The stock assessment and the assessment model use data from a variety of sources. It's not just the research vessel survey, although that does feature prominently, no doubt. They also use information from commercial catch rates, sentinel surveys, inshore juvenile surveys and so on. There's a lot of data that feed into this evaluation.
During the last few years, survey coverage hasn't been where anyone would like it to be. Of course, there are new vessels involved. That was part of the challenge. I guess it came down to a case of short-term pain for long-term gain, because with the change in vessel, efforts had to be taken to make sure that these vessels were fishing in a similar way and we could continue on the time series. That work's been undertaken and was looked at extensively as part of the last assessment.
What I would say is that, given some of the issues that you raise, there are some uncertainties around how that may have impacted the assessment. However, generally speaking, I think we can have a high degree of confidence in the information that's there.
Is it maybe a perfect estimate of stock status? No, but there's no reason to think that there are significant issues with it at the present time.