There has been a great deal of recent research activity trying to develop methods to produce stock assessments, or at least management advice, for fisheries that can be characterized as data-poor. Data-poor often means that the only data available are catches. There are, of course, limitations, but not surprisingly, given the discussion is about data-poor species, the most promising options for progress are what can be termed ‘model-assisted’ methods. Essentially, these use a mathematical model, some of whose parameters are conditioned on what is known about the productivity of the species concerned, assumptions are made about the current state of the fishery (these need not be highly informative), and then model parameters are trialed to search for those that predict plausible biomass trajectories. Obtaining management advice from such assessment models tends to remain focused on systems other than how things are done in Australia. This talk will illustrate the use of such methods and how they can be used at least with regard to the Australian Commonwealth Harvest Strategy Policy.