Commercial fishermen affected by one of Australia’s worst oil spills say they are still waiting for compensation a year after the disaster.

A 75 kilometre stretch of coastline from Moreton Island to the Sunshine Coast was coated with oil after the cargo ship Pacific Adventurer spilt about 270 tonnes of heavy fuel oil off Moreton Island.

The owner of the Pacific Adventurer, Swire Shipping, agreed to pay $25 million towards the clean-up cost, last August.

Queensland Seafood Industry Association spokesman Winston Harris says he is hopeful affected fishermen will soon be compensated.

“We’re working towards a time frame which I think is around the middle of this year,” he said.

Premier Anna Bligh says lessons have been learnt and the Government is now better prepared for such a disaster.

“I hope frankly that we never see another event like this but God forbid should it happen, we’ll be ready,” Ms Bligh said.

The Premier has used the anniversary to again thank people who were involved in the clean-up.

“It’s important to recognise the great work that was done to clean it up and I take my hat off to everyone involved,” she said.

The Government says two reports released yesterday found the response to the disaster was effective but there was room for improvement.

Clean-up

Meanwhile, the Sunshine Coast Mayor has defended the council’s use of heavy machinery to remove oil from the region’s beaches after the spill.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority yesterday released a report in which it says the use of heavy machinery may have exacerbated the clean-up.

It has recommended Maritime Safety Queensland review the council’s oil spill response plan.

Mayor Bob Abbot says the response was appropriate.

“What we have to weigh up is the triple bottom line process … environmental damage against the economic damage and to wait two or three months to clean that mess up by hand would have caused massive economic damage on the Sunshine Coast,” he said.

The council says its coastal engineers have been unable to find any oil on Mudjimba Beach from last year’s spill.

They inspected the beach yesterday after a resident reported seeing oil leeching out of the sand.

Eight-and-a-half kilometres of the region’s coastline was affected by the Pacific Adventurer oil spill.

Infrastructure services executive director Andrew Ryan says there could still be oil residue in areas but there are also other possible explanations for the appearance of an oily substance.

“There certainly would have been oil in some of the crab holes that opened up typically on our beaches and some of the oil may well have got itself down there a year or so ago,” he said.

“It could have been a coral spawn or leeching from coffee rock, so again without being able to find it we haven’t been able to take any particular action.”

The Moreton Bay Mayor Allan Sutherland this week inspected areas of Bribie Island that were affected by the oil spill and says there is no oil residue.