Ewen-Street Ian: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
Ewen-Street Ian: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
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IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 Members will note that I have put forward an amendment to clause 67 and I would like to point out a typographic error in the first line. It should be “section 2(2)” rather than “section 2(20)”. That clause concerns the qualifying years and I make a couple of points about that. 
First of all the idea of having the qualifying years as the years from 1990 to 1992 introduces a considerable unfairness if one takes into account the fact that in the 1990-91 year fishers were allocated individual catch entitlements. If they then went out and fished in the second year using their individual catch entitlement allocation they were effectively double dipping: they could get a double allocation from the one lot of fish they had actually caught—which is an unfairness in itself. 
The second unfairness concerns the boats Simunovich Fisheries had—the  
Drysdale 
and the  
Petersen 
. Mr Heatley says that the company was entitled to have them there and that incorrect information was given by the ministry. 
Phil Heatley 
: Impression. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: OK—an impression was given by them. There was a very clear impression in writing from the ministry in fact to all other fishers to say that those years would not be the catch history years. So my sympathy for Simunovich Fisheries is very very limited. I take Mr Heatley’s point but compared with the other fishers who were actively excluded from the fishery in those years—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: We have just heard a cellphone. The member will please turn it off. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: Is there a doctor in the house! My first suggestion in the amendments I have put forward is that the catch history years of 1990-92 be modified so that in areas 1 and 2 the catch history is based on the first year only not on the individual catch entitlement allocations from the first year that then aggregate into the second year. 
Secondly of course the  
Petersen 
 and the  
Drysdale 
should be taken away because those boats were fishing when improperly permitted. The reason is that Simunovich Fisheries was told it could use five boats at any one time. It used the  
Petersen 
 and the  
Drysdale 
 without taking its other boats out of service and when there was a breakdown it used them in an immediate rollover to replace the ones that had broken down. For argument’s sake that was an opportunity not given to fishers with a single boat. If those fishers had had breakdowns they would simply have had to go without fishing. 
In area 4 west I am suggesting that we use the best 12 consecutive months in the period of 1991-93. In area 4 east—that is the Chatham Rise area—there is an opportunity to provide a “Chatham Islands quota management area” that again uses the 1990-92 catch history years and again excludes the catch history of the  
Drysdale 
 and the  
Petersen 
. 
The whole problem associated with scampi is allocation. If the fishers who were involved in the industry—or who should have been involved in the industry but were not because of mistakes by the ministry—were given a reasonable allocation then I think the whole problem about scampi fisheries would simply disappear. 
The allocation this model gives using the qualifying years of 1990-92 creates enormous injustice. The people who have been dealt with in an unjust way have proved their case over and over again. They have taken it to court and they have won they have taken it to the Court of Appeal and they have won—and I could go on. 
What we need to do is give a fair allocation. If that means taking a little bit away from Simunovich Fisheries that that company should never have had in the first place it is not actually taking anything away from it. It is like a person picking up a $10 note and having the use of it for a year until the person realises it is somebody else’s $10 note and has to give it back. It was not that person’s in the first place so it has not been taken away from him or her. 
It is interesting that the years 1990-92 are used for area 6B because that is an area that Simunovich Fisheries did not fish in. It did not have catch history there.