A report released today into Tasmania’s sand flathead fishery closure has found the Rockliff Government failed to properly manage the fishery and Tasmanians have paid the price.

Labor fought to establish this inquiry because recreational fishers knew something had gone badly wrong. Now the report has proved them right. The Rockliff Government ignored expert advice, failed to act early enough and failed to properly fund the science and management needed to protect the fishery.

Then, after years of poor management, they shut it with inadequate consultation, poor communication and no modelling of the economic impact. And even now, there is still no clear plan to reopen the fishery and no public benchmarks for fishers to know what recovery actually looks like.

It’s the same old story from this Government: neglect the basics, ignore the warnings and leave Tasmanians to wear the consequences when things fall apart.

Recreational fishers did the right thing. They asked questions. They demanded answers. Labor backed them and fought to get this inquiry established. Now the Government has nowhere to hide. The report is clear: years of delayed action, poor management and inadequate resourcing helped get us here.

Tasmanians are sick of paying the price for decisions they didn’t make and failures they didn’t cause. The Government needs to own its failure, act on the recommendations and do the hard work to rebuild both the fishery and the trust it has lost.

Tasmanians have been patient for long enough. They deserve a government that gets the basics right before things reach crisis point.