China pulls the plug on Australia’s biggest live reef fish exporter

Queensland’s multi-million-dollar coral trout fishery is in jeopardy after the country’s biggest live-fish exporter failed to have its export licence renewed in China.

The lucrative live ‘red fish’ trade is the latest casualty of simmering tensions between the Australian and Chinese governments, which has already claimed wine, barley and rock lobster exports.

Australian Reef Fish Traders — which last year accounted for 70 per cent of all live exports — said it could not explain…