Mixed messages: Buying back Australiaʹs fishing industry

This paper discusses the process and outcomes of a major buyback of commercial fishing concessions across all Australian Commonwealth-managed fisheries through 2006. It argues that the intent of the buyback program was ambiguous, the process was flawed, and the outcomes of doubtful benefit to fish or to fishermen. This case study directs attention to deeper issues that prevail in forms of managing people under the guise of a non-explicit ideology of “extol and control”.