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I just found this, it goes into greater detail. It appears there are a whole lot of these small boats working the area and the traffic is escalating with mainly sharks (fins) being the target fish. The aussie fishermen are starting to raise a ruckus. The main complaint seems to be that between the Customs, the Navy, State Fisheries and local police there is no organized, co-ordinated effort to aggressively patrol the Gulf of Carpentaria so little has been accomplished to date. Furthermore most of these Indonesian boats are suicide specials that a Cuban Balsero would hesitate to get into.

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PM - GOVT TO STEP UP GULF OF CARPENTARIA PATROLS

PM - Monday, 18 April , 2005 18:44:30
Reporter: Ian Townsend

MARK COLVIN: The Federal Government is planning to beef up its patrols in the Gulf of Carpentaria to try to stop Indonesian fishing boats slipping into Australian waters.

The number of such boats has been increasing recently, and commercial fishermen have for weeks been asking the Government to stop what they say are now brazen incursions.

The Royal Australian Navy seized another boat off Cape York last night but fishermen in the Gulf of Carpentaria say scores are still getting away.

Ian Townsend reports.

IAN TOWNSEND: It seems to be happening a couple of times a week now. An Australia Customs or Navy patrol nabs an Indonesian fishing boat. Whether it's off the northern coast of Western Australia, the Northern Territory or Queensland, the story's similar.

The skipper's arrested, the crew of less than a dozen men is taken into custody, a number of shark fins is found drying on the deck. Last night, for instance, a 15 metre Indonesian fishing boat was seized off the west coast of Cape York with more than 50 bull sharks and a two-metre groper aboard.

But what worries Gary Ward, the Chairman of the Gulf of Carpentaria's Commercial Fisherman's Organisation is that the number of Indonesian boats now fishing illegally in Australian waters still seems to be increasing.

GARY WARD: In the last six months or twelve months, we've found that there's a larger number of these smaller boats coming through. They're only about 45 foot, they're very low profile boats. They've got about 10 crew on them. They're a bit of a rough looking thing but they travel around about 14 knots. So, they can certainly get along pretty quickly.

The last couple of months we've had an escalation of sightings of these vessels and it certainly wouldn't like to have another 30/40 boats fishing there every year.

IAN TOWNSEND: How many do you suspect are coming in at the moment?

GARY WARD: In the last three months or four months we know of seeing 20, over 20 of the boats in quite close, some 20km off the coast, some even 5km off the coast.

IAN TOWNSEND: Customs do seem to be picking up the occasional fishing boat. Are they doing enough? Obviously it's not enough to deter these fishing boats.

GARY WARD: I can appreciate, I mean I'm not happy with the apprehension numbers, but you must take into consideration it's a tremendously large area, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and our local patrol officers haven't really got the vessels to get out there and get them. They're more or less on the in-shore policing. And the Customs boats cost a lot of money to run.

So, I can see a lot of problems there but I think eventually what the authorities, whether they're State or Federal or whether they can get their heads together is put a boat either in Karumba or Weipa or both and just hammer them for about 12 months and just take them and confiscate the vessels and maybe they'll get the message.

IAN TOWNSEND: And things are about to change, it seems. The Federal Government's now going to employ its own fisheries officers, says Fisheries Minister, Senator Ian Macdonald.

IAN MACDONALD: We have in the past relied on State Fisheries officers to support the Commonwealth. That arrangement hasn't been working. So what we've said is look, rather than having to rely on State Fisheries officers the Commonwealth will get our own. And they're being recruited at the moment.

IAN TOWNSEND: And there's talk of beefing up Australian Navy patrols across the Top End, and it's not just for the protection of Australia's commercial fishery either. Indonesian fishing boats sometimes wash up along the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria without anyone aboard. What's happened to the crew is a mystery.

Gary Ward from the Gulf Commercial Fisherman's Organisations says many of these Indonesian boats are just plain dangerous.

GARY WARD: It's quite frightening. When you get our vessels you've got to have survey and all the safety equipment, EPIRBs and all that sort of stuff and rightly so, but these people have got nothing, nothing at all. They've got a bucket. One bucket in a vessel to bail it out. They're really a horror ship.

MARK COLVIN: Gary Ward, a commercial fisherman from the Gulf of Carpentaria with Ian Townsend.