A union delegate for NSW Fisheries officers has warned it's "only a matter of time before someone gets seriously injured or even worse" unless the State Government implements a list of safety reforms.
About 100 NSW Fisheries officers across NSW have taken industrial action and are refusing to conduct inspections on commercial trawlers at night unless their demands are met.
They are also calling for stab-proof vests, pepper spray, access to real-time GPS tracking of the entire commercial fishing fleet, the ability to conduct registration checks and the introduction of a 'fit and proper person' test for commercial fishing licence-holders and their crew.
The North Coast delegate for the NSW Fisheries Public Service Association (PSA), Joe Wright, spent many years working in Port Stephens where illegal rock lobster fishing is a major issue.
Mr Wright said fisheries officers in Port Stephens and Newcastle have also seen the rise of organised crime in the commercial fishing industry.
Last summer 250 kilograms of cocaine bricks washed up on beaches between Newcastle to Sydney and in 2022 a Brazilian diver Bruno Borges-Martins drowned in Newcastle Harbour while attempting to access cocaine bricks that had been smuggled on the hull of a bulk carrier from Argentina.
"It's a testament to the officers who have been out there doing the role for decades that nobody has been killed," Mr Wright said. "It shows you the calibre of the people that they've been street wise enough to make it through to date. But we're running on luck."
Unlike other states, NSW Fisheries officers say it's too easy to get a commercial fishing licence and want the same powers as other states to check boat and car registrations, conduct surveillance and undertake investigations.
Currently officers have no way of knowing if a boat they inspect is going to be filled criminals, making it difficult for them to avoid dangerous situations.
"This is why the NSW fishing fleet is so appealing to drug traffickers to pick up cocaine shipments off the continental shelf," PSA assistant general secretary Troy Wright said.
"In 2020 a fishing trawler called Coralynne was caught [200 nautical miles off the coast of Newcastle] carrying 1.8 tonnes or $850 million worth of cocaine it had picked up from a larger ship in international waters, if Fisheries officers had boarded this boat they might have been killed."
The risk for officers wasn't just miles off the coast. Often Fisheries intercept poachers with thousands of abalone and rock lobster in estuaries and rivers at night.
Joe Wright said the issue was not purely based on safety concerns. He argued access to GPS tracking made financial sense.
"We spend a huge number of control hours just trying to locate the fishers, which from an economic point of view, is kind of ridiculous," he said.
"It means our officers have to spend an inordinate amount of time out just looking, when they could be in and out, get the job done and be efficient and move onto the next thing.
"We've been harping on about these issues for several years and we haven't had any movement in the resolution of them."
A spokesperson from the Department of Primary Industries said a running commentary on the proceedings was "not helpful".
"The government takes the safety of our Fisheries Officers extremely seriously," the spokesperson said on Sunday.
