THE Greens have fired an alarming warning shot across the bow of recreational fishers.
In a policy initiative, Greens leader Senator Bob Brown has laid the groundwork to cut access to 30 per cent of all national marine reserves.
VRFish, Victoria's recreational fishing peak representative body, claims that is just the start.
"The Greens are not about compromise," VRFish executive officer Christopher Collins said.
"Recreational fishing is worth $2.3 billion to Victoria.
"But already we are cramming all those fishers into 95 per cent of the coastline.
"Next it will be 90 per cent, and then - and make no mistake about this - the Greens will want that cut to 70 per cent.
"Eventually they will close the whole coastline."
He said VRFish had just won the marine parks battle with Premier John Brumby.
But there was no doubt he saw the debate with the Greens was only just starting.
"The Greens want control of all marine parks to go national, and with their agenda - if they hold the balance of power after the election - you just know the major parties will do deals to get government. Which means fishers, and the coastal economy, will be the big losers."
Greens Senator Rachel Siewert has dismissed Mr Collin's comments as being part of a scare campaign.
While she agreed there were ongoing issues about control of waters, she said the Greens were trying to "implement effective planning".
She said "if we don't get it right there would be stricter regulation," on a par with the rules introduced in WA because of declining fish stocks.
"It is quite ludicrous to say we want to stop fishing, I think Australians are pretty tired of hearing this," Senator Siewert said.
"We need bio-regional planning for all our environments, and if there is a smaller area to fish, it will be offset by catch limits, but it won't stop people from fishing."
