The failure to implement cultural fishing legislation in NSW has worsened the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people, a state parliamentary inquiry has heard.
An Upper House inquiry is investigating why legislation to protect and decriminalise cultural fishing has not been enacted since it passed in 2009.
The inquiry held its final hearing at Parliament House in Sydney on Friday to hear from stakeholders first-hand.
Indigenous policy researcher Janet Hunt told the inquiry that the state government's failure to implement this legislation contradicted its Closing the Gap targets.
"The NSW government has committed to the national closing the gap targets ... [including] improvements in health, in employment and in reducing incarceration," the ANU associate professor said.
"But what's going on down on the South Coast is running counter to all of those goals."
The inquiry was told that hundreds of Indigenous fishers have been fined or jailed for fishing offences since the cultural fishing legislation passed in 2009.
One of those people was Walbunja man John Carriage, who was one of the 23 people to give evidence at the hearing in Sydney.
He has been convicted for six fishing offences relating to the joint possession of abalone above the legal limit in 2017.
"That case went on for five years in court for 168 abalone," Mr Carriage said.
"[I've been] fined $30,000 and barred from the ocean for two years."
In June, Mr Carriage lost his appeal against the conviction and was ordered to pay about $30,000 in legal costs and fines, as well as being banned from diving or possessing abalone for two years.
He said being banned from diving has had detrimental impacts on his physical and mental health.
"I usually weigh around 90 kilograms and I'm probably up to 150 kilograms now," he said.
"A packet of smokes would last me two or three days and now I smoke a full pack of smokes in one day and drink every weekend."
Sean Sloan from the NSW Department of Primary Industries told the inquiry that fisheries compliance officers undertook training to better understand cultural fishing.
"And we do have specific work instructions that fisheries officers apply when we interact with Aboriginal people who are conducting cultural fishing," he said.
However, Dr Hunt said if the state government was serious about meeting its Closing the Gap targets they would be trying to better support cultural fishing.
"It's really important that their whole fishing economy and livelihood of fishing is supported not criminalised," she said.
"Because that will lead to improvements in health, it will lead to fewer of them being incarcerated and it will lead to greater opportunities for employment.”
The inquiry also heard from the NSW Abalone Association, which argued there needed to be catch limits put in place for cultural fishing to protect the stock.
"We support it as long as it's got that structure behind it," president Greg Ryzy said.
"With bag limits, size limits and sustainability and it doesn't undermine what the future is going to be."
Under current NSW government regulation, the abalone industry is allowed to catch around 100 tonnes of abalone each year.
Meanwhile, an Indigenous Australian can legally possess 10 abalones for cultural purposes each day unless a permit is obtained.
But barrister and representative of the Aboriginal Legal Service Tony McAvoy SC said the government had to stop approaching the issue as if it was "the owner of the resource."
"The Aboriginal people are the owners, it's their resource, and they've got a right to take it," Mr McAvoy said.
"And once [NSW] Fisheries come to terms with that, then we can have some negotiations about what that looks like."
Mishka Holt, a principal solicitor for the Native Title Service Provider, said catch limits had no place in cultural fishing as Indigenous communities had self-regulated their resources for thousands of years.
Friday marked the final day of the hearing for the inquiry.
It also travelled to Narooma on the South Coast last month to hear from Indigenous fishers about their experiences while cultural fishing.
The Upper House committee will now begin preparing a report to hand to the NSW Government, which will include recommendations.
