News Bulletin: 3 June 2025
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ABC News
6 minutes ago
- ABC News
Queensland plan to increase lethal shark control measures goes against advice of government-commissioned report
Queensland's shark control program (SCP) has been killing an increasing number of non-target species and is failing to meet its ecological goals and community expectations, according to a report commissioned by the state government. The KPMG Shark Control Program Evaluation Report stressed that while 'traditional measures' are still required, the program needed to transition away from 'environmentally harmful practices' such as drumlines and mesh nets, and suggested a trial removing nets during whale migration season. Yet the Queensland Government has announced the 2025-2029 SCP would include the expanded use of lethal-control measures and has ruled out removing nets during winter to 'support Queensland's beach culture'. The decision has angered many within the scientific community, which has long questioned the evidence underpinning the use of lethal measures. But the Queensland Government said the evidence was clear the SCP was working, and human safety came before all else. Mesh nets and drumlines are the main measures used to control sharks in Queensland There are 27 nets used in the state, most of which are near popular beaches on the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Rainbow Bay. The nets are up to 186 metres long and six metres deep, anchored to the sea floor. The criticism of nets is that they catch indiscriminately, and can ensnare endangered animals, including turtles, dugongs and whales. The KPMG report noted that nets caught 843 animals between 2021-2024. Some 695 of which were not one of the seven species of shark targeted by the SCP, meaning that 82 per cent of what is caught is considered 'bycatch'. Of those seven such 'target species', the White, Tiger and Bull shark are considered most dangerous. There are 383 drumlines placed parallel to popular beaches in Queensland, which are large, baited hooks attached to buoys and also anchored to the ocean floor. The drumlines are better at targeting sharks, given other species are either too small to grab the hook, or aren't attracted by the chunks of mullet or shark used as bait. These hooks snared 2,753 animals between 2021-2024, 1,223 of which was bycatch. Most of what is hooked on drumlines dies, either while snared on the hook, or by contractors paid to euthanise target sharks. The average annual bycatch killed by Queensland's SCP has increased in recent years, from 305 animals per year between 2001-2021 to 363 per year between 2021-2024, according to KMPG. The report's author acknowledges this level of mortality is no longer acceptable to many Queenslanders, and 'there is a need to reduce the impact on ecosystems … to respond to community expectations'. However, the Queensland Government has made it clear that reducing shark bites is what matters. 'While the program will seek to minimise negative impacts on marine ecosystems, this is not a purpose of the program,' its 2025-2029 SCP reads. The evidence for lethal control measures in the report noted that before 1962 — when shark control in the state began — there was an average of three bites and one death per year in Queensland. Between 1962 and 2024, there was an average of 2.3 shark 'incidents' and 0.35 deaths per year, despite a significant increase in human population. The KPMG report said this was due to the removal of sharks which had the potential to attack swimmers. Between 2001 and 2021, nearly 7,000 target sharks were caught in Queensland, which is an average of 350 per year. Between 2021 and 2024, 1,678 target sharks were caught at an average of 438 per year. At the same time, shark incidents per year have gone from 3.35 between 2001-2021 to 1.04 between 2021-2024, according to KPMG. While the report noted this was correlative evidence and did not necessarily prove lethal measures have caused a reduction in attacks, the Queensland Government has used it to justify the expansion of the use of nets and drumlines at seven new locations on the Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and in the Wide Bay region. It will also introduce daily servicing of drum lines to ensure they are baited and 'operating effectively'. 'It is anticipated that the increase in servicing will correspond to an increase in shark catch,' the 2025-2029 SCP stated. Australian Marine Conservation Society shark scientist, Dr Leonardo Guida, said there was a genuine need for protective measures on Queensland beaches, in part because of climate change. 'You're getting these subtropical species like tiger sharks and bull sharks progressively moving further and further south,' he said. 'As they identify certain habitats that they feel comfortable in, they may in fact overlap with beaches that are popular with people.' But he said lethal shark control lacked scientific evidence and was ethically outdated. 'It's utterly baffling. It's 2025, not 1925.' He pointed to a 2019 decision by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal which found Queensland's lethal shark program in the Great Barrier Reef Marine National Park was 'out of step with national and international developments' and did not reduce the risk of unprovoked attacks. 