00:00Swallowed by sand, it's hard to believe fishing boats, yachts and dinghies ever tied up alongside
00:09this Port Gregory jetty. Today it's little more than a boardwalk onto the beach.
00:14The longer it goes, the more costly it's going to become. So it should have been looked at
00:20possibly 10 years ago rather than now.
00:24Greg Horseman is one of the local fishers forced to use a dinghy to ferry lobster and
00:29bait to and from his boat and the beach. And that comes at a cost, both in lost product
00:35and time. Built in the 1980s, the jetty is owned by the WA government and managed by the Department
00:43of Transport.
00:44It's been 14 years since crayfishers have been able to use the jetty. They've repeatedly
00:51raised the issue with government but are yet to hear or see a solution. They were promised
00:58to visit from the Transport Minister four years ago.
01:01Not to my knowledge she has been in.
01:04Locals and fishers say the community is missing out on other opportunities too. On the outskirts
01:10of Port Gregory, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit a pink lake every year, but often only
01:17stop in town to go to the toilet.
01:19It's embarrassing to have a jetty that people can't walk out and actually see water. Or
01:25walk over water, you know.
01:27Watching the beautiful big manta rays that we used to have swim underneath the jetty, you
01:31know at the moment we can't do any of that. It's just, it's so sad.
01:37In a statement, the Department of Transport says it has no plans to upgrade the jetty.
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