Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones at the 2025 Seafood NZ conference in Nelson. Photo: RNZ / Samantha Gee
The Oceans and Fisheries Minister says he does want to see more fish caught if they can be sustainably harvested and that the biggest opportunity for growth in the sector is in farming more fish, including freshwater species.
Shane Jones on Thursday announced the most significant Fisheries Act reforms in decades, which include allowing for greater catch limits when fish stocks are abundant and preventing on-board camera footage being made public.
The seafood industry has welcomed the proposed overhaul of the rules, saying they will allow for sustainable growth in the sector, despite concerns the changes will further threaten already-fragile marine environments.
"This is a once in a lifetime shot to change the rules and regulations in this particular industry and to ensure that it is fit for purpose given the range of challenges our economy is facing, but in particular have been a long time coming," Jones said at the annual Seafood NZ conference in Nelson.
Jones told attendees they should "get involved in shepherding these reform options through" if they wanted better certainty, investment and job security.
"Please do not buy into this fountain of mistruth that what I am doing on behalf of our government represents a mortal threat to every other critter in the ocean."
He said the fishing industry was "not the sole reason why the hoiho penguin has got problems".
Jones said he supported the industry working smarter and taking more responsibility, with quota owners delivering more, but he did not support the "dystopian view that somehow I've handed over state control".
The nation was facing grave economic challenges and change in the sector was long overdue, he said.
Annual seafood industry exports, across wild capture and aquaculture, are currently worth around $2.2 billion, with the government wanting that to grow that to $3b in annual revenue by 2035.
"I want to say to my opponents, we are facing inordinately high levels of unemployment, our export percentage GDP-wise has declined, the need for new ways of extracting value out of our natural resources sector has actually increased in importance, not decreased," Jones said.
That meant catching more fish - if it could be sustainably harvested - and exploring options for farming more fish, including freshwater species like trout and grass carp, which required further regulatory changes.
Shane Jones says he wants to see more fish caught if they can be sustainably harvested Photo: 123RF
Seafood NZ, Sealord support planned reforms
Seafood NZ chief executive Lisa Futschek said the industry group supported the proposed reforms, which would bolster seafood exports in a sustainable way.
"We are able to make more responsive management decisions around the 642 stocks that sit within the quota management system, now that might mean in cases where the science shows us that there is abundance, that we increase the catch limit, but in other cases it might mean where that stock is under pressure, we decrease it."
Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin said the changes would allow for better fisheries management and offer more flexibility.
With hundreds of different fish stocks and only a small number reviewed each year, he said catch limits were either set too low, or too high and often didn't align with what skippers were seeing in real time.
"They'll be the first ones to say, we aren't finding the level of abundance that we expected to find, therefore we want the limit to be dropped, this has happened a number of times at Sealord where our skippers have actually said, we believe this fishery actually needs to have a cut, but unfortunately the ministry aren't due to look at it for another three or four years and lo and behold, we [later] find out that actually the abundance of that species is well below where it was purported to be, whereas under these rules, we could have actually dropped the catch limit much earlier.
He did not think the proposed changes would increase overfishing.
"The only way we have a fishing industry is to look after the fish stocks and the environment that we fish in, so it makes no sense to catch so many fish that you're not going to have a business in three, four, five years so we'll be the first ones to say we believe we should take a cut and we should take it now in order to have abundance in the future."
Doug Paulin says the changes would allow for better fisheries management. Photo: Supplied / Sealord
Disappointing to see commercial interests put ahead of sustainability - trust
Labour's oceans and fisheries spokesperson Rachel Boyack said sustainable growth in the seafood sector was crucial, but the proposed carry forward of quota from year to year was concerning.
"If quota is underused for two or three years and then gets added up and can be used for one large season, that could have the potential to decimate that particular fishery stock and I think we need to be really cautious about making such a change.
"It is true that we don't have good enough data to be able to make those kinds of decisions and I think that is where the efforts should be."
Ngāti Manuhiri Settlement Trust chief executive Nicola Rata-MacDonald said it was disappointing to see commercial interests being put ahead of sustainability and conservation principles.
"We know that regeneration is key to a thriving fisheries sector - that's why we've welcomed previous moves by the government to close tipa (scallop) fisheries, remove kina barrens, and reduce take limits on other fish species to allow stocks to replenish."
Rata-MacDonald said allowing for intensified fishing in the future, alongside changes to landing and discard rules, just made overfishing easier.
"Commercial fishers failing to catch their annual entitlement isn't caused by some adverse event or special individual circumstances, it's caused by the depletion of already-vulnerable fish stocks."
Greenpeace oceans campaigner Ellie Hooper said the reforms would weaken transparency in the fishing sector, which she said was already data deficient.
"This year the orange roughy stock on the Chatham Rise has collapsed, the commercial fishing industry have fished it down to 8 percent, it looks like, of the original population, they are meant to manage that resource sustainably, but they haven't."
LegaSea chief executive Sam Woolford said the proposed changes showed the government was ignoring the interests of everyday New Zealanders.
"The reality of fishing, both recreational, non-commercial, customary is that we need a healthy, abundant, vibrant, ecosystem, we need fish in the water and these changes, yes they are going to expedite processes and remove regulations but at the cost of the environment."
An amendment bill will be introduced to Parliament later this year, and people will be able to give feedback on the proposed reforms during the select committee process.
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