Dr. Rick Officer:

I thank the Deputy for her question. We are not starting from scratch here. We have provided the committee with a substantial written submission. The second appendix of that summarises some of the Marine Institute work, which is ongoing to close out some of the data gaps she mentioned. They have been well reiterated within the committee's discussions today. We have mentioned some basic things on the biology of the stock such as its longevity, which is important to the timescale over which management would be implemented. The investigation of stock structure is important, and we have genetic work under way. It is being conducted with our equivalent agency in the UK. There is a better explanation of biomass, so using surveys. There is management strategy evaluation, which is quite immature at this stage, because it needs to be conditioned by the previous information. You can only really get at that once you have some of the precursory information in place. There is work under way. Of course, the institute is under the aegis of the Department. We negotiate annual oversight and performance agreements.

We are open to responding to imperatives from the Department to accelerate this work.