Fish price spike, supply issues months after WA's demersal fishing ban

Consumers can expect to pay up to 40 per cent more for most fresh fish this Easter compared to last year, according to estimates from WA seafood retailers.

The ABC has spoken to six merchants who said they had to increase prices as a direct result of new fishing restrictions, announced by the state government in December, with the rising cost of fuel also adding to the price tag.

From January 1, demersal fishers, gillnet fisheries and commercial line fishers were banned from the West Coast fishery — a roughly 800-kilometre stretch of coast spanning Augusta to Kalbarri.

Commercial fisheries in the rest of WA, excluding the Gascoyne, had catch limits cut by 50 per cent, and in the Pilbara commercial trawl fishing for demersal scalefish was permanently closed.

Since then, wholesalers like Hillseafood and Endeavour Foods said they were forced to increase the price of most fish species by an average 15 to 20 per cent.

Hillseafood said it had absorbed another 15 per cent — passed on from fishers and freight companies — "to keep things buoyant".

Retail outlets like The Fish Market and Direct Seafoods O'Connor said their customers were paying around 25 to 40 per cent more for several species.

The Fish Market owner Sam Eoannidis said premium fish had jumped the most, with red emperor fillets going up from $90 to $150 per kilogram in the space of a year — a 67 per cent increase.

'Customers won't pay'

Fernando Smilovitis, who runs Hillseafood with his brother, said some fish buyers were turning away from fish altogether.

"We've already had backlash with certain species of fish and reduced intake of certain products like red emperor, pink snapper," Mr Smilovitis said.

"Customers just won't pay and we have to break the news to fishers."

A spokesperson for Direct Seafoods in O'Connor said fresh fish was now being viewed as "a luxury item".

Meanwhile, local fish is disappearing from supermarkets.

Coles issued a notice late last year saying goldband snapper, red emperor and rankin cod would no longer be available "due to recent changes in WA Government fishing regulations".

Woolworths said customers would still see "the same range and prices they have for many months despite the changes to fishing regulations", but that there may be less availability of some species. 

Food security at risk: wholesaler

Wholesaler Endeavour Foods said the restrictions created a supply gap which increased the demand for non-demersal fish, placing pressure on supply chains and bumping up costs.

"Everybody's sort of competing for the same fish," founder and managing director John Sharland said.

Mr Sharland said WA businesses were forced to source fish from further afield — primarily the Pilbara, Northern Territory, South Australia and New Zealand — leaving them vulnerable to recent natural disasters and fuel hikes.

"Food production in WA — because we're so isolated — is a critical industry," Mr Sharland said.

"Yet we're banning our own fisheries … and now we have a war, fuel is going through roof … there's floods in the north."

Mr Smilovitis said petrol price hikes had already seen fewer customers making the trip to his Mundaring store — about 30 kilometres north-east of Perth's CBD — and he expected the price of affordable fish would rise. 

Market appearances cancelled

Third generation fishmonger Konway Challis, from Red Gill Fish, said low overheads enabled him to keep the cost to consumers lower than other outlets, but he still had to raise prices by an average of 10 to 15 per cent. 

Mr Challis said he was now operating on a week-to-week basis, regularly forced to cancel market appearances due to a lack of supply.

"This week is really lean on fish," he told the ABC on Saturday.

"I'm only getting a little out of the Gascoyne … the monsoons up north mean there's about 70 tonnes of fish that can't get through."

Fisheries minister defends restrictions

The government has defended the restrictions as essential to rebuild depleted demersal fish stocks in the West Coast and Pilbara fisheries — which a 2024 departmental report found were inadequate.

Asked about the price increases facing consumers, WA Fisheries Minister Jackie Jarvis said fish had already been getting more expensive before the new restrictions were rolled out.

She said the government was saving 290,000 kilograms of at-risk demersal fish by shutting down the West Coast fishery — but "millions of tonnes" of fish were still being caught off WA's coast.

"You can't keep fishing a fish until it doesn't exist anymore — so yes there will be less fish," Ms Jarvis said.

"West Australians love fresh fish but not at any cost."

However Mr Smilovitis felt there were other levers the government could have pulled to manage fisheries sustainably without requiring businesses and consumers to take such a big hit.

He said he had been hosting cooking demonstrations to help educate customers on how to prepare different species, as the cost and supply pressures bite.

Editor’s note: This story originally reported Seafresh Innaloo was last week selling two species of fish at prices between 190 and 240 per cent higher than in November 2025. That is incorrect. The two prices were for different cuts of the fish which were not comparable.