Doorstop announcing the $3.9 million by-catch grants program with Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek

SUBJECTS: BYCATCH MITIGATION PROGRAM; INTERNATIONAL DAY OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN AND CHILDREN

CEO OF SEAFOOD INDUSTRY AUSTRALIA VERONICA PAPACOSTA: Well, thank you for coming out on a beautiful, sunny day. The Seafood Industry Australia, particularly, and our local fishing industry welcome the announcement of a $3.9 million grant to support sustainable fishing in Australia nationally, and particularly around improving the work that we've done around reducing bycatch, especially around threatened and endangered species.

The Australian seafood industry sees itself as a leading steward of oceans management and oceans care. This is our office. So for some people, they work in office buildings in Sydney or regional areas, but for us, the ocean is our office, and so we want to take care of our ocean and we really welcome governments, support from the Albanese government and from Minister Plibersek today to support that work. And so we'd like to send our thanks and potentially hear from one of our local fishers and the Minister a little bit further. Thank you.

FISHERMAN PAUL BAGNATO: Look, full credit to the government what they're doing, and I think the money they spend is good money, because anything that's going to improve our quality and way of fishing and operating our fishing vessel, there will only be one benefit, that's the Australian people.

Whatever comes out of this, we'll only put more better seafood on Australian tables and I recommend the gentleman thank you, Minister, for that. And support the local fishermen. There's not many of us left, mind you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

TANYA PLIBERSEK, MINISTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND WATER: Thank you so much. It's great to be here at the Sydney Fish Markets. We know as Christmas approaches, there will be more and more Sydney siders down here buying their Christmas feast. We're so lucky in Australia to have such high-quality seafood. We've got some of the most sustainable fisheries in the world, but we can always do better. And today, the Australian government is announcing $3.9 million of grants to improve sustainability of our fishing fleet. We know that quite often when we're out fishing, we're also getting unintended catch like dugongs, sharks, turtles, and a lot of these are threatened species. 

The Albanese Labor Government wants to work with our commercial fishing industry to reduce bycatch, especially of threatened species. This $3.9 million grant programme will provide grants of between $50,000 and $500,000 to commercial fishers to use new technologies and new techniques to avoid bycatch. That means protecting our precious threatened species, the turtles, the dugongs and sharks that otherwise end up in our nets. Thanks. Any questions?

JOURNALIST: I have one regarding - today is the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women. Do you have any comments on that?

MINISTER PLIBERSEK: Today is the day for the International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women and it's well worth noting that Australia still has shockingly high rates of domestic violence, sexual assault and domestic homicide. About one Australian woman dies every ten days at the hands of someone that supposedly loved her. We can do much better. And the Australian government is committed to the next National Plan on violence against women and their children, to make sure that every level of government, our police force and social services are working together to better protect all Australians from the risk of violence. Thanks, everyone.