Paper Petition

The petition of residents of the State of Queensland draws to the
attention of the House the proposed plan to re-zone the entire Sandy
Straits area a Yellow Conservation Zone. The community is concerned by
(i) discrimination to recreational fishers in the Sandy Straits by
imposing heavy restrictions on their activities, while still allowing
commercial beam trawling and netting activities to continue in the
restricted area; (ii) adverse effects on property values and loss of
revenue for the local traders reliant on the huge numbers of recreational
fishers/visitors to the area each year; (iii) damage to the Straits is
more likely by commercial netting operations than by recreational fishing
activities; (iv) safety issues through go-slow zones in rough weather,
(v) the anomaly that it is the only Yellow Conservation Zone in the GBR
plan which allows commercial netting and beam trawling.

Your petitioners therefore request the House to either disallow
commercial beam trawling and netting in the proposed Sandy Straits Yellow
Conservation Zone, or to re-zone the entire area to Light Blue Zone for
General Use, with restrictions imposed, for all (as applicable), in the
more sensitive areas.