A protest over South Australia's snapper ban arrived this week in the form of a Facebook video — and a politician holding a fish she was not legally meant to be targeting. Chantelle Thomas, One Nation's member for Narungga, motored out of the Wallaroo boat ramp on 29 May, caught several snapper in Spencer Gulf and released them on camera to make a point about a closure she wants gone.
"We've just launched off the Wallaroo boat ramp, I'm going to show the current government how much snapper is out here," Thomas said. Her pitch was about jobs as much as fish. "It's time to lift the ban so we can boost our local economy, and businesses no longer have to suffer," she said.
The closure she is protesting has been in force since 2019, when South Australia shut snapper fishing across the West Coast, Gulf St Vincent and Spencer Gulf to let a battered stock recover. The reopening that fishers hoped for never came; instead the ban was pushed out to June 2027 after a harmful algal bloom swept the gulfs. Officially, the stock remains depleted.
Industry was quick to distance itself from the stunt. Kyri Toumazos, executive director of Seafood Industry South Australia, said going after a rebuilding species was indefensible even without keeping the fish. "The catch and release of a species that we're trying to rebuild is not something that we support," he said.
The Greens went further. MLC Melanie Selwood cast the video as environmental vandalism for clicks. "It's shocking to see One Nation disregarding the needs of our environment," she said.
There is a biological sting in the tail that the footage glosses over. Snapper dragged up from depth can suffer barotrauma, and a portion of released fish simply do not survive — one reason managers lean on a blanket closure rather than a catch-and-release season for a stock on the ropes. The gesture that looks harmless on a phone is not cost-free.
Thomas declined to comment after the video circulated, and neither the Liberal opposition nor the ministers contacted weighed in — leaving the clip to carry a fight that has divided South Australia's coast for years. On one side, charter and tackle operators who say the ban has bled them dry. On the other, scientists and seafood bodies who argue a depleted stock, hammered again by algae, cannot afford an audience. With the closure locked to at least June 2027, the snapper will stay off-limits well beyond the coming state election.