8km past closure line

Tell us about boat ramp vandals, crab pot share farmers, and others who snatched your tackle.
Mick7805
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by Mick7805 »

Ronje not quite right there. The Magistrate can and in this case I believe did find the offence proved but did not record a conviction. It happened also with the guys that got caught with the 22 snapper at Gunn Point. Magistrate waffled about how serious the offence was, found the offence proven and forfeited the boat, but did not record a conviction. Apparently the courts don't want to give anybody the stigma of being a convicted poacher!


ronje
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by ronje »

Hello Mick
All Fisheries offences are " regulatory offences " under the NT Fisheries Act.

FISHERIES ACT - SECT 38
Regulatory offences
(1) An offence against this Act is a regulatory offence.

(2) It is a defence to a prosecution for an offence referred to in subsection (1) if the defendant proves on the balance of probabilities that:

(a) any contravention or failure to comply constituting the offence occurred in an emergency and was necessary to preserve life or prevent injury or to protect property in the defendant's possession;

(b) the defendant did not intend to commit the offence, and that:

(i) in any case where it is alleged that anything required to be done was not done, the defendant took all reasonable steps to ensure that it was done; or

(ii) in any case where it is alleged that anything prohibited was done, that the defendant took all reasonable steps to ensure that it was not done; or

(c) any contravention or failure to comply constituting the offence was authorized by being:

(i) in the exercise of a right granted or recognized by law;

(ii) in execution of the law or in obedience to, or in conformity with, the law;

(iii) in obedience to the order of a competent authority whom the defendant is bound by law to obey unless the order is manifestly unlawful (the determination of which is a matter of law); or

(iv) pursuant to an authority, permission, or licence lawfully granted.

(3) Subsection (2)(b) applies only to an offence prescribed in the Regulations or a fishery management plan to be an offence to which that subsection applies.


So unless the offender can prove that one of the above defences applies, then the magistrate has no option but to find the charge proved.

The only options left to the magistrate are the penalty and/or if a conviction is recorded. In the above case I'd suggest that the magistrate wasn't happy about the confusing signage and sent a signal to the Dept by the low penalty.

In a lot of regulatory offences regimes, recording of a conviction is not applicable or is left to the magistrate. Depends on the host administration.

We're talking about an offence against a bit of statute legislation. A victimless crime if you like. Its not as if we're talking about peeping toms, theft, property offences or assault etc.

The fisheries officers ( experienced NT water police) are well aware of the shortcomings of any legislation that they deal with (not just fisheries offences ) and know that adequate signage would be an issue but would have to do something about what they found.

Am happy to leave my comments at that.
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by cuddlescooper »

It is an offence that directly affected some one else ronje. It affected me because i obeyed the law. It means i cant fish where i want to because i obey the law. The law once again proves to be a joke. The coppers do the right thing and judges do fuck all once again.
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by ronje »

Fair enough Cuddles.

For info purposes the max court penalty for fishing in Daly R closed zone is 17 penalty units . NT penalty unit is $153 so max fine = $153 x 17 = $2601.

If a infringement notice is issued instead the fine is 1.7 penalty units =$260.

What these guys were complaining about regarding imaginary lines and confusion is this (I think):

Schedule 2 Daly River seasonally closed area

clause 4, definition Daly River Seasonally Closed Area


The Daly River Seasonally Closed Area means all that part of the Daly River and Anson Bay bounded:

(a) to the east by an imaginary line drawn across the river from the defined western bank of the old outlet channel of Moon Billabong at grid reference 6556 E 85101 N map 4971 Anson due south to the opposite bank; and

(b) to the west by a straight imaginary line drawn between the most northerly point of Cliff Head at grid reference 6298 E 85211 N map 4971 Anson and the most westerly point of the north bank of the outlet regarded as part of the

Reynolds River at grid reference 6326 E 85347 N map 4971 Anson;

and includes all tributaries of the Daly River that are downstream from the first-mentioned imaginary line.

Note: The maps mentioned above are part of series R621, edition 2-AAS, 1984.


How does one see an imaginary (invisible) line?

Obviously one can't so one has to rely on instruments or signage. I do recall seeing signage at the Moon Billabong area a few years ago at the Nationals. Don't know if its still there. Only ever went as far as Clear Creek and don't recall seeing anything that way.

If relying on instruments eg GPS we have a problem. Have a look at the bold highlighted grid references above.

Confusing?
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Ronje
Mick7805
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by Mick7805 »

Thanks for the detailed response Ronje.

The idea of an imaginary line is that you stand at the location that is described and imagine a line across the river at the point that you cannot cross with lines rigged. Not hard. People imagine stuff all the time. Like me - I imagine that the guys caught at the Daly new exactly what they were doing and as has been stated - they had their defence prepared if caught.
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by Scottie5.3 »

That sign at moon billabong is still there ronje but when river is in flood, probably couldn't be seen. I feel the same as cuddles, as I wanted to fish there too but this law thing stopped me as I like my boat
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dannett
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by dannett »

ronje wrote:Note: The maps mentioned above are part of series R621, edition 2-AAS, 1984.

