Farmers and fishers in Northern Australia believe illegal fishing boats pose a biosecurity threat which the government is failing to address. Pictures and vision provided to the ABC show wooden boats in the mangroves at kuri bay about 220 kilometres north of derby in the west Kimberley region. A local tour operator and traditional owner has told the ABC how they assisted the Australian Border Force.
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TVTranscript
00:00We were in contact with two men yesterday who told us that they were part of an operation
00:05to locate several boats along the Kimberley coastline in an area called Quarry Bay.
00:10So that's about 370 kilometres north of where I am on the Kimberley coast now.
00:15Now one of those men, a Dambi Mangati traditional owner, Adrian Lane, said that he was out doing
00:19monitoring in the mangroves when he first spotted a boat on Monday evening.
00:24He then met up with Kimberley tourism operator Peter Tucker and they reported that first
00:29boat to Border Force officials.
00:31Now they say Border Officials didn't arrive until the following morning, so yesterday
00:35morning.
00:36When those maritime officials arrived, the two men brought them to an area where they
00:40said that they believed boats were sort of tucking into the mangroves.
00:43There were these cave-like sort of holes in the mangroves.
00:47When they arrived there yesterday, that was when they spotted those four boats.
00:52Now the Australian Border Force have confirmed that four boats were intercepted in that area
00:56yesterday.
00:58They said that ABF's Operation Leedstrom was equipped to be able to handle the situation.
01:03Now of course the two men, Mr Tucker and Mr Lane, were certainly surprised, they said,
01:08to have found those extra four boats the following morning.
01:12But they also shared their concerns over the fact that Border Officials arrived in what
01:16they said was more than 12 hours once they reported the boats.
01:21We're pretty elated because we've been seeing them for a while now and Border Force have
01:27come up here once or twice and have, you know, had no luck.
01:31But the Australian Navy happened to be in the area.
01:34They responded to a call and, you know, they were without, of course, without assistance.
01:42They reacted swiftly.
01:43When we went in there, we found the boat tied up right inside the middle of the mangrove
01:47system and the crew were all asleep.
01:52So we assume they've probably been working at night and, yeah, resting during the day.
02:00But we also heard from WA Farmer's President John Hassell who said that he was concerned
02:05about the impacts that these boat arrivals are having on, you know, the agricultural
02:10industry and the biosecurity risks that they pose.
02:13He said that he also believes that these men were potentially looking for sea cucumbers
02:17in the area.
02:18Now, Border Force has said that it is certainly an unfolding situation with these particular
02:24boat arrivals from yesterday.