Australia has a problem with sharks, and it’s a far bigger problem than I ever imagined when I started shooting Envoy: Shark Cull over two years ago. It is not a shark attack problem; our waters are not teeming with man-eating sharks. It is a political problem, a very big one.

The matter of how to stay safe in our oceans, has somehow, at some time, not only become a problem for politicians to solve, but has morphed into one of the biggest ‘political footballs’ in the country, being passed around like a hot potato. And it’s this inaction that is now killing both sharks and people.

Worldwide, there are about 440 species of sharks. Of these, around 180 species can be found in Australian waters of which about 70 are thought to be endemic – they exist literally nowhere else in the world. Australia, however, unlike my favourite shoot location from Envoy: Shark Cull, the Bahamas, does not protect them. They are commercially fished in many areas – even within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. They are also culled at beaches in the name of the government’s swimmer safety programmes, since 1962 and 1937 in the states of Queensland and New South Wales respectively.