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Australian public, environmental NGOs, politicians, fishers and local community members

were roused into debate over whether the fleet could fish sustainably. The title of an ABC

News report ‘Super Trawler: Destructive or Sustainable?’ (Ross 2012) articulated the

oppositional positions of the two factions. Unlikely groups formed alliances over this

dingpolitik. Fishing clubs and dive industries came together with environmental organisations

to argue that the trawler would destroy fish stocks, other marine species and local industry.

On the other side of the debate were claims that the trawler would bring about employment

opportunities and that its quota and fishing practices were based on sound science (Ross

2012). In fact in August 2012 when asked about the pending arrival of the trawler, the

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Fisheries Minister Troy Buswell had affirmed

their confidence in Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) to manage

Australia’s fisheries sustainably (Tracey et al. 2013, p. 348). However, after what Four

Corners (Wilkinson et al. 2012, para. 8) described as ‘a perfect storm of political protest’, the

Abel Tasman left Australian waters. The Labour Party Environment Minister at the time,

Tony Burke, called on provisions in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity

Conservation Act and introduced legislation in order to suspend the trawler from Australian

waters while the ship was subjected to environmental assessment. Joe Pirello, the managing

director of Seafish Tasman, called this ‘a lost opportunity’, saying that ‘it’s quite sad to see

that one of the better vessels in the world was available to us to sustainably fish our resource

and we never got a chance to actually bring that to a head’ (‘Super trawler sails off from

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controversy’ 2013, para. 10) . A team of researchers from the University of Tasmania

reflected on the debacle, making the point that:

…science is usually deployed in support of conservation in natural resource
conflicts, in this case science-based fisheries management advice took a back seat
to vociferous protest by interest groups, perpetuated by the media (in particular
social media), ultimately culminating in a contentious political decision. (Tracey
et al. 2013, p. 345)

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