seekers on the way- Bowen as scarey as a toothless tiger, and Plibersek on TV and radio broadcasting that Labor been subsidising millionaire dental care instead of low income and blaming Abbott - a pure dumb blonde argument put out - does she really believe rest of Australia as dumb ?  International fisheries are striping the seas right now while Burke ties Australian nets and lines in knots and Australians buy the fish imported . Don’t expect intelligence from Labor. They haven’t shown it to date.

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      09:39am | 30/08/12

      @Joan
      I got a real laugh the other day when I was listening to Goulburn Murray ABC radio.  Sharman Stone was asked what she thought of Labor’s increased rating in the polls.  She immediately answered by rabbitting on about the carbon tax.  Perhaps she hasn’t noticed that bullshit is becoming less effective as time goes by ?

      Since the working group headed by Angus Houston did it’s thing asylum seekers are a non-issue.

      On both subjects you are ‘beating a dead horse’ !

    • Gregg says:

      09:56am | 30/08/12

      @acotrel
      ” She immediately answered by rabbitting on about the carbon tax.  Perhaps she hasn’t noticed that bullshit is becoming less effective as time goes by ?

      Since the working group headed by Angus Houston did it’s thing asylum seekers are a non-issue.

      On both subjects you are ‘beating a dead horse’ !

      I am ROFLMAO at your laughter

      You reckon the CT is a dead horse and just how long has it been going!

      And all Angus and his mates have done is confirm that Krudd/Gillard & co. opened the flood gates as they were told they would be doing.
      Now after near five years of flooding with an increasing surge you reckon it’s all fixed!

      Laughable and the electorate will not be forgetting.
      And now they will not even be laying charges against Indonesians who crew the boats!

      What a weak pissant lot this Labor government is and Gillard at the helm with a shady past.
      Even she knows opinion polls rise and fall and she hasn’t seen anything yet with falling.

    • Little Joe says:

      10:32am | 30/08/12

      @ On ya acca’s

      Lower CT means lower revenue which means we can’t afford all of Gillard’s bribes

    • Mickey T says:

      10:34am | 30/08/12

      Spot on acotrel. You know the conservatives are worried when you read responses like Gregg’s, the conservative sycophants are just starting to realise that their leader is a clown of the highest order with no vision and no idea.

    • Anna says:

      11:11am | 30/08/12

      Joan, not a pure dumb blonde arguement to connect Abbot with subsidising millionaire dental care instead of low income.  He introduced the scheme when he was health minister.

    • Joan says:

      12:30pm | 30/08/12

      Anna, Only takes dumb Labor to wake up five years after giving out handouts from what Plibersek. Abbott didn’t create any dental care for millionaires only, only a dim wit would believe that a millionaire prepared to stand in government queue and only Labor Plibersek dumb enough to give a millionaire preference treatment over low income .  Australians aren’t the fools Plibersek thinks we are. Just Labor total idiots at implementing any policy - as Plibersek indicates today.

    • Stone age liberal says:

      03:35pm | 30/08/12

      A floodgate Greg? Crying wolf just a little? Have you even looked at the proportion coming by boat? It is a non issue, if we wish to do something about refugees this is not the area to be addressing, it is people overstaying their visa’s. It is your sort of inflamatory nonsense that makes conservatives such easy targets. For the sake of the team… shush.

    • bananabender56 says:

      08:53am | 30/08/12

      Surely fishing has set quota’s of tonnage per specie, or just tonnage? Wouldn’t trawler operators have to then apply for a licence to fish a tonnage in an area? If so, what’s the problem? Whether it’s 10 small boats catching X tons or 1 large one, surely the catch is the same?

      Reply

    • Gregg says:

      08:59am | 30/08/12

      It’s so grand to see Malcolm, an old salties view of life with the sea.
      “Some of the grander older houses were built by trawler owners. Fishing families grew up in tiny homes across the street from the boat berths. “

      Yes, lets hark back to yesteryear and certainly many less mouths to feed and more fish to go around.

      ” To get some perspective, Peterhead is the home of the 19m prawn boat the Amity II, skippered by Jimmy Buchan, which featured in the BBC series Trawlermen. The Margiris is 142 m long.

      In 2011 there were 133,000 tonnes of fish landed at the town, worth around $250 million, making it Britain’s biggest white and pelagic fish port.

