James Meager: Hunting and Fishing Minister on changes to Fish and Game New Zealand

New Government reforms aim to tidy up inconsistencies in Fish and Game New Zealand. 

It will be shifted to a nationalised fee collection system to reduce double handling of fees. 

Fish and Game councils will also be required to consider the interests of other stakeholders, like farmers and the aviation sector, when it comes to decision making. 

Hunting and Fishing Minister James Meager told Ryan Bridge he wants to ensure councils function efficiently.

He says there should be a consistent approach across the country.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The governments announced this morning in overhaul of fishing game

(00:02):
in z to improve management of fishing and hunting resources.
Changes include things like making license holder is eligible to
stand in fishing game elections more of them, shifting to
a national fee collection system, and requiring a national policy
around restricting court proceedings. Minister for Hunting and Fishing is
James Mega with me this morning. James, Good morning, morning, Ran.

(00:24):
Good to have you on the show. This all sounds
quite complicated, is it. Why do you need to do
anything to fit to fishing game.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, a lot of the reformers some technical reform, but
for a while we've seen that fishing game has had
some issues around how efficiently it operates. There's been a
bit of dysfunction between the regions and the National Council.
So pre election we campaign on modernizing and reforming fishing games.
So we're going to pull it out of the Conservation Act,
make its own standalone act and then tidy up some

(00:53):
of the issues around consistency across the country, standards operations
of the region, and make sure that license holders get
better value for money.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Has this got anything to do? You know, the fed
farmers in South and have the starts for fishing game
and fishing game are going and advocating for cleaner waters
and it's affecting the farmers. Has got anything to do
with that? Will it change anything to do with that?

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, So that's an example of some of the consequences
of how the organization has been running over the past
few years. So one of the changes will be to
tidy out that so that the National Council actually sets
a standard advocacy policy across the country and any court
proceedings would have to go through the National Council. And
that will limit some of the advocacy functions of some

(01:37):
of the regions, but it also makes them consistent across
the country so that they actually focus on hunting and
fishing outcomes rather than getting involved in other areas that
actually perhaps other NGOs are better place to be involved in.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
So if you're a farmer in Southend right now, you're
hearing this as ministers gagging fish and game Southend.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
No, it's not gagging fishing games South because fishing game
will still have their advocacy functions in terms of being
able to go up there and promote say fishing to
young people or go out there and tell people where
they can and can't be fishing or hunting game birds.
The better way of looking at it is that we
want Fishing Game to be seen as a reputable national organization,

(02:18):
so they need to have a consistent approach to their
activities and we want them to be focusing on managing
the game bird populations in the sport fish populations rather
than getting involved in how muti of long lost and
cause cases.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
How much cow urinees in a river. So they won't
because the problem was this went back and forth in
the environment caught in Southland, Fishing Game was heavily involved
in advocating for the health of the waterways, et cetera.
You're saying that that wouldn't that wouldn't be their role anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Well, they can still advocate for the health of waterways
where it improves fisheries. But what I'm going to say
is that there should be a consistent approach across the
country where all regions are taking a similar pathway to this,
and we want it to be set at a level
where the National Council are actually directing this and so
they'll be the ones that will be able to say
where the legal proceedings go ahead or not, and the

(03:07):
Minister as well. We just want to make sure that
we're license holders are being forced to pay a fee
to fishing game that that sees not then being used
to restrict the license holders income war businesses for example.
We don't think that's necessarily fair. We want to make
sure that all that kind of really strong advocacy is
well thought out and is actually contributing to enhanced fisheries
and game god management.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
All right, Minister, appreciate you time this morning. Having a
great day, James Mega, Minister of Hunting and Fishing. For
more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
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