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<\/p>\nThe first foreign fishermen caught illegally in Far North Queensland waters under a new Commonwealth border operation have been sentenced and will be deported to Indonesia.<\/p>\n
Thirteen Indonesian fishermen were intercepted by Australian Border Force on two fishing boats near Albany Island off Cape York Peninsula on February 20.<\/p>\n
The Australia Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) said one of the boats had been previously intercepted on February 12 near Uluf Island and directed to leave Australian waters.<\/p>\n
In a statement, AFMA said the men all pleaded guilty to fisheries offences in the Darwin Local Court this month.<\/p>\n
Ten crew were released on a $1,000, three-year good-behaviour bond.<\/p>\n
A further crew member and the masters of both boats were released on a $2,000, three-year good-behaviour bond.<\/p>\n
It means the fishermen won’t have to pay the fines unless they reoffend within three years.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The two Indonesian fishing boats under tow by Australian Border Force before their destruction. (Supplied: Australian Border Force)<\/p>\n
AFMA said Australian Border Force would return all fishers to Indonesia and both boats had been destroyed.<\/p>\n
It follows the launch of Operation Broadstaff on February 10 after multiple foreign fishing vessels were reported off the north Queensland coast and Torres Strait islands.<\/p>\n
Sympathy for their cause<\/p>\n
Thursday Island-based Ned David, chairman of the Gur A Baradharaw Kod Torres Strait Sea and Land Council, said he was not convinced the prosecutions would deter the fishermen.<\/p>\n
“We want to ensure they’re not the same people repeatedly offending,” Mr David said.<\/p>\n
He said foreign fisher incursions of this scale had not been seen for decades, and it frustrated law-abiding locals.<\/p>\n
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The crew from a further two boats were flown to Darwin for further investigation after being intercepted near Cape York. (Supplied: ABF)<\/p>\n
“I’m incredibly sympathetic to their [the fishermen’s] cause,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But you can’t lower your guard when trying to protect your own environment and deny our future generations access to resources and our natural environment.”<\/p>\n
‘Geopolitical mess’<\/p>\n
Marine scientist Leslie Roberson, from the University of Queensland, said illegal fishers targeted high-value species in Australia because it might be perceived as a worthy risk.<\/p>\n
“Shark fin is a luxury that doesn’t take up much space in their boat and they can sell it for a lot,” she said.<\/p>\n
Dr Roberson said poverty and livelihood sustainability were the likely drivers of the illegal activity as conflicts in the South China Sea<\/a> potentially pushed Indonesian fishermen to travel further and take greater risks to fish.<\/p>\n AMFA will further investigate the fishermen caught on March 7 for fisheries offences. (Supplied: ABF)<\/p>\n China has been disputing territorial claims in the South China Sea in recent years, heightening tensions with the Philippines<\/a>, Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, the US<\/a> and Indonesia.<\/p>\n “A lot of these fishers have just lost access to their historic fishing grounds, it’s a whole geopolitical mess,” Dr Roberson said.<\/p>\n “Potentially, there is something going on in Indonesia or in the markets for what they’re fishing for, and that is maybe encouraging more boats to have a go.”<\/p>\n She said it was imperative that the consequences for doing so were “too expensive and not worth it”.<\/p>\n “But that is ethically a bit of a complicated task. I don’t envy Border Force in this case.”<\/p>\n Charles Darwin University professor of communities and livelihoods Natasha Stacey said, in sentencing, it was important to consider the fishermen’s “social and economic situation”.<\/p>\n Natasha Stacey has been researching Indonesian fishermen for 30 years. (Supplied: Natasha Stacey)<\/p>\n Dr Stacey said while the threat of a $1,000 or $2,000 fine might seem little deterrent, it would add to their financial struggles because they often went into debt to finance their fishing trips.<\/p>\n “Many of the fishers come from quite marginal small-scale coastal fish villages in Eastern Indonesia, and their socioeconomic livelihood conditions can be quite tough.”<\/p>\n Dr Stacey said tougher sentencing was successful in deterring fishermen, but she suggested there could be longer-term value in engaging communities on the ground to combat some of the factors leading them to Australian waters.<\/p>\n Favourable weather conditions<\/p>\n Turtle Head Island resident Rusty Tully said monsoonal north-west weather patterns favoured incursions into Australian waters, and he expected them to decline with winter’s south-easterly headwinds.<\/p>\n “It’s the perfect time to come in under cover with violent weather,” Mr Tully said.<\/p>\n He acknowledged the fishermen were poor and asked who was “putting the fuel and salt into the boats to travel so far from home”.<\/p>\n NT Legal Aid, which represented the fishers in court, has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first foreign fishermen caught illegally in Far North Queensland waters under a new Commonwealth border operation have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,75,31801,135717,6349,266795,162838,128,49036,20411],"class_list":["post-538030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-far-north-queensland","tag-fishermen","tag-fishing","tag-foreign-fishermen","tag-indonesian-fishers","tag-science","tag-south-china-sea","tag-torres-strait"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538030","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=538030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/71d5f3bf4c79c4644b0f538a40fe9d28.jpeg\")
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