      A fish market sells fresh catches by the box every morning, but only a tiny fraction gets processed locally. Much of it is pumped directly into trucks and taken to big cities, where the local jobs have also gone.  “

      Oh yes old salties, those days of yeateryear were well back into previous centuries, centuries when there were not seven billion human mouths on the planet.

      I too long for many things of yesteryear Malcom, times when we had PMs without shady pasts and would it not be so grand to have journalists prepared to tell it how it is without slant or favour.

      But today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow and who knows how we’ll fare in the hopefully many more tommorrows after tomorrow.
      If you study Google Earth closely enough, up around the coast of China, you can just about see the fish jumping about in coastal fish breeding enclosures.
      We’ve got lots of kangaroos we can much on before we have to resort to that level of fisheries.

      Reply

    • the duke says:

      10:50am | 30/08/12

      Bloody hell Mal—wheres the Tony Abbott punchline

    • jorgen flenswing says:

      09:37am | 30/08/12

      Im sorry but the science is in….....it supports this fishing as sustainable..the rest is greenie hype. and pissant local politics…....why is Tassie so poor compared to the rest of Australia>>>Why are they subsidised by mainland taxpayers….well in part because the greens have excluded them from the only resources they can use to generate wealth for themselves..mining,forestry and fisheries…...

      Reply

    • colin says:

      10:14am | 30/08/12

      Oh, yes; the stocks of fish in the sea are absolutely endless and we can go on pillaging every fish in there to continue supplying an ever ridiculously expanding population because - by magic - the sea just keeps replenishing its fish stocks ad infinitum.

      What planet do you live on..?

    • LunaCycle says:

      12:32pm | 30/08/12

      @colin. Certainly not Mars - although in time, perhaps Mars II?

    • jorgen flenswing says:

      12:52pm | 30/08/12

      actually ..this planet ..where people need food and water…...taking a small % of the total stock is sustainable..yours is taking something to the extreme to make an arguement ....straw man stuff…

    • colin says:

      02:36pm | 30/08/12

      @LunaCycle 12:32pm | 30/08/12

      “@colin. Certainly not Mars - although in time, perhaps Mars II?”

      Hmmm, given the musings of the Russians of late, maybe…

      ——-

      jorgen flenswing says: 12:52pm | 30/08/12

      “...taking a small % of the total stock is sustainable…”

      Correct. But we aren’t doing that, are we? We’re taking bloody great loads of fish that are not being replenished! And - indeed - people DO need food and water. What do you propose to do when we have eaten all the food and polluted all of the water..? Soylent Green?

    • Aussie Wazza says:

      10:08am | 30/08/12

      Here I go; The old man with the ‘I remember when’ stuff. BUT IT’S TRUE.

      Moving around the east coast of Australia as a sales rep for fifty years, I had my favourite spots for different foods, especially fish.

      Up north it was coral trout, red emperor or other reef fish, further down in season, tailor or flathead and then whiting, dory, snapper and orange roughy.

      Along with the type was the freshness. Often straight off the boat, into the pan. Same with prawns and crabs.

      While living in N.Q. I used to spearfish on the reef and just down the road from where we lived, a neighbour owned a fish trap where at low tide we could select the (live) fish we wanted. Nothing was wasted. I ate fish two or three times a week.

      Now in Brisbane there is a very limited selection of questionable quality as the best gets exported.

      Likewise in the past three months I have visited Tasmania and N.Z. south island and was VERY DISAPPOINTED with the limited selection.

      Again the same story over and over. ALMOST EVERYTHING is EXPORTED.

      But even with the limited supply and high export prices there was at least some fish on the menu. I was told that the main reason even this was available was that it was not viable to pack and send small takes and that’s what was left for the local market. Imagine a top seafood restaurant with only blue eye travelly and farmed salmon on the menu. Like MacDonalds with only chicken nuggets and hash browns.

      Again with the ‘I remember’ stuff, it was a certainty to catch a feed yourself almost anywhere there was a damp spot. Now close in is fished out or a no go zone. Can’t impress the grandkids with the thrill of a guaranteed fast first catch to get them excited before they get bored.

      I agree with no go breeding zones to maintain supply , but who are we breeding them for?

      So, not like ‘back in my day’, but still though limited, there is some fish available.( If your’e rich enough.)

