Permit conditions are designed to ensure the nets do not pose a hazard to boating and to ensure the nets are not used in a way that threatens the sustainability of fish stocks. The following conditions will apply to Indigenous netting activities:
- the nets must not be used to take species protected under other legislation (e.g. turtles and dugongs)
- the permit holder must be within 100m and on or in the water of each net being used at all times.
The nets:
- may be set (anchoring or fixing the net to a place at both ends)
- must be clearly marked with the permit holder's name, address and permit number on a white float at least 15cm in all its dimensions
- must not be placed across the width of creeks or rivers, navigation channels or any other areas where the placement of the net would make more than one half of the waterway impassable to a boat or fish
- must not be joined together
- if used by day, must be marked by light coloured floats no more than 15m apart along its length; and if used by night, must also be marked by a white light at both ends of the net which is visible for at least 400m in all directions.
The holder, or an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person of the traditional owner group acting under the direction of the permit holder, must not allow any part of the net containing a fish to be out of the water other than to immediately remove the fish from the net.
Fish collected during the activity must not be sold.
The permit must be available for immediate inspection by an officer authorised under the Act during netting activities.
Gender limits, size limits, possession limits and season closures do not apply to Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people who are fishing in their traditionally owned waters or in waters where they have obtained permission from the traditional owners. Waters which are closed to all forms of fishing (commercial, recreational and Indigenous) for sustainability reasons are:
- Coombabah Lake and Coombabah Creek
- Fitzroy River 400m downstream of the barrage
- Swan Bay, North Stradbroke Island
- Keppel Bay within 150m radius of Middle Island underwater Observatory
- Wolf Rock (east of Double Island Point)
- Hook Island within 100m radius of Observatory
- Mary River 400m downstream of the barrage
- Yanks Jetty at Orpheus Island-under or within 100m of jetty
- Tinana Creek 400m downstream of the barrage
- Centenary Lakes, Cairns
- Burnett River 400m downstream of the barrage
- Barron River at Barron Waters (near Stony Creek and junction of Camp Oven Creek)
- Kolan River 400m downstream of the barrage
- Bizant River, Princess Charlotte Bay-including German Bar Lagoon and 2km downstream of German Bar.