'They interviewed scientists from across the country, reviewed the literature and their conclusion was that with respect to the lethal component of the shark control program … the evidence to support the case that it doesn't improve people's safety was overwhelming,' he said. 'Not only does it not improve public safety, but it comes at a real, significant and disproportionate risk to critically endangered animals like grey nurse sharks, turtles, dolphins and dugongs.' As a result, the state government is required to release sharks caught on drumlines within the federally administered marine national park. The government's new SCP includes the use of new, non-lethal measures which have the support of people like Dr Guida. A SharkSmart drone program will be established at 20 beaches following a successful trial of the technology, which allows surf lifesavers to identify potentially dangerous sharks from the air. It will also invest in shark population assessments and trial whale deterrents to prevent them becoming entangled in nets. The Queensland Government has said it would only use catch-alert drumlines — which send out a ping when something is snared so it can be released quickly — as well as tag and track sharks in the Great Barrier Reef National Park, where it is legally required to do so. This is because the KPMG report questioned the effectiveness of catch-alert drumlines. This is due to the fact they are placed out every morning and taken in at night, thereby catching fewer sharks and not offering round-the-clock protection. 'It's as though the Queensland Government has literally put a stop sign up and said we are not progressing further with evidence-based measures,' Dr Guida said. 'We'll keep what's currently available and we'll expand culling instead.' Dr Guida said political realities got in the way of meaningful change. 'I think there is this deep-seated fear that if they were to change something and something untoward were to happen... another politician is going to use that against them to bring down their career,' he said. Dr Daryl McPhee from Bond University has been studying the 40-year trend of increasing shark bites globally. 'That's unsurprising because we have more people in the water in more places doing a great diversity of things,' he said. 'We also expect to see more bull sharks around river mouths after prolonged rain and flooding rains, which we've seen a lot over the last couple of years.' He said healthier whale populations might also be responsible for attracting sharks to the east coast. Dr McPhee said a reduction in fishing has likely helped some smaller shark species recover in recent decades. But it was difficult to say whether anecdotal reports of a greater abundance of white, tiger and bull sharks were correct. 'They're highly mobile and rare animals, so that makes stock assessment quite difficult,' he said. Like others, Dr McPhee said he was 'extremely surprised' the Queensland government was expanding lethal shark control measures. To mitigate the 'very low' risk posed by sharks, Dr McPhee said all governments would be better off spending tens of millions on researching shark movements and educating humans. 'A very significant component in the government's new plan does have rejigged and re-emphasised education as a part of it, which is a good thing,' he said. 'Individuals need to take some personal responsibility as well.
ABC News
21 minutes ago
- ABC News
Compass: Series 39 Grief, A Love Story
ABC iview Home Watch all your favourite ABC programs on ABC iview. More from ABC We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.
SBS Australia
an hour ago
- SBS Australia
Hailey is a sex therapist. Her family still doesn't know what she does for work
Nationally, there are only a handful of sex and relationship therapists who offer counselling in Chinese dialects. Source: SBS News / Karin Zhou-Zheng For a long time, Hailey Lin's job has been a mystery to her extended family. Whenever her mother, who lives in Hong Kong, is asked about Lin by relatives and friends, she tells them she's a social worker "doing psychotherapy things" in Australia. But in fact, the Hong Kong-born 33-year-old does more than just psychotherapy: she works as a clinical psychosexual therapist in Sydney, where she helps people explore sex and relationships. Lin says despite her mother's reluctance to disclose her occupation, she is supportive of it. "She can be open-minded, but also she can be very conservative because it is not the norm in Asian culture [to talk] about sex or intimacy," Lin tells SBS Podcast Chinese-ish . Ronald Hoang has had a similar experience. Growing up in a Vietnamese-Chinese Australian household, Hoang watched his cousins become doctors, lawyers and pharmacists — professions his parents enthusiastically endorsed. But he decided to take a different pathway, specialising as a relationship and family therapist, which involves helping couples navigate love, intimacy and family systems. Even after years of practice, Hoang says his mother still feels confused about his work. "I'm pretty sure she still doesn't know what I do. The way she describes it is