      Numbers are numbers though, and while now the variety and supply is short, over fishing (which is the only way to describe these super trawlers) with the catch not even touching our shores MUST have a very negative effect on Australians (or Kiwi) chances of a decent feed.

      AND THAT’S TODAY: Big fish start off as little fish so if todays pups are taken
      as bi-catch they ain’t never going to grow up. I thought that’s why we have size and quantity limits for amateur anglers.

      The questions are, ‘Who makes the rules? For whose benefit? For what reason? Are they Australian? Or are we kow towing to foreigners like the U.N. and the E.U.?

      Laws are supposed to be for the citizens benefit. Like not being allowed to fish with dynamite; catch limits; size limits; restricted breeding zones. ALL TO ENSURE A VIABLE FUTURE.

      Who is selling us out?

      Show your faces, mongrel traitors.

      Reply

    • Grug says:

      11:14am | 30/08/12

      Just remember you can pay a scientist to say what you want…

      Reply

    • jorgen flenswing says:

      12:30pm | 30/08/12

      No the science has been independently reviewed by a panel of experts in fisheries management…this is a beat up campaign from Greenpeace once again ....can you really believe Greenpeace gives a rats arse about recreational fisheries????They are just provoking a debate for their own purposes in Tassie.The ship will have observers aboard to oversight what happens….1 ship ....for heavens sake…oh its soo big ...

    • M says:

      02:25pm | 30/08/12

      Yes, you can. The RTA had been doing it for years. Same as the TAC.

    • colin says:

      03:36pm | 30/08/12

      @Grug 11:14am | 30/08/12

      “Just remember you can pay a scientist to say what you want…”

      Oh, yes, of COURSE you can.

      Paranoid-delusional conspiracy theorist, anyone?

    • Little Joe says:

      03:47pm | 30/08/12

      @ Jorgen

      That’s what the IPCC said

    • John says:

      11:35am | 30/08/12

      Hang on Mal,you didnt say it was Tony Abbotts fault.Joe Ludwig wrecked the live cattle trade,without the bat of an eye lid.Ruined the lives of thousands in the North.He will stuff this up,but what would you expect from your favourite political party.

      Reply

    • Jay2 says:

      12:16pm | 30/08/12

      No, everybody who knew about the disgusting practices in Indonesia is also responsible for the live cattle trade being ruined. It should have never have been a case of chinese whispers for over a decade. Mate, nothing deserves to die like that.

      Fishing, the pro’s still hammer some estuaries as far as I am aware. Marine parks are a great propaganda machine, like fish are kept in those areas with invisible walls of some sort. Pelagic fish and the apex predators do not stay within the confines of a marine park. I do not disagree with sensible management and no go areas for commercially intensive fishing, but the marine parks have destroyed small business enterprises in some of those areas, not to mention stopped the Mum and Dad & family fishing, in which most were returned to water.
      Good way to oppress a tourist and amateur fishing industry.

      This will all get down to user pays in years to come anyway, like most things Government finds to squeeze another buck out of you.

    • TomTom says:

      06:13pm | 30/08/12

      Jay2,
      Ludwig has also stuffed up the live sheep export industry,  the goats that go on air freight and affected dairy cattle to Russia and Asia. Ludwigs action had more impact on the modern abattoirs that do the right thing than the dodgy backyard operations where cattle were mistreated

    • John says:

      12:46pm | 30/08/12

      Jay2,some white middle class vegan decides she doesnt like the babaric practices of the Indos(shades of white superiority)and sets out to ruin the trade and the incomes and property values of those in the North.Why didnt that Ludwig bloke or that idiot PM pick up the phone to their Indo counterparts and try for a solution.

      Reply

    • Jay2 says:

      06:52pm | 30/08/12

      Disagreeing with torturing an animal doesn’t have any shade of superiority, I came from the bush where we killed our own cattle. Can’t say I recall the old man breaking legs, stabbing faces, kicking them before he shot them though.
      I agree though,  Ludwig, the Pm and those within the cattle industry should have done something before it hit the grass roots men and women.

    • Aussie Wazza says:

      03:15pm | 30/08/12

      The moving finger writes: and having writ, moves on:

      Nor all thy piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

      Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.

      Omar Khayyam

      ————————

      Wot’s dun is dun and can’t be changed.

      All we can do is learn from it and prevent the bad happening again.

