The Reckoning of the Clarence

The government tried to kill a tiny bug, and in doing so, dropped a wrecking ball on a working fishery

You open the Clarence River back up. 

You say they can fish again

But then what?

Will you bring back the markets? Will you rebuild the logistics network that once supported them — the buyers, the bait shops, the freezer trucks, the restaurants who built menus around their catch? Because those things didn’t wait around. They found alternatives. They moved on.

The government’s two-year control order didn’t just pause a fishery. It killed a working system. One that, for decades, was the backbone of a proud coastal community. Before the ban, the Clarence could support more than 35 trawlers. Some crews pulled in up to 14 tonnes a season. This wasn’t boutique fishing — it was a commercial engine, feeding bait, seafood, and local income across the region.

By the end of 2023, only three trawlers remained.

And for what?

“No infected prawns — just infected policy.”

Not one prawn caught in the Clarence tested positive for white spot. Surveillance data confirmed it. The estuary was clean. The detections came from offshore waters and within the aquaculture farms nestled on Palmers Island — far removed from the shallow nets and quiet backwaters where these prawns are harvested. The government tried to kill a tiny bug, and in doing so, dropped a wrecking ball on a working fishery.

“They aimed at a bug, but hit an entire way of life.”

Fishermen watched their livelihoods dissolve while waiting for updates, assistance, or even a clear reason why. They were told they could accept temporary income support or surrender their shares permanently for $133 each — barely a fraction of what they were worth. Some tried to hold on. Others sold their gear. The rest took up debt and day work, hoping for answers that never came.

Meanwhile, the damage compounded. Bait shops that once relied on Clarence prawns stopped placing orders. Recreational fishers, no longer able to get their hands on fresh bait, switched to plastic lures. Wholesalers re-routed their logistics. Restaurants re-wrote menus. The market adapted — just not in favour of local fishers.

Now, as the control order nears its end, government agencies talk about “reopening the fishery.” But reopening isn’t recovery. You can’t flip a switch and expect an entire industry to come back to life.

This wasn’t a case of natural disaster or biological inevitability. It was a policy decision. One made without any plan to undo the damage — to rebuild trust, reinstate lost access, or repair the long, fragile chain that connects a trawler in the Clarence to a prawn on someone’s dinner plate.

The fishers of the Clarence River weren’t reckless. They were sustainable. Accountable. Seasoned operators in a river they knew better than most scientists ever could. And they were punished not for doing something wrong — but for being easy to sideline.

Now they’re expected to start again. To recover a fishery, a market, and a living. But no one’s answering the real question:

After you’ve destroyed a working industry — what exactly do you expect to come back?