Protecting Australia’s Sovereignty - Australia Owned Commercial Fishing
- Country of Origin Fish Labelling (CoOL) is not the full protection needed
- Australia-made commercial fishing cutbacks feed foreign ownership & profits
- The increase of Recreational Fishing licenses is diminishing/closing Australia Professional Fisheries commercial fishing grounds
- Australia’s sovereign rights of our Commercial Seafood Industry
- Scarcity of VFA inspectors creates criminal/black market operators
- Australian-owned seafood security & cost of living has increased
Mandatory Menu Labelling, Foreign Corporate Empires, and the Consumer Squeeze
Diners across Australia are adjusting to the newly implemented mandatory Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) laws for the hospitality sector under the AIM model (A – Australian, I – Imported, M – Mixed). For the first time, restaurants, pubs, and cafes are legally required to give consumers clear, point-of-sale visibility into where their dinner was harvested. But it’s not the full truth.
On paper, this legislation is a massive win designed to drive demand for premium local seafood. But as the Seafood Consumers Association (SCA) peels back the layers of our food system, a staggering irony emerges —we are enthusiastically promoting "Australian seafood" while our own governments systematically dismantle the local commercial industry, allowing international companies to swallow what remains.
Add to this the financial strain of overlapping corporate eco-labels like the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), and the Australian consumer is being severely double dipped on identity, availability, and cost.
The Corporate Mirage Behind the "A" Label
Australia-made commercial fishing cutbacks feed foreign ownership & profits
When you scan a menu this week and see a proud (A) stamped next to a grilled Atlantic Salmon fillet or a plate of Tiger prawns or a Barramundi fillet, the law says the creature was harvested from Australian waters. What the law doesn’t tell you is who owns the farm, controls the processing, and pockets the ultimate profit.
The recent global consolidation wave—headlined by Norwegian salmon giant Mowi selling its eastern Canadian assets to the multinational empire Cooke Inc.—shines a direct spotlight on our sovereign food predicament. Cooke already exerts massive control over the Australian plate through its complete ownership of Tassal (aqua farmers of Atlantic Salmon, Tiger Prawns and Barramundi). Every time an Australian buy a Tassal Atlantic Salmon, etc. the money feeds a corporate boardroom in Canada.
Look across the entire domestic industrial landscape, and true Australian independence is incredibly hard to find:
- The Salmon Monopoly: Our biggest producer, Tassal, is owned by Canadian giant Cooke. Our secondary Salmon power, Huon Aquaculture, is fully owned by the Brazilian meat processing multi-billion-dollar group JBS and the third is Petuna owned by Sealord NZ Sealord Group, itself is a massive Australasian seafood business with a unique 50/50 ownership structure with 50% Moana New Zealand: Represents Māori commercial fishing interests (allocated under the Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlement) and 50% Nissui Corporation: A global seafood and food processing giant based in Japan.
- The Supermarket Mainstays: Simplot Australia, the strong force behind the frozen and processed fish shelves and counters with brands like John West, Birds-Eye, I&J, etc., is a wholly owned subsidiary of the American J.R. Simplot Company.
- The Shared Champions: Even our highly decorated, carbon-neutral wild-catch pioneers like Austral Fisheries are not fully sovereign; they operate as a 50/50 joint venture between the WA Kailis family and Maruha Nichiro, a massive global seafood conglomerate based in Tokyo.
Counterfeit Fraud is not resolved with CoOL
CoOL does not even attempt to solve counterfeit seafood fraud. This occurs when demand for a premium, geographically specific brand (e.g. ‘Coffin Bay’ Oysters) vastly outstrips its actual harvest capacity, leading to systematic economic deception. In the hospitality sector, this typically manifests as "menu piracy"—where restaurants (or their suppliers) exploit prestigious regional names to command a financial premium, while secretly substituting cheaper, generic products from entirely different producers/areas. Because individual shellfish or fish fillets lose their physical traceability once removed from original packaging, rogue operators capitalize on this visual anonymity, undercutting honest fishers/aqua farmers and eroding consumer trust in premium appellations.
A prominent Victorian equivalent to ‘Coffin Bay’ vulnerable to this exact style of brand exploitation is Lakes Entrance (famous for its premium wild-caught species like Flathead and School Whiting) or the highly prized Corner Inlet (renowned for its premium King George Whiting and Calamari). Prestige and limited sustainable catch volumes of these specific brands/regional areas create a lucrative incentive for venues to advertise generic or imported equivalents under these premium local banners.
Government-Driven Scarcity
The increase of Recreational Fishing licenses is diminishing/closing Australia Professional Fisheries commercial fishing grounds
This corporate concentration is bad enough, but state governments are actively making the situation worse. In states like Victoria, the government has repeatedly bought-backed commercial net fishing licenses and closed down sustainably productive commercial fishing grounds in order to prioritizing recreational fishing.
