Discovery of illegal Indonesian fishing camp on Kimberley coast prompts biosecurity, border concerns

Dnarever wrote on Aug 29^th, 2022 at 9:17pm:


It seems to go that way.  I remember having an interesting discussion about Indonesian fisherfolk around the time of the East Timor imbroglio in the late 1980s with some people from DoD during my Master's degree course.  Some were concerned that the fisherfolk had some Indonesia special forces amongst them.  I felt they were just plain simple fisherfolk plainly.  I was right they were wrong...  They wanted to shoot them, lucky the Government didn't think the same way.   

If traditional fishing was all these people did there would not be much of an issue, however they also have a long history of drug importing and people smuggling, not to mention the over fishing of endangered species and biosecurity issues that make them a menace. Given the area that needs patrolling there will always be some who slip through the net.

What are Fisherfolk?

They're actually highly organised and have been cleaning their fish on Australian shores for decades - knowing full well, that what they are doing is illegal.
They are not 'plain fisherfolk'. They work on 'numbers' - the more Australia's Border Patrols intercept them and return them at cost, the more come and thus - Australia's hopeless Border Patrols fail because 'many' still hit Australian shores and fish Australian waters.
Aboriginal Rangers mostly do the right thing, but most don't bother because nothing is done about it from higher up.

Old news. Been happening for decades.