A Tasmanian television personality has gathered support from thousands of members of the fishing community to make country of origin and species labels mandatory on all seafood sold in Australia.

Gourmet farmer Matthew Evans of Cygnet launched a petition five days ago with the aim of 50,000 signatures.

Mr Evans wants to see legislation changed so that voluntary seafood labelling becomes mandatory.

The petition has already reached 80 per cent of its goal, with more than 40,000 signatures.

"I've spent a bit of time with fishermen and they've said that most of the groups want this in place," Mr Evans told Ryk Goddard on 936 ABC Hobart Breakfast program.

"I wanted to show that there is a really big groundswell of public support that your everyday Australian says, 'You know what? I just want to know what I'm eating'."

Mr Evans said he had not started a petition like this before and was "gobsmacked" by the support it had received so far.

"I put it up on Friday and we had 400 signatures and I thought 'oh that's great, that's 400 people who really care about seafood labelling and honesty in Australia have signed up'," Mr Evans said.

"When I saw it tick over to 35,000 signatures I was gobsmacked and really in awe of the Australian people.

Matthew Evans has gathered more than 40,000 signatures in five days for mandatory labelling of fish sold in Australia. ( Supplied: Matthew Evans / Alan Benson )

"I'm amazed we've got tens of thousands of signatures really ... Australians do apathy more than anything else," he joked.

Mr Evans said that although he had no vested interest in the matter, he saw it as an issue that affected millions of Australians, with more than 70 per percent of seafood sold in Australia being imported.

Current legislation means country of origin labelling is voluntary only, with many Australians unaware of how seafood is caught.

"This is an issue I care about, it's not political or about an individual group, it's just about something I think we could improve in Australia," he said.

"I am only doing this because I think it's worthwhile doing."

Mr Evans said if he reached his goal of 50,000 signatures, he would take the petition to the Senate himself try to overturn a previous attempt to change the legislation that was rejected.

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