It's World Fisheries Day and a documentary challenging Australia's marine policy is premiering at the Sydney Fish Markets tonight.

According to the film makers the documentary "Drawing the Line" counters the misinformation that Australians have been fed about the state of the country's fisheries.

Bruce Davies, the Gulf fisherman at the heart of the film's story, says marine parks are damaging Australia.

He thinks too much money has been spent creating marine parks but the critical factors of climate change and pollution haven't been dealt with.

"We've spent over a billion dollars in five years designing a new Commonwealth marine park network...not one plastic bag, not one issue of climate change was dealt with. It's just ludicrous...and then they spend another $100 million compensating fishermen to shut down vital protein production.

Increasingly we're having to import sea food....so ....closing oceans and only stopping fishing doesn't make much sense."

He believes the Australian public should trust fishermen to manage the stocks sustainably.

"Australia can hold it's head high as one of the top four countries internationally recognised for the best fisheries management in the world."

Colin Buxton, director of Fisheries at the University of Tasmania agrees.

He believes Australian fisheries are already demonstrably sustainable and he has argued over a long period of time that marine parks are not effective.

"When you remove fishing from an environment the fish become more abundant, larger in size, but to extend that past the area protected and say this is a good way to manage fisheries ... is an extension of the logic that is not sound."

He says things like pollution, climate change, agriculture are having a much greater impact on the environment.

"Marine parks are an exceptionally blunt tool! If they were functioning well why is our Great Barrier Reef marine park just been down graded from moderate to poor. It's the gold standard of marine parks and yet it's in trouble."