| Kahawai
team backs embattled Anderton
By
Tim Donoghue
30
May 2007
This
article was originally published in The
Independent on 30th May 2007.
Embattled Fisheries Minister Kim Anderton has received support for
his stalled legislative sustainable fishery endeavours from recreational
fishermen.
Recreational fishing advocate Scott Macindoe said those involved
in the Kahawai Legal Challenge appeal supported Anderton’s
Fisheries Amendment Bill, which attempts to prioritise sustainable
fishing.
Big commercial players in the fishing industry, Sanford and Sealord
among them, are appealing Justice Rhys Harrison’s judicial
review decision confirming sustainability of individual fisheries
must come first in the management of fisheries.
“The Kahawai Legal Challenge team supports the Minister’s
intention to take a precautionary approach. This will help ensure
sustainability of the fisheries for the benefit of all of our communities,”
Macindoe said.
“Despite industry and political agitation for the proposed
(Fisheries Act) amendment to be dropped, the Kahawai Legal Challenge
team argues that commercial assets will be enhanced in the long
term if ‘best practice’ management is embraced to ensure
availability and abundance for recreational, customary and commercial
fishing.”
He said it was short-term thinking to say constraint undermined
the value of settlements. “Fish left in the sea are fish in
the bank for the future. Such improvements to management will ultimately
benefit everyone and help maintain the cherished activity of ‘fishing
for a feed’ and the pleasure of fishing enjoyed regularly
by more than one million New Zealanders,” Macindoe said.
At a meeting in Wellington last week Anderton was given a different
message by Labour’s Maori MPs, who told the Fisheries Minister
they wanted his legislation thrown out.
Labour’s Maori caucus views Anderton’s amending legislation
as an attempt to reduce the value of the early 1990s Sealord Maori
fisheries settlement. The Maori Party agrees.
The legislation will not impact on fishing quota for the fishing
year beginning on October 1 as Primary Production select committee
chairman David Carter has told Anderton his committee is in no hurry
to report the legislation back to Parliament.
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