No incentive to stop catching undersized fish, minister says

Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says opponents of his plans to scrap minimum size limits for commercial fishers have actually given the industry what they wanted all along.

The New Zealand First MP said commercial fishers would have no incentive to stop catching undersized fish, and he told the Prime Minister Christopher Luxon that on Wednesday night, who said he would not change his position.

Jones was last month forced into a major U-turn on removing most minimum size limits in the Fisheries Amendment Bill after National and ACT effectively threatened to pull their support for the law.

He faced questions about the bill in the primary production select committee on Thursday.

Jones said the limits allowed fishers to catch undersized fish and put them back, without paying for it.

Removing the limits meant fishers would have to bring all fish they catch to shore - so even undersized fish would come off their quota.

He said former Labour MP David Parker had intended to remove the minimum requirements in an earlier version of the bill.

"I rung him and asked him, why the hell did you do this in the first place? He said, 'Well, Shane, I was advised internationally that is the best way to change the behaviour of harvesters, and penalise them, because it will come off their legal entitlement.'"

Jones said he probably did not explain that well, but once there was public uproar and he met with the prime minister and NZ First leader Winston Peters, "that was it".

"It's the industry who's very happy that the wrecks and the Greens and all my other millions of opponents stopped undersized fish, including the National Party," he said.

"But what they don't realise they've given the industry exactly what they wanted all along. They do not want to bring undersized fish back and have it come off their quota."

Jones said he spoke with Luxon about it on Wednesday night, who said that would not change his position.

He told the committee people were also "highly agitated" about an element of the bill which allowed fishers to carry over any leftover quota from one year to the next.

Labour MP Rachel Boyack said she was concerned "that if quota has been built up over time and not used, that then it allows a large... amount to be taken and that could have a massive impact on a fishery stock".

Jones said that would not compromise the total allowable commercial catch, or threaten the sustainability of stock.

"Is it something that I think is worth fighting for? Yeah, I do."

Jones was also questioned about plans to stop making fishing vessels' camera footage public.

Green MP Steve Abel said the public deserved to know if fishers were breaching the law, and it would lead to better enforcement.

Jones said he accepted coverage of breaches would change behaviour "but I'm asking you to, as a Parliamentarian, stay with the model. The enforcement of the law in the country rests with the cops and the regulators."

He was also questioned about bottom trawling, with Green MP Teanau Tuiono saying the social license for it had "evaporated", asking Jones how he could continue supporting it.

At Parliament on Wednesday, National MP Grant McCallum received a petition with 73,000 signatures calling for a ban on the practice, presented by ultra-marathon swimmer Jono Ridler, who swam the length of the North Island for the cause.

Jones said: "70 percent of the fish in New Zealand is currently caught by... dredging. So I don't think it's fair to use social license as a basis for smudging out 70 percent of an industry. I just cannot agree on that."

Jones said stopping bottom trawling would be making a moral judgement that "some unseen coral" in the ocean was of more importance than the right to fish.

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