Abalone mystery

ALLAN Brown (Jan 6) was asking about the 40 Tasmanian government-owned abalone quota units that are now being annually allocated to Land and Sea Aboriginal Corporation Tasmania (LSACT).

There are 3500 units of quota in the abalone fishery. The government owns 40 of them; the remaining 3460 units are owned by other people/ entities, including some actual divers. The government's ownership of 40 units came about after they confiscated them some years ago from the eight original holders, due to regulation breaches. Those 40 units were once known as the “Furneaux Island units”.

Until last year, the government advertised annually via public tender to have their 40 quota units caught. Although anyone (including LSACT) could tender for them each year, the actual diving has to be subcontracted to licensed commercial abalone divers, with the catch being delivered to a licensed processor.

What changed in 2022, was that the government agreed to make all 40 units available each year to LSACT, without a tender process. Presumably, LSACT will be paying the government a similar amount to what they would receive if still tendered, but now LSACT does not have to worry about trying to access all or some of that quota each year by competitive tender.

I presume (for economic reasons) that rather than set up their own processing and marketing operations, LSACT will simply sell their uncaught 8840kg of abalone quota (pre-processed, live weight in 2023) to existing processors who will export most of it overseas, predominantly to China. LSACT may be able to direct a relatively small amount to go from the processor to Tasmanian or mainland markets for cultural or retail purposes, however unlike lobster, abalone is not widely consumed within Australia (at any price). A number of existing divers have Aboriginal heritage, and LSACT will be able to tell the processor which diver they want the work to go to.

Rob Steane

Lindisfarne