This policy shift represents a profound failure in public governance. The government manages marine resources on behalf of the entire community—the vast majority of whom are seafood consumers, but not recreational fishers. While hobbyists enjoy the leisure of catching their own dinner, everyday families rely on commercial fishers and aquaculture farmers to stock local fishmongers, independent grocers, and corner fish-and-chip shops.
Australians consume over 350,000 tonnes of seafood each year, however 60-70% of this is imported. Yet, Australia has the third largest ocean estate in the world, an area that is larger than our land mass, and we have a long history of being at the forefront of sustainable and best practice fisheries and aquaculture management (FRDC June 2026).
Scarcity of VFA inspectors creates criminal/black market operators
By taking away public fishing grounds to favour a vocal recreational lobby, the government has created an artificial supply shortage. Additionally, with the demise of VFA inspector numbers has created opportunities for criminal/black market operators. When local wild-catch numbers drop because commercial boats are banned from operating, basic economics takes over: local seafood becomes a luxury item, and prices skyrocket. Instead of driving down the cost of living, these short-sighted political closures are making fresh, local fish entirely unaffordable for working-class families. What is the actual plan here, government? Why are we pricing everyday Australians out of their own ocean bounty?
With our domestic food security already critically low - noting total imported seafood volume -this self-inflicted squeeze forces us to depend even more heavily on complex offshore corporate networks.
The Sustainability Double-Dip: Unnecessary Certification
Australia’s sovereign rights of our Commercial Seafood Industry
If being squeezed on availability on our own soil wasn't enough, Australian seafood consumers and remaining commercial fishers are being financially penalized by the international corporate eco-labeling industry and supported by our own governments.
Under the Commonwealth's strict Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999, Australian wild-caught fisheries are legally bound to some of the most rigorous, scientifically verified ecological sustainability frameworks on the planet. If a fishery operates legally in Australia, it is, by definition of federal law, structurally sustainable.
Yet, commercial supply chains face continuous pressure to pay exorbitant licensing fees for third-party corporate stamps—most notably due from controlling overseas organisations. Supermarket chains and large catering organisations and hotel chains use these certification systems which in most cases promote imports over Australian goods. Many SME Australian operators find it difficult to compete.
The question must be asked:
‘Why are the supermarket chains and large catering organisations and hotel chains and the government not supporting the processes through the EPBC Act”?
That would truly be putting Australia first! Otherwise, why is it relevant.
This is a classic case of double-dipping. Redundant private certifications do not change how the fish is caught, nor do they magically improve the health of the ocean; they simply add a layer of bureaucratic cost to honest local operators. These private certification fees act as an artificial tax that is passed directly down to everyday families at the checkout counter, driving seafood prices up even further.
We have reported previously that there are so many of these certification companies that whatever benefit they were purporting to offer is lost because the consumer is so confused about all the labels and their meanings!
The SCA Verdict: True Sovereignty Needs More Than a Letter
We will see in the near future what difference the CoOL legislation makes. There is no clear compliance check that is consistent across Australia as we rely on states/territories to enforce. The ACCC should be ensuring that each state/territory report, at least annually, on the compliance of CoOL. Without this transparency reporting there is no way the community can be certain that the regulations are impacting outcomes for consumers.
The Seafood Consumers Association celebrates the introduction of the AIM menu laws because transparency is a fundamental consumer right.
But an abbreviation on a menu board is a hollow victory if local seafood has been regulated out of existence.
Australian-owned seafood security & cost of living has increased
If Australia wants a genuinely resilient seafood future that tackles the cost of living, we must look past the superficial marketing:
- Stop Lock-Out Policies: State governments must recognize that commercial fishing is a vital food security resource. We must halt the political closure of public fishing grounds and protect the supply of seafood for the millions of Australian consumers who don't own a boat nor have a fishing rod. Additionally, aquaculture is the future and needs to be locked into our future food security plans beyond just being used for media promotion of fish being released into rivers, lakes, etc.
- Reclaim Legislative Trust: We must drop our dependence on outside, commercial corporate accreditations and promote the legislative power of our own EPBC Act – it should be the only sustainability stamp an Australian fish requires. Exporters will attest that the Australian Health Certificates are ‘gold’ and there is no reason why an EPBC certificate would be different. Could two government departments forget their silo approach and consider even working together on a joint health/environmental sustainability certificate?
- Seafood imports and domestic sales: Consumers need strict, audited verification protocols enforced through Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) and physically managed by Australian Border Force (ABF), the National Measurement Institute (NMI) and the ACCC to ensure that all companies (whether foreign-owned or not), are delivering exact net weights (excluding glaze) and utilizing correct naming standards (AS 5300) rather than keeping silent on transparency with consumers.
Knowing where your fish was caught is vital—but knowing who controls the hook and who owns the water is how we protect the future of the Australian plate. Consumers do not have a seat at the decision tables around Australia, and this must change as we move forward.
What do you think? Are you frustrated that local fishing closures are making fresh Australian seafood a luxury item? Feel free to connect with us and engage with the Seafood Consumers Association today to fight for authentic marketplace integrity!
“26 Million Voices. One Seafood Future.”
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