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Fishing a stream and seeing a platypus how good is that ... well it seems that unless our politicians stop passing the buck and get on with the job of protecting them from "opera house yabby traps" our kids and grand kids may never experience that.

The NSWCFA has been asking questions for many months about the delay in introducing regulations banning "opera house" style yabby traps in NSW. The traps are lethal to platypus, turtles and native water rats. Better designs that don't trap and kill animals are readily available. A ban on opera house traps was recommended a couple of years ago and we understand that regulations were drafted but have never been passed by Adam Marshall, Minister for Agriculture and Western New South Wales...responsible for all fisheries matters.

Since then we have seen nothing other than continuous buck passing by the government. We asked managers within DPI about the delay and were told that the recommendation had been sent to the Minister via the Recreational Fishing NSW Advisory Council. So we asked Minister Marshall about the delay, and we also asked Minister for Energy and the Environment, Matt Kean, who had expressed support for the ban in the past. We never got a sensible answer...we were just referred back to managers within DPI, none of whom had the power to get the regulation passed.

In September we even asked the Premier about the Minister's lack of action. She just referred us back to the Minister.

In the past week there have been calls by scientists for the government to classify platypus a threatened species; the platypus population has halved in the past 30 years according to a UNSW model, due to historic land clearing, river regulation, and extreme droughts. The area of eastern Australia where platypuses are found has shrunk by about 200,000 square kilometres (22 per cent) over that period.

The latest letter we received from Minister for Energy and the Environment, Matt Kean, on 18 November, is just more dithering. He states "I can confirm that the NSW Government remains supportive of banning opera house style traps and is looking to commence the prohibition as soon as effective community engagement activities can be undertaken in a COVID-19 safe way".

Well, the government announced as long ago as the beginning of April that recreational fishing was permitted during the COVID-19 lockdown. It's now December, and the government isn't capable of "effective community engagement activities" with recreational fishers? It's just the latest, flimsiest excuse for lack of action at both departmental and ministerial level.

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