confirmed detections in offshore areas<\/a>.<\/p>\nLisa Szabo, executive director for biosecurity and food safety at DPIRD, said the control order was necessary to limit the movement of green prawns to other areas.<\/p>\n
“We did try with industry to get proof of freedom, which would enable the industry to go back to the usual operations, but we were unsuccessful,” she said.![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/3f2f7db5f0445a1a5502371c96956854\")
<\/p>\n
NSW Nationals leader Gurmesh Singh has questioned the length of the control order. (ABC News: Liam Patrick)<\/p>\n
Leader of the NSW Nationals and Coffs Harbour MP Gurmesh Singh said the length of the ban was onerous.<\/p>\n
“When we’ve had 10,000 tests [and] all show a negative outcome, I think potentially it is too long,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Especially when we see there is no additional support being offered to those fishermen.”<\/p>\n
Assistance package announced<\/p>\n
The state government announced a financial assistance package for prawn farmers late on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
A statement from Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said $4.5 million would “assist impacted fishers to exit the industry and includes funding for voluntary share and business buyouts and business training to support those fishers in the region who decide to exit”.<\/p>\n
“The NSW government acknowledges this has been a challenging time for workers and businesses in the industry and I encourage them to utilise the available mental health and financial counselling,” Ms Moriarty said in the statement.<\/p>\n
Fellow Clarence River fisherman Dean Opalnuik had previously said a $15 million to $30 million buyout package was needed so fishers can exit the industry permanently if they want to.<\/p>\n
![\"Man](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/4c8a48eff06c68b281be6cae289706ba\")
<\/p>\n
Dean Opalnuik has called on the state government to support northern NSW fishers affected by the ban. (ABC North Coast: Hannah Ross)<\/p>\n
“We’ve tippy-toed through the last almost three years, with a bit of assistance from the government, and that’s been welcomed. But at the end of the day we can’t go on,” Mr Opalnuik said.<\/p>\n
In a statement DPIRD said the NSW government had written to the federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry to request support and further assistance for affected business owners.<\/p>\n
The department said in 2023 the state government allocated more than $21 million to deliver a biosecurity response and industry recovery in response to the initial white spot detection.<\/p>\n
‘Schoolies’ for Christmas<\/p>\n
Clarence River Fishermen’s Co-Operative general manager Dee Zahra said 50 per cent of her business was green prawns.<\/p>\n
She has urged people to consider buying cooked “schoolies”, which are still available to consumers, for Christmas.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/b179f05458d1147a2b48d573a47f756a\")
<\/p>\n
Dee Zahra said she was worried about the future of the Clarence River’s fishing industry. (ABC North Coast: Hannah Ross)<\/p>\n
“Support these fishers,” Ms Zahra said.<\/p>\n
“We will continue to find markets for the cooked prawns while we are established with white spot and we’ll work with the fishermen as much as we can, but it is concerning.”<\/p>\n
Mr Opalnuik said the industry would not be able to support all of the affected fisherman moving into the cooked school prawn market.<\/p>\n
“It’s a small prawn fishery here. To cook [them], compete with the larger prawns, you can’t make a living out of it,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I’d love to stay in the industry but I just don’t think it’d be viable.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Everson has been fishing for green school prawns in the Clarence River for 45 years. He had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[188697,188695,43,44,59316,171412,188696,41,39,42,40,188694],"class_list":["post-339486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-aquaculture","tag-green-prawns","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-northern-nsw","tag-prawns","tag-school-prawns","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-white-spot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}