Shark culls condemned in 2017 Senate inquiry — yet major parties continue to back even deadlier programs

In 2017, a Senate committee delivered what should have been a watershed moment in Australian environmental policy: a clear, evidence-based recommendation to end lethal shark control programs in New South Wales and Queensland.

The inquiry’s findings were unambiguous. It concluded that the use of shark nets and lethal drumlines had no proven public safety benefit, caused significant ecological damage, and operated outside the scope of modern environmental assessment. The committee urged both states to replace lethal drumlines with SMART drumlines, to phase out meshing programs, and to invest in non-lethal technologies instead.

Yet eight years later, the same programs persist, some even expanding, and are actively defended by the very political parties that once sat on the inquiry. The contradictions are as stark as they are political.

“Measures that cannot be proven to have a significant positive effect on public safety but which significantly damage the environment… should not be permitted to remain in place,” the committee wrote at the time.

But remain in place they have. Queensland’s Shark Control Program continues to operate across 86 beaches, deploying hundreds of drumlines and nets, targeting multiple species, including tiger and hammerhead sharks, both listed as threatened. NSW’s seasonal netting program still returns each year, despite its well-documented toll on non-target species such as turtles and dolphins.

QSCP equipment locations, courtesy of the Queensland Government

The inaction is no accident. Despite the inquiry’s majority report calling for reform, both the Coalition and Labor submitted dissenting reports at the time, offering political cover for business as usual.

Labor Senators, for their part, had no trouble condemning Western Australia’s brief 2014 shark cull trial, describing it as “absurd” in their report.

“The concept of conducting a ‘shark cull’ program to rid our ocean of a particular species… was absurd,” Labor Senators wrote.

But what followed was silence on their own side’s record. Queensland’s program, long operated under successive Labor governments, is geographically larger, targets more species, and has been in place for over 60 years. Unlike the WA trial, it is not time-limited. It is a de facto cull in every meaningful sense, state-sanctioned, year-round, and indiscriminate. Further to that, Labor currently holds power in NSW, and has shown no genuine signs of ending their 88-year shark cull (they have culled sharks via 51 shark nets since as early as 1937).

The Coalition’s dissent was no less contradictory. While noting concerns around bycatch, LNP Senators argued the federal government should not interfere in state-run shark mitigation, despite the clear implications under national environmental law.

“The Australian Government should not be involved in shark management… other than that which is required under Commonwealth legislation,” their report stated.

Well, the Commonwealth’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 mandates protection for migratory and threatened species, including some targeted and killed by the shark culling programs in NSW and QLD. Yet the shark control programs in NSW and QLD have never been assessed under the Act. The reason? They predate it.

This legal loophole, section 43B (essentially a grandfather clausing), means that while most activities in Australian waters must be evaluated for their environmental impact, killing sharks with baited hooks and shark nets has been allowed to continue unexamined, based solely on historical precedent, as long as they don't expand, intensify or enlarge. NSW has adhered to this, but QLD has not. It has expanded, intensified, and enlarged under both LNP and Labor state Governments, and both LNP and Labor federal governments have not pressed charges. 

Section 43B is a legislative relic, and one that the Coalition has never shown any willingness to address during their time in Government federally, despite their dissent to the 2917 federal inquiry stated. In their defence, neither has Labor, despite their posturing on Oceans. Time will tell if Murray Watt is more of the same as federal environment minister, or if he takes his portfolio seriously. 

Since 2017, the scientific case against lethal shark programs has only grown stronger. Major studies have shown that nets and drumlines do not reduce the risk of shark bites. Courts have echoed this, including in 2019 when the Administrative Appeals Tribunal ruled against the use of lethal drumlines in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, stating that “the scientific evidence before us is overwhelming.”

Meanwhile, non-lethal measures, drone surveillance, personal deterrents, and barrier enclosures have grown in both effectiveness and affordability. Yet governments continue to favour the old tools: visible, politically safe, but ecologically catastrophic.

The 2017 Senate inquiry was not radical. It simply brought Australia’s shark policy into line with evidence, international obligations, and common sense. But its recommendations were shelved, its findings watered down by partisan dissent, and its legal implications quietly ignored.

Today, as Queensland moves to entrench and expand its shark control program and NSW continues to drag its feet on reform, the question is no longer one of science or safety, but of political will.

If WA’s limited, short-term shark cull was “absurd”, as Labor claimed, then what does that make Queensland’s? If “The Australian Government should not be involved in shark management… other than that which is required under Commonwealth legislation,” LNP has claimed, then why didn't they act in their many years in power federally, and why has the Queensland LNP just exacerbated this breach of federal laws? 

Until these contradictions are resolved, Australia’s lethal shark control programs will remain what they have long been: ineffective, unethical, and above all. politically protected.