Committee on Investment, Industry and Regional Development
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REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS BEFORE COMMITTEE ON INVESTMENT, INDUSTRY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT INQUIRY INTO MANAGEMENT OF SHARKS IN NEW SOUTH WALES WATERS ——— At Sydney on Monday 4 April 2016 ——— The Committee met at 9.30 a.m. ——— PRESENT Mr K. J. Anderson (Chair) Mr G. J. Aplin (Deputy Chair) Mr C. G. Barr Ms A. A. Henskens CHAIR: I declare the second public hearing of the Committee on Investment, Industry and Regional Development open. Today we will be taking further evidence in relation to this Committee's inquiry into the management of sharks in New South Wales waters. Late last year we travelled to Ballina to meet with local residents. Today the Committee will be taking evidence from other stakeholders, including government service providers and researchers. I note that the Committee has resolved to authorise the media to broadcast sound and video excerpts of its public proceedings and copies of the Guidelines for the Broadcast of Proceedings are available. INVESTMENT, INDUSTRY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE 1 MONDAY 4 APRIL 2016 SCOTT HANSEN, Director General, NSW Department of Primary Industries, sworn and examined: GEOFFREY LAURENCE ALLAN, Deputy Director General, NSW Department of Primary Industries, and AMY SMOOTHEY, Shark Biologist, NSW Department of Primary Industries, affirmed and examined: CHAIR: I welcome Mr Scott Hansen, Dr Geoff Allan and Dr Amy Smoothey from the NSW Department of Primary Industries. Thank you for appearing before this Committee today. Before we proceed, do you have any questions concerning the procedural information in relation to witnesses and the hearing process that was sent to you? Mr HANSEN: No. CHAIR: Before we commence with questions, would you like to make a brief opening statement? Mr HANSEN: Thank you. Obviously since this Committee was announced late last year a lot of water has passed under the bridge with regards to the New South Wales Government's strategy around shark management in this State. I think we outlined both our current program and our future investments in the written submission we made to this Committee. We are happy to move straight to questions so we can maximise our time with the Committee. CHAIR: Are you aware of any trends in shark sightings over the past 12 months? Mr HANSEN: I will start by saying that the shark strategy for New South Wales has two key components: how do we reduce risk to bathers and those who utilise New South Wales waters, and how do we minimise the impact on the environment? Obviously the more attention that gets drawn to shark mitigation and shark activities in the waters the more reporting there is, and hence greater number of sightings, greater awareness and greater involvement of the community in helping keep us informed about what is happening in our waters up and down the coastline. I will now throw to Dr Allan or Dr Smoothey with regards to any specific numbers in increased activity. Dr ALLAN: In 2014-15 we had 18 shark incidents—two fatal and one serious. That was a spike, but whether or not it shows an ongoing trend is uncertain. As Mr Hansen has mentioned, there are a whole lot of factors that influence sightings, including the number of people making those sightings and local occurrence of shark and other fauna, but we did have a peak in 2014-15. Mr ALISTER HENSKENS: I am familiar with financial years. So when you talk about 2014-15 are you referring to the summer period or two calendar years? Dr ALLAN: The financial year 2014-15. It is the period that we report on those shark management strategy events. Mr ALISTER HENSKENS: We are now nine months into the next financial year. I have no idea whether these incidents are more prevalent in summer or winter—we are coming up to the winter months now. How are we tracking for 2015-16 compared with 2014-15? Dr ALLAN: Fortunately we have had fewer reported instances than we had this time last year but, as you say, it is only nine months into the year. There has been a lower number. Mr ALISTER HENSKENS: The No Shark Cull submission went through a history in New South Wales from 1938 going forward and only recorded two shark attack incidents. Indeed, they recorded all incidents with regards to sharks from a flip of a fin to an attack, but what jumped out at me was the fact that between an incident at Newcastle in March 1969 and an incident in October 1992 at Avalon beach there was a complete hiatus for 23 years—that is assuming their figures are correct. Has any analysis been done of that hiatus and whether that contributes to an understanding of what has occurred more recently and indeed since 1992? Dr SMOOTHEY: Currently there is no scientific evidence to suggest that there is any change in shark numbers on the east coast of New South Wales or Australia. In terms of those figures, there is no scientific INVESTMENT, INDUSTRY AND REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE 2 MONDAY 4 APRIL 2016 evidence to suggest why there was a hiatus in that period of time—no study has been done to determine that. But in saying that, shark attacks are incredibly rare and when they do happen they are very tragic. There are many years where we do not have unprovoked shark attacks. Mr HANSEN: One of the challenging things is the fact that in this day and age you are far more likely to have any interaction with a shark reported widely and therefore captured by statistics than what we might have had in previous decades where a bump off a board or an interaction may not have been as widely reported. When you look back over the time in terms of statistics any interaction these days is shared amongst the public—even sharks swimming in close proximity to our new 4G receivers are being tweeted across the State— therefore you are likely to get far better statistics, but also a far richer picture at the moment than what we would have done in previous years. Mr ALISTER HENSKENS: The period 1969 to 1992 covers my first 18 years growing up at the beach and when I was a kid there were virtually no whale sightings. We now see a lot more whales going along the coast. So there does seem to have been changes in the marine life off our coasts. Is that completely unrelated to sharks or is there any coincidence between what is happening with our shark populations and, for example, what is happening with our whale populations? Mr HANSEN: I will throw to our scientists in a minute but a key part of why we are investing in the science and research component of this strategy is because we do not always have good, solid answers; we have a lot of theories and hypotheses that are yet to be fully tested. One of the key components for us in the tagging of sharks and then in the installation of acoustic listening stations, is actually to help us pick up movements to get better ideas about where they are and at what time of year so we can start to link those movements with other environmental factors so we can track—whether that be water temperature, currents, whale migrations or school fish migrations. A key part of our investment going forward now is actually trying to fill those knowledge gaps so that we can give you concrete answers to those kinds of questions. CHAIR: I refer to page 5 of your submission in relation to the tourism and related industries component. In November when the Committee was in Ballina we heard quite clearly from local surf shops, surf clubs, accommodation proprietors and others involved in the tourism industry that there was an economic impact being felt because of shark sightings and shark attacks. In your submission you say that in relation to tourism and related industries to date zone managers have only received limited feedback from tourism stakeholders regarding the possible impact of shark attacks on their businesses. At this stage there is no concrete evidence of tourism and related industries being adversely affected, or a reduction in visitor numbers due to possible shark attacks. Again the Committee heard very clearly from upset retailers and those people I have mentioned that there was absolutely an impact. Will you shed some light on that information? Mr HANSEN: I guess that is where this Committee is ideally placed to hear more directly from individual businesses who, because of their proximity and the closeness of their link between their business and water activities, would have felt the majority of the brunt in terms of any impact out of not necessarily the shark incidents but the wide reporting of shark incidents over that period of time on the North Coast. We have certainly heard stories of individual businesses saying their business has been impacted but when we look broadly across that region, and that is what we were looking at at that time, in terms of occupancy and visitor numbers and this was in the lead-up to Christmas, we still had not seen any significant impact into the region. Now individual businesses would have had a very different story because they would have had a direct impact on maybe their singular business as opposed to the region more broadly but I am sure there would be organisations, Chambers of Commerce and businesses far better placed now to tell you what the wash-up has been over this summer period in terms of occupancy rates, tourism and tourism dollars being spent in those North Coast locations.