That's the key in terms of management, trying to find a way to remove the politics from the management of the fishery. The volatility, the ups and downs, and the instability of the fishing industry is largely attributable to the fact that there have been too many decisions taken without enough knowledge, and without enough weight assigned to science and conservation. Various environmental factors are very important as well.
There's not just one indicator of success, like the biomass. There are issues with recruitment and water temperature. There are seals and a whole host of factors. Inherently, there's a lot of need for good science, but also good input from harvesters and the people who are out on the water. Some kind of a joint management process would be extremely beneficial in terms of not only separating out the politics but making the politics and the science more transparent.
One of the big problems we have right now is that there's ministerial discretion. Often, it's not clear what the factors are that influence a minister's decisions. We need to have more transparency, more public input and more.... This is an industry where the regulator, quite often, is captured by the industry. The term “regulatory capture”, I think, applies to many industries, not least in the case of the fishing industry. We need something to keep the industry in its place—to keep everybody in their places.
The public should be in its place as well. I think the public needs a seat at the table. My biggest concern right now is the fact that civic society is excluded from much of this process.