How does one see an imaginary (invisible) line?

Obviously one can't so one has to rely on instruments or signage. I do recall seeing signage at the Moon Billabong area a few years ago at the Nationals. Don't know if its still there. Only ever went as far as Clear Creek and don't recall seeing anything that way.

If relying on instruments eg GPS we have a problem. Have a look at the bold highlighted grid references above.

Confusing?
Most people do not have ready access to these maps (you can buy it at http://www.chartandmapshop.com.au/28015 ... ical-Map/0 among other places). Even fewer people would have the ability to convert the provided coordinates to WGS84 so they can program it into their GPS. Now you just need to draw a line over the top of your Navionics chart.... good luck. Makes it hard for the average Joe to be a law abiding citizen.
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by ronje »

No doubt in my mind at all that they knew what they were doing either.

Their defence was going to be (and turned out that way) was one of confusing geographical information delineating the closed area.

What they didn't take into account was that fisheries offences in the NT are ALL Regulatory Offences and the only defences that can be successful are those nominated in the Act (and theirs wasn't one of them) so the magistrate had by law to find them guilty.

Most Acts prohibiting unlawful actions have the words " without reasonable excuse" contained there-in and its up to the magistrate what's classed as reasonable excuse.

Regulatory Offences don't contain those words as the only acceptable excuses are those nominated in the Act. So the magistrate had no discretion and they had to be found guilty.

Magistrate seems to have partly accepted the claim of confusing data though and used it in fixing the penalty (which I agree was way too low for what they were up to).

The offenders probably had a chance of demonstrating the confusion that exists 'cos what I quoted above is the geographical info published by the Dept.

Did they use lat and long information as universally used in maritime area? No they didn't.

They used the metric UTM system (Universal Transverse Mercator) in metres. It uses terms E (eastings) and N (northings) from special metric maps. http://www.taitmaps.com/pcref.pdf

Why do that when everybody's navigation eqpt uses lat & long?

That in itself is a recipe for confusion. Then to cap it off, the Regulatory Offences regime doesn't allow govt generated confusion as an acceptable defence.

These guys tried it on and lost. Got a smack with a wet tram ticket but in the process highlighted some legitimate issues about the obligation the Dept has to provide plain and simple information so that people CAN understand the laws they are supposed to obey.

You don't really need special maps and overlays to decipher the UTM data. You can convert manually. Friend of mine got a contract to survey depths at the mouth of the Roper towards Maria Island. The geographical data was in UTM (Eastings and Northings) on an electronic map. About 15 different coordinates involved. I had to sit down with him at Tomato Island camp (he lived there so you'll most probably know him) and convert the points to lat and long. Now he was a guy who used to run game fishing boats out of Cairns. HE didn't know what this E & N stuff was. What hope for the rest of us?

If you go onto Google Earth tools and then options you'll see the different configurations that you can display for lat and long.

One of those options is in UTM. Click that and your map grids are in UTM ( same as the Fisheries data). Put a marker at a point described in the Daly River Closure section in the management plan and you have your starting point with the position of the marker pin in E & N.

Do the same with marker pins with all of the boundary points and change the option in the tools/options page back to lat/long and the marker pins all change to lat & long positions.

You can then transfer the lat and long info into your GPS. Then you have the closed area data in lat and long (geographic terms that you can relate to).

Now if that exercise wasn't confusing or complex just to get a position through to the average punter then I'll walk to the gulf backwards. Those guys had a point.

Fishermen on this forum are not the average Joe. Most are certainly above that. But to the average NT fishing punter and/or fishing visitors the whole thing is confusing and Fisheries need to have another look at what they are putting out. Tourism fishing is a big money earner for the NT.

Plain simple English would be a good start.

Fellas then only thing I'm advocating here is for Fisheries to get have another look at some of the stuff they are putting out.

This really is my last comment. I can get in enough arguments just by explaining a point of view.
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Ronje
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Matt Flynn
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by Matt Flynn »

They lost their boat? That's about as good as deterrents get.

You could sail down past Moon outlet on a disposable timber raft to get the good fishing early, but you'd be on your own if it starts sinking, and cops are never there when you need them :D
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by theodosius »

Where does it say they lost their boat?
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Matt Flynn
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by Matt Flynn »

Earlier poster on here said boat was forfeited. Might be bogus info, if so, $100 fine is not enough.
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Re: 8km past closure line

Post by cuddlescooper »

The 22 snapper over the limit forfeited boat not these guys.

And yes UTM co ords is stupid but what happenend to ignorance is no excuse to the law. I thought it used to be your responsibility to know the rules and hence know the boundarys ect.

Any lowrance gps will translate utm by changing your datum settings in the system function. Change the system to UTM and enter the easting and northing. Then change back to lat and long and it will convert.
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