North Australian FISH FINDER TM forums

tristan.sloan wrote:Col, I've answered many of these questions already if you look through past posts. Did you by any chance hear warren de with on tales from the tinny this morning? misinformation and ignorance is our biggest enemy here. It's saturday....I'm going to go fishing and have a few beers but call me on Monday and I'll answer each question individually.
Before I go let me make one thing very clear. This position was arrived at after our committee consulted extensively with our members not just recently but over many years. I understand your not a member and my advice is to join AFANT if you want input in recreational and boating policy decisions or legislation changes. Otherwise without being involved in a representative organisation you might get left in the dark.

For anybody else who has questions regarding this issue or any others, my phone number is below and my door is always open.....well, at least Monday to Friday

Catch anything TS?

Hemi, Like your idea of bumper sticker, "AFANT doesn't speak for me". Cut the sticker in half, then drop 2 letters and apostrophe, join up again, and it says "AFANT speaks for me". A democratic solution. [whether you try to convince? or confuse?]. I'm sure I can join neatly.

Haha.. Fair enough Kai..!

I can't afford Afant membership..
I'm too busy saving my penny's for a goat island trip..!

Look what happened to the banned drinker register, political suicide.

I might have been over 0.05 when posting a couple of posts back. Modified sticker should offcourse read "AFANT does speak for me".

PS. Nika, long time no see or hear, loosing sleep from crying babies yet????.

No babies yet mate, too busy being poo faced in the boat lmfao. Will see you soon ole friend.

This is what I want to know, who appointed AFANT any right to speak on behalf of fishos when you have to be member of their organisation, nah frig that why do I have to pay to get my thoughts heard?
Big col summed this issue up completely, answer those questions Tristan and some of us might come around. But at the end of the day we have the most useless police force out (to match our government) so it don't really bother me, I've been checked once in twenty years, wonder what all those nice new stabicrafts are doing, bet they got a plain one too for copper fishing trips, only time they would get used. Might have to start fishing out of the 14ft Tennessee with the 225 suzi, good luck boys lol

Hemi wrote:"Afant doesn't speak for me"

...i can see the bumper sticker now..!

I will take three Hemi where do i send the $15 to

tristan.sloan wrote:Walkabout, I think you are confusing AFANT's stance, we are AGAINST set blood alcohol limits such as 0.05, same offer as I have made to the other members on here, call me if you don't understand our position and I will explain it for you

Without a blood alcohol reading as an aid to prosecute intoxicated and dangerous skippers, it simply becomes a case of "he said, she said" and is almost impossible to successfully prosecute

What a load of BS It's easy for any Police Officer worth a pinch to prove reckless operation of a vessel. These days we have things called cameras you might even have one on your phone. IMO AFANT should stick to commenting on fishing and leave vessel operation to the experts. No position on a subject is better than the wrong position Tristan!

Darwinblue wrote:Who reverses the car and trailer down the ramp or do you just drop below .05 walking to the car park.

If that is the issue then set up a breath testing station at the carpark......seriously it is not hard and I have no problem whatso ever with that! Because as I have said previously if it is a day trip and I have to drive home then I don't drink. But if I am camping or doing an overnight then I do drink....not stupidly mind you....but I most likely have 4 or 5 beers over the course of the day and this would put me over.

If you are worried about p...ed clowns at the ramp Darwinblue....then they can sort that now but they don't ..... I personally have never seen a breatherliser at the boat ramp carpark in 20 years of living in Darwin

Unfortunately are wrong there Fish Tank, police cant use documented surveillance of you unless it is approved prior or that they advise you in person that you are being recorded, for example body cameras worn by officers.

The problem with making any reckless endangerment while driving a vessel charge stick is that it comes down to a "he said she said" scenario in court, its very hard for police to prosecute especially when the offender can get written statements (which any half decent lawyer will advise) from the other occupants of the vessel to say that they weren't driving in a reckless manner. The majority of these cases never even make court and are impossibly to successfully prosecute unless there is an injured victim to provide an impact statement

I think this very much the right position for AFANT to have taken

Fish tank - What a load of BS It's easy for any Police Officer worth a pinch to prove reckless operation of a vessel. These days we have things called cameras you might even have one on your phone. IMO AFANT should stick to commenting on fishing and leave vessel operation to the experts. No position on a subject is better than the wrong position Tristan!

Can't agree with you more Fish TAnk. If someone does something wrong it will be the other boats present that will have the evidence to see them land in court not police that would arrive on the scene hours later! Guide up on assault charges and ramming another vessel is a perfect example. (in court as we speak!!)

Tristan until you have the majority of Northern Territory recreational fisherman as members of your little club don't make out you speak for any of us. As I asked before can you explain the cases that are clogging up the courts at the moment. You made this out to be the main reason you personally want to see this law passed and reforms made to our territory fishing lifestyle.

Walkabout, As the executive officer of AFANT I do not have any personal opinion regarding this matter or any matter in relation to the territory fishing lifestyle . However I do represent the views of the committee and our members.

Walkabout, read my above post...these cases are not clogging up the courts because the majority never make it that far due to the difficulty in prosecution

Tristan,
Firstly I would like to point out your mission statement
To represent recreational fishing in the NT and ensure the quality of our sport.
And yet above you have stated you represent your members not the wider community? something doesn't seem right!
When you apply for your ~$200,000 in funding from the NTG are you stating in the grant application that you are representing your members (200 odd) or all recreational fisherman (40,000+)? (Bit hard to fathom that the peak body represents less than 0.5% of recreational fisherman)

Would you mind posting some evidence to support this claim?
"...these cases are not clogging up the courts because the majority never make it that far due to the difficulty in prosecution"
I would love to see the stats on what prosecutions have taken place and not be fed some anecdotal (bullshit) evidence. Is this AFANT's opinion or did the NT police pass this information on, if so please poet up the relevant information here.

I would also like to understand how you reached the belief that this will improve the chance of a prosecution? is this assumption based on anecdotal (bullshit) evidence or have you have some legal advice regarding this? surely if AFANT are going to support Bretho's they must have an idea of how this information would be used from a legal perspective?

Cheers Big Col

Thanks for your comments Big Col,

AFANT certainty takes great pride in representing the best interests of all recreational fishermen in the NT however as our members, especially our committee, volunteer their free time to be involved in policy review, legislation and discussion they have a much greater say in the process. As you seem quite interested I would encourage you to participate. Alternatively I can include you in many of the discussion and submissions AFANT is involved in. What are your contact details?

To save me typing out our constitution and governance manual, which dictates our role as an NGO representing recreational fishermen and the role of our committee and members in contributing to policy please stop by the office and I am happy to let you read it.

I personally don't have documented evidence of this but the NT Water Police Prosecutor does. Please give him a call, I am sure he will be more than happy to discuss the issue with you.

AFANT have stated conclusively many times that we do not support random breath testing or a minimum blood alcohol content which I assume you are referring to by "Bretho's"