that I work with 'crazy people'," the 36-year-old says. But she's accepting … I think she understands it a bit better nowadays. Despite mixed reactions from their parents, Hoang and Lin are determined to change the prevailing narratives and taboos around sex and relationships within the Chinese Australian community — and part of a small number of therapists with Chinese backgrounds who offer specialised counselling on the topic. According to 2021 Census data, there are 4,026 psychotherapists — a category that includes psychosexual therapists — in Australia. Only 80 of them speak Mandarin, Cantonese or other Chinese dialects at home. Of that cohort, 42 were born in China, Hong Kong, Macau or Taiwan, making the pool of sex and relationship therapists with Chinese cultural and linguistic knowledge very small. Because of this, Lin and Hoang say they find their services particularly popular among Asian clients, who feel they have a cultural shorthand. Hoang says he noticed the influx of Asian Australian clients when he started his private practice. "I do get a lot more Asian clients who specifically come to me because they feel — and they even directly say this to me — that I would 'get them' a bit better," Hoang says. "So they do open up, and they do come [to the counselling sessions] because they feel I can relate to their culture." Lin says for some of her clients, talking about sex and intimacy can feel like speaking a foreign language. "Talking about sex [and using that] vocabulary, it can be like an alien or foreign language when you speak about your genital parts or even your intimacy," she says. She also notices that many of her Asian Australian clients are unfamiliar with how therapy works. Sometimes she says they expect her to act more like a GP who can prescribe them medication or expect an immediate result after the therapy. In Hoang's practice, traditional values around family loyalty are a recurring topic in his conversations with Chinese clients. "[I think] because a lot of us are migrants and come from various places that there is intergenerational trauma that's probably a little bit more frequent than other different kinds of backgrounds," he says. While some Australians may hold the impression that Chinese people tend to be conservative when it comes to intimacy, Lin says it's not the case. "There's a misconception that only Asian or Chinese people find [conversations about sex] challenging," she says. The fact is, even for Western people, they still find it challenging too, because it's against the mainstream culture. But for Chinese Australians, there are some cultural barriers that make it harder for them to have candid discussions about sex. Lin says the lack of comprehensive sex education in schools in many Asian countries is one of the key factors. "They just talk about biological stuff, but they don't tell you how to give consent to help your first sexual experience, or they don't talk about pleasure," she says. Even in cases where conversation is encouraged by parents or educators, Lin says many still focus on abstinence, saying things like, "'don't do this', 'don't fall in pregnancy', 'protect yourself', 'use a condom'". "But sex is something we need to learn, we need to build up; a skill we need to practice," she says. Hoang says shame is a key barrier that many Chinese people encounter when talking about sex. Shame is a weapon that's often used in Asian culture. "Shame is a feeling that we get when we're kind of telling ourselves that we are a bad person," Hoang says. "And the following action [typical for] shame is to hide, to withdraw, because you are such a bad person that you don't want other people to be around you and see you for the 'badness' that you are." As two of the very few sex and relationship psychotherapists with Chinese heritage who offer services in Australia, Lin and Hoang know they bear an extra responsibility in helping to educate their community about sex. Hoang says besides stigma and stereotypes, there is also a prevailing myth that sex should "always be good", especially with a committed partner, which can cause anxiety among some clients. Instead, he encourages them to think about "seasons" when it comes to sex. Hoang explains: "There are times when it's summer and it's hot and heavy, and there are other times when it's winter and cold, and then there are other times when it's spring or autumn when it's kind of lukewarm." Above all, he stresses communication is the key to having a positive sex life and relationships. "If you want more sex, just talk about it openly. It doesn't have to be something serious," he says. Lin agrees, saying it's natural for intimate relationships to ebb and flow and advocates for the 'good-enough sex model' — a psychological concept based on balancing positive experiences of intimacy with realistic expectations. "You will have frustration in your sex life, in your intimacy, but always it remains 'good enough sex'. "Sometimes we allow ourselves to have below-average sex, but sometimes also bring some novelty into our sex life, because this is human nature — we all like new stuff." With additional reporting by Bertin Huynh and Dennis Fang Lifestyle Sexual consent Sydney Share this with family and friends
