Janine Philbey - Fleet Operations Southern Deep-sea Fisheries
Janine joined Newfishing Australia (now Austral Fisheries) in January 1989 when the company had 32 prawn vessels. She was responsible for crew advances & share of catch payments. Part of the job was to talk to the vessel while they were at sea – this was the good old days of radio contact, using special codes for catches and positions. Moving forward, it was then the large stern trawler, the Austral Leader, and its Telex communication. Over the last 24 years Janine has seen a huge change in how we communicate with our vessels and our crew, which has sped up our logistical and personal response times and interaction with our crews.
Janine has taken on many other tasks over the years, which has mainly focused on crewing issues, plus the logistics of fishing gear, maintenance spares, food, fuels/lubes, airfares and we cannot forget the unloading of fish caught with our Southern Fleet. It has certainly been a great experience being involved in the running of one of Australia’s largest fishing companies, with vessels such as the late Austral Leader and previous small ventures, the Congasa and South Princess. Janine is currently kept busy with vessels, the Southern Champion and the Austral Leader II.
The fishing industry is full of very colourful people who are quite a different breed, which makes for an interesting life that she will probably write a book about one day.
