Something Fishy Read Online Free PDF Page A

Association, directing his words straight at Dudley Wilson.
    â€˜Last time I saw a face like that,’ he was saying, ‘it had a hook in it.’
    Wishful thinking, I realised. He was, in fact, affirming the ongoing commitment of the recreational fishing sector to managed bio-diversity. It was already evident that the Coastal Management Advisory Panel was going to be an arid source of diversion.
    Over the next ninety minutes, the bio-sustainable line-dangler was succeeded by speakers from the Surf Lifesaving Association, the Shipwreck Heritage Trust, Disability Access and a group opposed to the dumping of raw sewage into the Gippsland lake system. Proceedings drifted like the continents, the room was overheated and my attention soon wandered out the window.
    The seagulls had quit the gutting-sink. They were perched on the railing of the bridge, grooming their plumage. An incoming tide inched across the mud-flats. A wet-suited sailboard rider tacked back and forth. A gaff-rigged couta boat sailed out of the marina at the tip of Phillip Island, then sailed back in. The customary Greeks bobbed for squid off the jetty.
    At 12:45, Dudley Wilson announced the lunch adjournment.
    Alan Bunting immediately pounced. ‘Hello, Murray. You’re doing duty for Moira Henley, so I’ve been given to understand. You’ll be joining us for lunch, of course.’
    He led me into a room where the official party was lining up, plates in hand, at a buffet table laid with platters of prawn salad, breadcrumbed calamari rings and a baked schnapper with a slice of pimento-stuffed olive over its oven-roasted eyeball.
    â€˜You know our chairman, of course,’ Bunting said, manoeuvring me towards Dudley Wilson.
    Wilson regarded me over his jowls. We’d once exchanged a brief handshake at some public event. Wilson nodded, remembering, and I nodded back. Then, casting a disdainful glance at the buffet, he pulled a mobile phone from his jacket pocket and walked away, dialling as he went.
    Bunting introduced me to the other suits, a cross-section of the ruling demographic. An old boy, a wide boy and a bean counter. I made some tiny-talk over a plate of prawn salad, then slipped outside for a breath of air. I found Gillian Zarek sitting at a log picnic table on the foreshore, eating a sandwich from a paper bag. We exchanged hellos and agreed that the weather was indeed splendid for the time of year.
    â€˜So what’s the story with Dudley Wilson?’ I said. ‘This is a bit downmarket for a big wheel like Dud, isn’t it?’
    Gillian wiped her fingers on a paper napkin, mock-dainty. ‘Dudley Wilson is a well-known philanthropist, always attentive to the voice of the community.’
    A trio of pelicans wheeled overhead, wings spread, then splashed down near the jetty.
    â€˜And that’s a fine flight of pigs,’ I said.
    Gillian chortled. ‘I could speculate, I suppose. But strictly in a personal capacity.’
    I ran fingertips across my lips, zipping them shut. Gillian dropped her voice, although there was nobody within hearing range.
    â€˜This public input stuff, it’s just window-dressing,’ she said. ‘A couple more meetings like this, then the real agenda will emerge. The privatisation of public assets along the coast. Camping grounds, piers, lighthouses, they’ll all be flogged to commercial operators, turned into theme parks, resort hotels and pay-per-view whale-watching towers. This panel will recommend who gets what and how much they pay. As its chairman, Dudley Wilson will be uniquely situated to identify the easy-money opportunities.’
    â€˜Nice work if you can get it,’ I said. The function of the government, after all, was to transfer wealth from public to private hands.
    â€˜Big cuts in the department’s field staff are also on the cards,’ Gillian continued. ‘Park rangers, fisheries officers and so forth. They’ll say it’s more