Baldock Larry: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Baldock Larry: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
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LARRY BALDOCK (United Future) 
: 
 First I rise to acknowledge Phil Heatley’s speech before me and his clear explanation of the situation. I clarify too on behalf of United Future that Supplementary Order Paper 247 which I have put forward in my name will not in any way take kahawai out of the quota management system permanently. It is simply to provide a pause in order to get our facts straight and set the total allowable catch and the total allowable commercial catch levels appropriately. More important it provides a pause in order for the Minister and the Ministry of Fisheries to begin negotiations with the commercial sector on how to deal with the problem that has occurred by allowing purse seine fishing methods to be used to target kahawai. That is really the problem. There is no way to solve that problem unless we enter into negotiation with and possibly compensate the commercial fishers for the rights that may be taken away from them or for the rights that they expect to have. The problem will not be resolved by putting kahawai into the quota management system under the current levels because there will always be an opportunity for the purse-seiners to catch their quota before recreational fishers have had an opportunity or a fair go to exercise their right to catch kahawai. 
In answer to some questions today in the House the Minister gave the excuse that there would be no controls on the commercial sector if my Supplementary Order Paper was passed in the Committee today. I find that incredibly hard to accept or even to believe because controls have been exercised over the commercial sector prior to kahawai going into the quota management system. There are ways to set catch limits prior to quotas being issued and the Minister would need to exercise those controls albeit voluntarily as he may have intimated in his answers today. But nevertheless there is a way forward if we can put a stop to the total allowable commercial catch level going in as is recommended by the Minister’s  
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 notice. 
However that problem is not the only issue for recreational fishers. They have always said they have no objections to kahawai going into the quota management system. They know there are fishers who catch kahawai as a by-catch and who do not target it. The recreational fishing interests are not selfish. They have always acknowledged that when that occurs and kahawai are caught as a by-catch it is entirely appropriate that fishers can take them home smoke them and provide them on the roadside for New Zealanders to enjoy. That is something the recreational fishers can live with. They do not want to see a situation where commercial fishers are faced with deemed value penalties because they are not able to get sufficient quota for that by-catch and therefore start to dump the kahawai at sea which is a no-win situation for everybody. The concern of the recreational fishers is that not only do the total allowable commercial catch limits the Minister has put in place by his  
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 notice allow for purse seining to continue but they restrict the amount of by-catch quota that regular fishers will be able to get. In the kahawai 1 area over the last 5 years about 500 tonnes of kahawai have been caught as by-catch. Under the levels allocated by the Minister now fishers will be able to get only about 300 tonnes of quota to cover that by-catch. If the Minister intends to reduce the total allowable commercial catch even further next year in order to restrain purse seine fishing it will have the effect of further restricting the regular fishers who need that by-catch in order to cover what they catch incidentally as they go fishing. We do not believe that solution will be satisfactory. 
The second issue I raised today in the House is that there is a requirement in the Minister’s advice and his published statement for there to be a 15 percent reduction in the recreational catch. That is absurd. In order to achieve a 15 percent reduction in the actual figures there would need to be a reduction in the bag limit from 20 down to four kahawai. I do not understand how the Minister can expect recreational fishers in New Zealand to accept that their bag limit is to be cut from 20 to four while they watch the purse seiners continue to catch exactly the same amount of fish they have been catching on average in the last 5 years. I do not see how he can ever expect the average New Zealander to accept that as a reasonable and just solution to the problem.