A New South Wales MP is urging the state government to create a personal shark deterrent device rebate scheme and remove shark nets from the state’s beaches.
Heathcote MP Lee Evans has used a notice of motion in parliament to call for the adoption of a model similar to the $200 rebate offered in Western Australia.
Mr Evans’s seat on the southern fringe of Sydney is set to shift significantly further south in the electoral boundary redistribution into northern Wollongong, where the council is leading a push to remove the nets.
“My issue is that so many creatures are caught up in the nets as a bycatch and great whites swim by with impunity,” Mr Evans said.
“I am very concerned that we are killing off sea turtles, rays, other sharks that aren’t meant to be caught.”
The most recent report on the state’s shark meshing program found a total of 376 marine animals caught in nets.
Fifty-one were target sharks, including 28 white sharks, 12 bull sharks and 11 tiger sharks.
The 325 remaining were non-target animals, including grey nurse sharks, 130 rays, 40 turtles, one dolphin and one humpback whale.
Mr Evans urged the government to divert the money it spent on the nets into a rebate scheme for personal deterrent devices.
“Western Australia basically said, ‘Right we are not going to net anymore,’ and they did a 50/50 split with people who wanted to buy these devices,” he said.
In a statement, the WA government said the scheme provided a number of options, including “two scientifically proven device options — the Ocean Guardian FREEDOM+ Surf (bundle) and the Ocean Guardian FREEDOM7”.
“The scheme was introduced in May 2017 for the Ocean Guardian Freedom7 (dive product), the Ocean Guardian FREEDOM+ Surf (Bundle) was added the following year in 2018,” the statement said.
“In March this year a third option was added, the WA manufactured Rpela v2 surf device.
“As of 12 October, 7,844 rebates have been claimed to purchase a device.”
The NSW government made its response to the Cardno report it commissioned into shark protection public in August.
It includes support for recommendations to fund research into personal protection devices.
“The shark program continues to undertake, or supports, further research and monitoring (ie data gathering, analysis and reporting) of current area-based bite mitigation systems and trialling of emerging area-based bite mitigation systems and personal devices,” the government said.
Ocean Guardian chief executive Lindsay Lyon met with Lee Evans, Terrigal MP Adam Crouch and Environment Minister James Griffith in NSW parliament last week.
