A Future Where Local Seafood Stays Local

Charting the course to restore our waters, rebuild the fleet, and keep fishers at the helm

Imagine walking down to your local wharf on a Saturday morning and seeing a fleet of small boats tying up, each one run by proud owner-operators. Kids chase gulls along the jetty while their parents stop to buy prawns, bream, or mullet caught just hours earlier. The fishers know most of their customers by name. The money spent there circulates back into the community, keeping schools, local shops, and regional towns alive.

This is not a memory of the past — it is the future we are fighting to build.

Restoring access to our waters

In this future, there are no closures without clear, scientific evidence. Communities don’t wake up to find their fishing grounds locked away by bureaucrats following international pressure. Instead, decisions are made transparently, with fishers themselves involved at every step. Access is balanced and fair, ensuring that Australians can still eat Australian seafood.

Building the future of the fleet

We see young Australians stepping aboard vessels, learning the ropes from experienced hands. Pathways are open for apprenticeships, training, and licence transitions so that knowledge is not lost but passed on. Fishing becomes once again a career choice that young people are proud to make — not a dead end cut off by red tape.

Radical transparency in governance

No more closed-door deals, no more secrecy clauses, no more NDAs that keep working fishers locked out of decisions. Instead, fisheries governance is open, accessible, and accountable. The public can see how stocks are managed, how quotas are set, and how decisions are reached. Trust is rebuilt not through promises, but through radical transparency.

A united voice steering its own course

The future of our waters will not be dictated by corporate interests or distant consultants. It will be steered by a united voice of fishers themselves — speaking for their communities, for consumers, and for the sea. In this future, policy is not imposed from above, but grown from the deck up.

This is the vision: thriving coastal towns, abundant local seafood, young people stepping into the industry, and a governance system that finally puts honesty and accountability first.

If we stay the course — if we fight for access, build pathways, demand transparency, and keep members at the centre — this future is not only possible, it is within reach.

Because when local fishers thrive, so does Australia.

‘Girt by Fkn Sea'