Australia 'left in the dark' over illegal fishing By Rory Callinan Australia has been left largely blind to the movement of foreign ships and is struggling to police highly destructive illegal fishing operations in a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean after the Defence Department quietly scrapped a major surveillance operation.
The department said on Friday it had scrapped funding for the civilian surveillance operation responsible for running long range patrols over a 10,000-square-kilometre region of the Pacific stretching from the east coast of Australia out to the seas east of Kiribati. 
The scrapping of the contract has the potential to impact on Australia's obligations under the Niue Treaty on Cooperation in Fisheries Surveillance and Law Enforcement in the South Pacific which involves assisting in policing highly valuable fishing grounds belonging to small Pacific nations and illegal activity.
The patrols included overflights of the highly sensitive Phoenix Island Protected Area, one of the largest marine reserves in the world, which host nation Kiribati has almost no resources to monitor. The civilian contracting company's chief executive, former Vietnam War pilot Chris Langton, said Defence insiders had informed him the hunt for missing Malaysian passenger aircraft MH370 and operations relating to the shot down MH17 aircraft had soaked up funding earmarked for monitoring the Pacific.
Mr Langton, who flew more than 200 operational missions in Vietnam with the United States Air Force, fears the failure to continue the program has left Australia largely in the dark about the movement of some of the most destructive and predatory fishing fleets in the world, as well as the loss of strategic information relating to shipping generally.
Australia has been providing assistance for maritime policing via the Pacific Patrol Boat program which involves patrol boats being gifted to Pacific nations for decades.
But Mr Langton said the patrol boats were no match for illegal fishing fleets that could outrun the ageing craft which were rarely able to patrol because of maintenance problems, fuel costs or civil services priorities.
The civilian aerial surveillance patrols had been carried from   August 2014 to   August 2015 and had resulted in the detection of numerous foreign fishing vessels, some of which appeared to be operating as ghost ships with false registration and with their vessel monitoring transponders (VMS) switched off - making them invisible to land-based systems that track the VMS.
When spotted by the patrolling Cessna aircraft fitted with special long range tanks and powerful cameras, the fishing boats often stopped fishing and moved on, usually heading for the "high seas pockets" in international waters where they are safe from prosecution.
Mr Langton said Defence had claimed the contract was only a pilot, something he vigorously rejects. He said there was a clear understanding to have a review earlier in the year but that the operation had continued "full throttle" on the expectation of extension as there had been no contrary advice. He said he was given one day's notice of the cancellation which "was a real shock to us all".
Mr Langton said the company was still holding discussions with the department and was hopeful that it would reassess the situation before the new year and recognise that "if we don't do this for these countries then someone else probably will".
Defence has rejected Mr Langton's claims, including that the hunt for MH370 was to blame.
A spokesman said the contract had been part of a 12-month trial that ended on   August 6. The trial was to form part of the options for integrated surveillance under the new Pacific Maritime Security Program (PMSP) that was being developed and which would build on the existing successful Pacific Patrol Boat program to provide a substantially increased capacity.
"In addition the PMSP will integrate an aerial surveillance capability and further enhancements to regional co-ordination in the new program."
Defence continued to provide aerial and maritime surveillance through national maritime operations like Operation Solania as well as through work with partners including New Zealand, France and the United States, the spokesman said.