The fishing industry ranks amongst the highest risk industries in Australia for safety, yet there are considerable barriers to basic safety training, including:

• Cost – operators cannot afford it
• Time – Courses are infrequent throughout the year. This does not meet the operational needs of the industry, where workers may be required at short notice.
• Location – Courses are usually delivered in major cities. This makes access to the training difficult for many workers, including once they are at sea.
• Context – Courses are usually delivered in a classroom setting with activities related to survival in emergency situations at sea. They do not address general workplace safety such as manual handling, electrical safety, fall protection, noise, fatigue, hazardous substances, personal protective equipment (PPE), etc.
• Access – The internet is rarely available at sea, making access to safety training and information impossible for much of the time workers are fishing.
• Demographic – workers in the fishing industry are largely represented by young, early school leavers with a high sense of adventure and risk appetite. Learning must be structured with this in mind to ensure the learner is engaged and the lessons are delivered effectively.
• Culture - the information both subliminal as well as overt sent out about safety.

The electronic LMS, which is the fundamental base for this project, is to be designed to address all of the above barriers, and provide a structured, cheap, easily accessible and timely safety course, in a manner which is readily absorbed and understood by the crew member undertaking the course. The training modules are to be delivered online and offline, making them accessible anywhere at any time and can also be tailored to specific industry sectors, while retaining the core units, and aim to achieve best practice in all aspects of WHS.

RIRDC initiated a project (attached) due to significant knowledge deficiencies in the area of commercial fishing occupational health and safety data and of the existing circumstances of the industry. The gaps in knowledge have arisen due to previous difficulties in collating and interpreting data, which have resulted from disaggregation of State data, creating difficulties in data analysis at the national level; availability of state data; and the nature of the fishing industry which results in many participants not being included in official statistics or records.

The report found that there was a lack of awareness of occupational health and safety, or safety
culture, and that it still fails to be effectively dealt with across all States of Australia. The OHS data identifies that the claims for fatal injuries in aquaculture and non fatal in marine (or wild capture) fisheries are both increasing. The most ‘at risk’ group in the industry are those between the ages of 20 to 24 years, with those aged 45 – 54 years being the next most at risk group, who will receive injuries from non powered hand tools to their upper bodies.

Australian fisheries data is currently stored in a segregated manner and connectivity is minimal between sources, leaving data to be relatively inaccessible. The majority of Australia's wild catch fishers continue to complete their catch and effort reporting via paper log books that then require data entry capacity to ensure these can be utilised by the appropriate users - stock assessments, SAFS, etc... The move to electronic, real time data reporting would enable a higher level of data to be collected but would also allow fine scale management of fishing operation and ultimately greater sustainability of fish stocks.

As a result of this, corresponding jurisdictional management agency investment in improving infrastructure is also often segregated. Harmonising fisheries digital data could derive not only efficiencies in the data use (data can be collected once and used many times) but also in infrastructure investment. Harmonised investment in infrastructure as well as innovative change in regards to how a range of services and information are utilised in fishing and aquaculture could deliver greater profit and improve timeliness of decision making. It is however important that and framework proposed has the confidence and support of both government and industry. This project seeks to ensure that industry is involved in progressing the data framework, and that suit a framework suits their needs.

A number of fisheries in Australia are characterised as being 'small scale', 'data ' and/or 'capacity' limited (hereafter small scale fisheries). Fisheries management within the context of small scale fisheries is often ad hoc and is resource intensive relative to the value of the fishery in question. An existing project (FRDC 2015-213) is developing guidelines for low cost and systematic management of small scale fisheries. A central component of those guidelines is the FishPath tool developed by CSIRO in partnership with a global consortium of experts.

The FishPath tool has significant potential for adoption as a 'standard' approach to small scale fisheries management in Australia and has strong stakeholder by-in at a theoretical level. However, the implementation of the guidelines and the FishPath tool would benefit from testing to optimise that potential. To be effective, the tool needs to provide a framework for participatory discussions about what management, harvest strategy and longer term monitoring and assessment options are best suited to a given fishery.

As a part of the existing project, a workshop has been scheduled to occur in Darwin on November 17 2017. At that workshop, a project team that will be led by Natalie Dowling (Principal Investigator 2015-213) and Kate Crosman (Evans School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Washington) plan to introduce, test and improve the FishPath tool by focusing on stakeholder input. The existing project budget will enable the workshop to proceed with NT-based stakeholders in attendance. However, the potential value of the tool in a national context warrants broader participation. This proposal seeks support to fund the participation of key stakeholders from regional areas of the Northern Territory (e.g. Gove) and around Australia to ensure broad issues are considered and outcomes are provided against national priorities to improve productivity and profitability of small scale fisheries and in assistance to the Status of Australian Fish Stocks program.

The outcomes of the workshop are regarded as essential to determining the next phase of work in the implementation of the management guidelines and FishPath nationally.

In 2010, the Australian Fisheries Managers Forum (AFMF) listed fisheries access and allocation as one of the top priority policy issues to be addressed. Subsequently, FRDC formed a working group to examine possible approaches to access and allocation issues to assist fisheries managers as they undertook their associated policy development around allocation matters. They produced a report on the principles and guidelines for fisheries resource access and allocation, highlighting impediments to optimising fisheries resource access and allocation in Australia and the RD&E issues requiring investment.
Seven years on, there has been a lot of developments in this area in the various jurisdictions. To assist guide FRDC's future RD&E investment on these issues, the Board requested a review of the current state of fishery resouce access and allocation across the various jurisdictions.