From Pride to Pariah: How Commercial Fishers Were Cast Out of Australia’s Story

Commercial fisher lost in thought.

There was a time — not so long ago — when commercial fishers were celebrated as heroes of the coast.

Before the 1990s, they were seen for what they truly are: food producers. Providers. Custodians of the sea. People who rose before the sun, battled the elements, and returned with the bounty that fed towns, cities, and a growing nation.

There was pride in it. Pride in knowing your catch was on a neighbour’s plate. Pride in watching your children learn the tides, just as you did. Pride in seeing your work feed hospital kitchens, country pubs, coastal co-ops and capital cities.

That pride ran deep — not just in the bloodline, but in the national fabric.

So vital was their role, that during both World Wars, commercial fishers were among those who could apply for exemption from military conscription. While others were called to fight overseas, the Australian Government recognised another frontline here at home: feeding a country in crisis. Without fishers, there was no food security. Without food, there was no nation to defend.

From Pride to Policy

But then came the shift.

Since the early 1990s, a slow, relentless campaign has chipped away at that respect. Recreational fishing lobbies, environmental groups, and animal rights activists began to twist the narrative — deliberately blurring the lines between Australia’s sustainable, small-scale fisheries and images of overfished, exploited waters overseas.

They told the public that all fishing was bad. That local fishers were a threat. That saving the ocean meant locking out the very people who had stewarded it for generations.

And so, the tide turned.

Mob of protesters

More than two-thirds of Australia’s commercial fleet was erased. Generational businesses collapsed. Young people walked away. Communities who once celebrated their fishers now stood silent — or worse, turned against them.

In NSW alone, the number of commercial fishing licences has fallen by over 60% since 1990, despite population growth and rising seafood demand. The fleet is shrinking, not due to environmental failure — but due to political will.

For the men and women still hauling nets, the emotional toll has been staggering.

Imagine waking each day to fight for your living, only to see your name dragged through media, policy rooms, and social campaigns. Imagine watching your children hear that what their family does is “destroying the ocean” — when you’ve spent your life caring for it.

That pride, once so sure, was replaced with despair. Shame. A deep, quiet worthlessness.

The Knowledge We’re Losing

And yet — they fish.

Every day, those who remain push past the noise. They rise early, they work the tides, they feed their communities. They do it knowing they are judged, ignored, misrepresented — and still, they go on.

But for how much longer?

Because now, they’re no longer encouraging their children to follow them.

The legacy that once passed proudly from hand to hand is being quietly severed. Not because they’ve lost the love — but because they can’t, in good conscience, bring their sons and daughters into a future so uncertain. The risk is too great. The hatred is too loud. The system is too broken.

Father tells son he can't join the family business

And so, as boats disappear, so do the stories. The intuition. The skill. The sacred understanding between person and sea.

We’ve lost more than boats and licences.

We’ve lost generations of irreplaceable knowledge — the kind that doesn’t live in books. The moon-based prawn run. The shape of a healthy net. The unspoken rhythm between ocean, sky, and hands. Knowledge taught deck side, passed down with patience, weathered into skin.

The Few Commercial Fishers Who Hurt the Many

Yes — there have been cowboys in the industry.

The careless. The irresponsible. The ones who ignore the rules and tarnish the hard-earned reputation of others. Every industry has them. And when they appear, no one wants them gone more than commercial fishers themselves. Because the damage they cause — to the environment, to public trust, to licence holders who do the right thing — is not just frustrating, it’s deeply unfair.

The industry does not defend this behaviour. In fact, it demands stronger accountability. Real enforcement. Real consequences.

But that’s not what happened.

Instead, rather than targeting the few doing the wrong thing, entire fishing communities have been punished. Rules became blunt instruments. Closures were handed down like collective guilt. Compliance costs skyrocketed, licences vanished, and honest families were swept up in a crusade that had nothing to do with their conduct.

We don’t shut down every pub because of one bartender who serves underage. We deal with the individual — we don’t condemn the profession.

So why does the seafood supply chain — the most heavily regulated of them all — face punishment as a whole?

This is not justice. It’s persecution. And it continues to this day.

A Nation Unaware

The public was told it was for the environment. But no one told them that Australia now imports over 70% of its seafood. No one told them that many closures were political, not scientific. No one told them that the very people who are most invested in healthy oceans are the ones being driven from them.

We didn’t just lose fishers — we abandoned them.

And now we must decide: Will we let this story end in silence? Or will we speak the truth?

Commercial fishers are not the villains. They are among our most essential workers. They’ve carried the weight of a nation’s food needs on their backs — and still do, despite the hatred.

It’s time to stop punishing the most responsible seafood producers in the world. It’s time to listen, support, and stand beside those who still show up — not because they are welcomed, but because they believe it’s right.

Australia deserves to eat its own seafood. And our fishers deserve to feel proud again.

Let’s bring them home.