Page 8 - Bush 'n Beach Fishing mag

Nice snapper and a kingfish were landed by father and son team Attila and Nick Bognar.
Attila Bognar was rewarded for his efforts with a nice snapper.
George Baumber got into the action with a classy pearl perch.
Page 8 – Bush ’n Beach Fishing, July 2020
The author got lucky with a pearl perch.
SFtate of confusion
OR anyone who fishes and enjoys boating, the past
Offshore
by BILL CORTEN
few months have been full of change, uncer- tainty, confusion and totally compounded by a severe lack of good leadership by those in charge of boating and fishing in Queensland.
is using your boat for essential travel, to get to work, to and from your home or to local shops for provisions.”
peak body to meet and discuss a range of in- itiatives yet was quick to add to the situation of COVID confusion at the time.
The confusion started at the commencement of COVID-19 restric- tions when the boss of Maritime Safety Queensland came out hard in the media and stated all recreational boating was off-limits.
Wow, there must have been some interesting exchanges behind the scenes to generate this much action from the Minister because he is not known for engaging with the recreational boating community.
Poor leadership all round, and perhaps now we are at the tail end of COVID, the Maritime bloke should focus on working with the indus- try to bring to fruition the change initiatives pitched to him – pre- viously ignored with public service speak when challenged about progress.
Not one to miss a me- dia opportunity, he was quick to deliver the bad news.
Seems many people ignored the limitations that were imposed and did their own thing anyway, while others stayed put – riding out the whole COVID-19 thing at home.
Marine licensing is a classic topic that springs to mind.
This went down like a lead balloon and was quickly overruled by the Minister for Trans- port and Main Roads Mark Bailey.
Shame there was next to no enforcement of the limitations and this added more fuel to the fire of confusion.
The present system commenced in January 1996, over 25 years ago and desperately needs an overhaul.
After withdrawing an earlier tweet, Bailey’s next missive was am- biguous and smelt of a typical government backpedal with his sudden, “Boating is banned, but fishing for food is permitted, as
From where I sat, Bai- ley was the same bloke who appeared to have only the very slightest interest in engaging with boaties and ig- nored requests from a
Who knows, Bailey will likely be gone as Minister anyway after the next election in a few months, so why not work hard on preparing
* continued P9 www.bnb shing.com.au