      But to the futures benefit, the present is the time for making correct decisions.

      Must we wait until the act is done and our plates are empty before acting?

      In five or ten year time whoever if in government can then blame todays pack, but blame wont fill our plates.

      To me allowing this trawler is like removing your eyes or amputating a leg to see how it feels.

      But as to addressing the problem, I am jack of finding PUNCH now filled with political back and forth shit.

      We all know that polis in the main of every pursuasion are a pack of self serving a/hole. Keep to the case in hand.

      But worse still and hidden from sight are the bureaucracy. Who seconded in their ivory towers feed and manipulate the rubber stampers toward the ends they desire. Perhaps a O.A., bigger pension or foreign (Paris or Washington of course) posting. And then theres the brown paper bags. This lot are almost as low as parking meter slimes.

      Gilbert & Sullivan were serious. They knew their marks well. The assumed ridiculousness is what makes us laugh.

      Campbell Newman has picked on the wrong end of the public service(sorry) sector in Queensland.

      Reply

    • Anjuli says:

      04:28pm | 30/08/12

      When growing up in Britain we used to get to me as a child what seemed huge North Sea Cod now I am told they rarely see a small one I read just last week that the British quota of fish for this year was used up by August 21st.Some one is telling porkies if they say this huge trawler will not harm the fish stocks just go and ask the subsistence fishermen of Senegal.

      Reply

    • Billy B says:

      05:04pm | 30/08/12

      Anna - Spell a-r-g-u-m-e-n-t.  Again!  Again!

      Reply

    • TomTom says:

      06:20pm | 30/08/12

      Malcolm,
      Do you expect all farmers to sow crops with 50 hp tractors and 12 run combines rather than 350+ hp tractors and air seeders, and to weed their crops with a hoe, and harvest them with a Massey 585. It would be quaint but you wouldn’t be able to afford the grain.
      If you want to continue to have access to cheap protein we have to find more efficient ways of accessing it.

      Reply
 
Sorry, comments are now closed for this article.

Facebook Recommendations

Read all about it

Punch live

Up to the minute Twitter chatter

Paul Colgan

Colgo 22 May 13 05:45PM

How the totally awesome weather in Australia recently is hurting retailers http://t.co/4dvDwDlNZG

Paul Colgan

Colgo 22 May 13 05:29PM

Hell, your name is Excel and Powerpoint.

Anthony Sharwood

antsharwood 22 May 13 04:56PM

Great fun yarn by @the_mattyoung and @DebKillalea. What the hell annoys you about the evening commute? http://t.co/Eyi82lHiBQ

tory_maguire

_Tors 22 May 13 04:44PM

RT @_sarahwilson_: "We have reached peak bullshit...And those who push back against the noise + nonsense will be rewarded" @TheAtlantic htt…

See all tweets

Recent posts

The latest and greatest

The Punch is moving house

by The Punch Team

385

The Punch is moving house

Good morning Punchers. After four years of excellent fun and great conversation, this is the final post…

Will Pope Francis have the vision to tackle this?

by Hannah Harborow

122

Will Pope Francis have the vision to tackle this?

I have had some close calls, one that involved what looked to me like an AK47 pointed my way, followed…

Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming”

by Sarrah Le Marquand

251

Advocating risk management is not “victim blaming”

In a world in which there are still people who subscribe to the vile notion that certain victims of sexual…

Nosebleed Section

choice ringside rantings

From: Hasbro, go straight to gaol, do not pass go

Tim says:

They should update other things in the game too. Instead of a get out of jail free card, they should have a Dodgy Lawyer card that not only gets you out of jail straight away but also gives you a fat payout in compensation for daring to arrest you in the first place. Instead of getting a hotel when you… [read more]

From: A guide to summer festivals especially if you wouldn’t go

Kel says:

If you want a festival for older people or for families alike, get amongst the respectable punters at Bluesfest. A truly amazing festival experience to be had of ALL AGES. And all the young "festivalgoers" usually write themselves off on the first night, only to never hear from them again the rest of… [read more]

Light weight

Gentle jabs to the ribs

Superman needs saving

Superman needs saving

Can somebody please save Superman? He seems to be going through a bit of a crisis. Eighteen months ago,… Read more

28 comments

Newsletter

Read all about it

Sign up to the free News.com.au newsletter