Controversial fishing trawler Geelong Star has left Australian waters, with the Dutch owners reflagging and renaming the ship.
Parlevliet and Van der Plas BV said on its website that the Geelong Star would no longer fish in Australia.
Recreational fishers and environmental groups have long campaigned against the super trawler.
Corangamite MP Sarah Henderson was one of a chorus of voices campaigning against the ship.
“There’s no doubt the campaign against this vessel helped to drive it from Australian waters,” she said.
“It was an embarrassment that this vessel was named after our great city. The Geelong Star was no star of the sea and certainly no star of Geelong.”
The company stated it could not reach a commercial agreement with the local partners in Australia.
Earlier this week Australian Fisheries Management Authority (AFMA) located the trawler off the coast of South Africa.
The ship was flying the Dutch flag and sailing to the Dutch port city of IJmuiden. The company has reinstated its original name, KW 172 Dirk Dirk.
During transit and after leaving Australian waters, AFMA removed the vessel’s Australian Shipping Register and as a non-Australian flagged vessel it could no longer operate in compliance with the Fisheries Management Act 1991.
AMFA imposed a fishing ban on the ship in January after reports of albatross deaths.
Ms Henderson called on the Prime Minister to banish the vessel during a Torquay rally in October 2015,
“The protected marine mammal deaths caused by the Geelong Star were completely unacceptable,” she said.
The previous operators of the trawler, SeaFish Tasmania, told a late-2015 Senate committee that the vessel had killed nine dolphins and 12 seals that year.
