"We need, immediately, the shark net at Garie Beach to be pulled out of the water, because there's no patrols happening at that beach at the moment. It's not a high use beach."
"It's absolutely useless and all it is doing is trapping animals and causing marine wildlife carnage."
"At the moment the Department of Primary Industries has to seek an exemption under the Biodiversity Conservation Act, to kill threatened species and that is just absolutely horrendous."
"The Joint Management Agreement says that they have to reduce the threat to animals and that's not happening. We're seeing Loggerhead Turtles, Leatherback Turtles, Green Turtles as well as rays and dolphins and non-target sharks all getting caught in shark nets and it's terrible."
"When there's an animal caught in the net [sharks] can really sense the distress. It actually seems to be attracting sharks rather than stopping them from getting into the beach."
"Wollongong's got seventeen patrolled beaches and we've got five with shark nets and we know that there's not a greater instance of shark attacks on the twelve other beaches that are patrolled but don't have shark nets."
Cr Cath Blakey, Greens candidate for Wollongong.