Across northern Australia, Aboriginal and' Torres Strait Islander peoples are exempt from most fisheries regulations, enabling them to pursue traditional fishing practices, and special measures have been established to encourage them to engage in commercial fishing enterprises. In most of southern Australia, however, there is no government special recognition of Aboriginal peoples' fishing, which has led to conflict with fisheries managers and has resulted in very little involvement by indigenous Australians in commercial fishing. In New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia, bag limits on recreational fishers apply to indigenous Australians, limiting their ability to obtain traditional seafoods to feed their extended families. In Queensland, all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander persons who fish according to Aboriginal traditional fishing or Island custom are exempt from bag and size limits.
Similar exemptions apply in the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Western Australia is the only State where southern Aboriginal peoples have equal fishing rights to those in the north. The lack of recognition of traditional fishing rights is regarded by southern indigenous peoples as a denial of their identity and a restriction of their cultural expression. Southern indigenous Australians are frequently prosecuted and sometimes jailed for breaches of fisheries regulations, but have expressed their determination to continue to exercise what they regard as their traditional right to fish. Even in areas where customary fishing rights have been recognised, indigenous Australians have expressed concern that they are currently given little opportunity to be involved in overall fisheries management, that their subsistence fishery stocks are not being adequately managed and that little financial benefit flows to indigenous peoples from the commercial exploitation of traditional resources. This has caused much concern amongst our community members.