Ewen-Street Ian: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ewen-Street Ian: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15133] 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 Fundamentally this bill is about bringing new species into the quota management system but so far I have not heard anybody query whether that is a good idea. I have heard Phil Heatley say that it is the best system and maybe he is right but certainly it is not the only system. I agree it is a useful tool but it is just a tool in a tool-box. Why for instance do we give people the right in perpetuity—and I say “give” intentionally—to fish stocks that are worth sometimes tens of millions of dollars? The answer I often get when I ask the question about why we use that system is that it gives firstly security to fishermen. But what about the fish? Secondly it is said we can control what is caught. But what about security for the fish? 
Brian Connell 
: Bet he kisses the pregnant ones. 
Simon Power 
: What about houses for fish? [ 
Interruption 
] 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Land rights for gay whales! The idea that the quota management system actually gives security for the ministry to control the number of fish caught is a fallacy. Indeed the system is wide open to be rorted. The mechanism by which it could be rorted is that if fishermen want to catch fish—for example a valuable species like orange roughy—they do not need a quota. But they do need a fisheries permit and they can get a permit if they have a quota for 5 tonnes of any species. 
 So if I wanted to rort the system I would get a fishing permit for sea snails or something equally valuable and charter a boat from overseas somewhere. I would come into New Zealand trawl for sea snails and accidentally catch 20 tonnes of orange roughy scampi or whatever it is that happens to be valuable. I would come into a New Zealand port having done everything legally—I would have my fisheries permit—and I would have unfortunate by-catch. Pardon the pun. I have my permit I land all of my fish I get paid for them in the market and now all I have to do is pay deemed value for the fish that I landed. So while the ministry is calculating the deemed value I am in Baluchistan or somewhere else. I have given my charter boat back and left the country. I have the money from selling my 20 tonnes of orange roughy or whatever it is and I have scarpered. 
What sort of security does the quota management system give the fishery? It is not very good at all. I think the idea of giving people rights in perpetuity has been shown up in the land tenure debate we are having at the moment. In the past Governments gave South Island high-country run holders the rights in perpetuity to lease Government land. Now we are having to buy it back. It is a system that did not work and I maintain that the quota management system is a system that will have to be revisited in the future. 
One of the debates we had in the select committee about this bill was about highly migratory species and taking fish from outside of New Zealand territorial waters. Most members seem to overlook the fact that high-seas fishing is the most energy intensive form of food production in the world. When fuel prices go up the deep-sea fishers will be the first to go out of business. Yet we are trying to give these people quota on the basis of them rushing out into the high seas and catching as many fish as they possibly can now—to basically rape the fishery in order to get quota from outside our territorial waters. It is simply unsustainable. The quota management system is fine as a tool in a tool-box but not as a mechanism on its own. I think we should look at the sustainability of the fishery over and above the administrative convenience of the officials of the ministry.