Northern Territory Consolidated Acts

FISHERIES ACT - SECT 47

(1) The Administrator may make regulations, not inconsistent with this Act, prescribing matters -

(a) required or permitted to be prescribed; or

(b) necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out or giving effect to this Act.

(2) Without limiting the generality of subsection (1), the regulations may make provision for or in relation to -

(a) generally regulating fishing, the selling or trading of fish and aquaculture;

(b) prohibiting or regulating the taking (including declaring closed or open seasons), buying, selling, marketing, transporting, processing, preparing or offering for consumption in any public eating-house, acquiring, receiving, disposing of, or having in possession any fish;

(c) regulating the provision and maintenance of facilities on vessels, vehicles or other conveyances, or in premises, for the handling, transportation, preservation, preservation alive, storage, or storage in transit of fish; and prescribing measures to protect from sun, weather, or contamination, any fish being handled or transported;

(d) regulating the quantity of fish that may at any one time be on board a vessel or vehicle or other conveyance or be conveyed on any vessel or vehicle or other conveyance or animal, or kept in any container, package, or place, or in the possession of any person or of any prescribed number of persons;

(e) empowering the Minister or Director to prescribe, by notice in the Gazette , fees or levies, and prescribing the method of assessing the fees or levies, the amounts payable, the person liable for payment, and the circumstances in which the Minister or the Director may remit or refund the whole or any part of such fees or levies;

(f) defining or prescribing the specifications for the vessels or classes or types of vessels to which any regulations are to apply, and providing for the exemption of any vessels or classes or types of vessels from any such regulations;

(g) regulating, prohibiting, or prescribing the use, size, design, construction materials, or quantity of fishing gear;

(h) prescribing the method or methods of identifying vessels, specifying identification marks or symbols or distinguishing flags to be carried by vessels and by tenders and similar vessels carried by or attached to or used in conjunction with any vessels, and where any such identification marks shall be placed, and the identification marks on sails, nets or seines, or other fishing gear;

(j) the conduct of licensees, persons working with or for licensees, lessees, persons who are carrying out amateur fishing, and persons who process, carry, land, trans-ship (whether at sea or otherwise), sell, or buy fish, or make, repair, or sell gill net;

(k) noxious fish, noxious aquatic life, exotic fish, and other fish;

(m) hygiene on vessels and in the use of plant, fishing gear, containers, equipment, and vehicles;

(n) diseases, disease prevention and control, quarantine and quarantine places;

(p) the granting of permits for the landing or sale of fish lawfully taken in Territory waters or elsewhere under a law of the Commonwealth, a State or another Territory of the Commonwealth;

(q) registering vessels, and specifying conditions subject to which a vessel may be registered;

(r) prohibiting or regulating the granting, renewal, or transfer of licences (in whole or in part), determining the number of licences that may be granted in respect of any fishery or the number of persons that may fish in a fishery, and specifying the conditions subject to which a licence may be granted, renewed, or transferred;

(s) regulating, restricting, or imposing conditions on the canning, smoking, freezing, or other preserving of fish for sale and its possession for sale when canned, smoked, frozen, or otherwise preserved, and providing for the inspection of and imposing conditions of operation on canneries, smokehouses, freezing chambers, refrigerating works, and any premises (not being a dwelling-house) where fish are canned, smoked, frozen, preserved, treated, dressed, or stored, for sale;

(t) requiring and authorizing the provision of devices and facilities to permit or control the passage of fish through or around any dam or other structure that may impede the natural movement of fish upstream or downstream;

(u) prohibiting or regulating the possession, the retention in captivity, or the transfer to or release into any waters, of any live fish;

(w) authorizing the Director, subject to such conditions as may be prescribed in the Regulations, to regulate the use of electric fishing devices for taking fish; and

(y) prescribing offences in respect of contravention of or
non-compliance with any regulations made under this Act or any notice, requirement, or direction given pursuant to any such regulations, and prescribing penalties not exceeding $20 000 in respect of any offence and, if the offence is a continuing one, prescribing further penalties not exceeding $500 for each day after the first day during which the offence has continued, and not exceeding $50 for each fish in excess of any specified limit.

(3) Regulations under this section may be made with respect to aquatic life as regulations may be made with respect to fish.

(4) Regulations under this section may apply special conditions or confer special rights in relation to fishing by or under the authority of specified communities, persons, or classes of persons (including tour operators).

(5) Money payable by way of refund under regulations made under subsection (2)(e) is to be paid from the public moneys of the Territory and the appropriation for that purpose is established or increased to the extent necessary.

(6) The Regulations may prescribe different penalties for different classes of offender for an offence against the Regulations.