Scott Macindoe: Sport Fishing Council President on Shane Jones' proposed changes for fisheries sector

Fishing practices are facing a major overhaul, on a scale not seen for decades. 

Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones says his new reforms remove obstacles to growth, for the $1.5 billion dollar industry. 

The changes include simpler land and discard rules for fishers on monitored vessels - and the exclusion of on-board camera footage from the Official Information Act.

Sport Fishing Council President Scott Macindoe says he doesn't approve of these proposed changes.

"Anyone who takes these proposals seriously and takes them forward into legislation - we're staggered. Nothing of what we've offered has been taken seriously."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Shane Jones has announced an overhaul of our commercial fishing laws.
He's going to change the way that catch limits are
set and make it so that we the public can't
access footage from the on board cameras through THEYA the
Official Information Act like we can at the moment. Scott
macindo is the president of the Sport Fishing Council and
with us. Now, Hey Scott, good.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Afternoon, Heather.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Do you like his changes?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
No?

Speaker 1 (00:21):
Why no?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
We've made a reasoning very clear in the submission that
we submitted earlier this year. There's sixty pages of pretty
dry dentse reading. Anyone who takes any of these proposals
seriously and takes them forward into legislation, really, we're staggered.

(00:48):
Nothing of what we've offered has been to take him seriously.
So no, we're very unhappy.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
What don't you like about it?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
We're dealing with twelve propose they're all different, the first
one multi and we're not going to have time to
go through them one at a time. And believe you me,
this stuff is very conceptual and complex. The first one
multi year catch decisions. Opening sentence rejected outright. We've watched
multi year catch decisions used and fail in a number

(01:21):
of instances. One that's really close and near and dear
to our hearts is the Hanaky Gulf Pray fishery, what
we call Area two, which goes from Mungawai in the
north all the way down to Cape Runaway, where using
these pre set decision rules, I should say, allowing for

(01:45):
industry to drive the management of these fisheries based on
their catch per unit of effort, which is like a
proxy for an abundance index, already lost the audience In
blind them with science, we drove that fishery down to
a bizarre three hundred grams of crayfish per pot lift.

(02:09):
They had to they had to lift three crayfish pods
to catch a kilo of crayfish.

Speaker 1 (02:16):
So what saying is they can't regulate themselves, right, They
can't say, hey, things are getting low, let's just let's
stop for a minute there, They just keep going.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Correct. What, in essence, what we're saying is that the
use of property rights to manage fisheries, this is the
quota management system is not working. And we've been consistent
on this for twenty five years, and with one fishery
after another going over the cliff scarlets gone, harpooker bass.
They're a distant memory for most of us that you

(02:47):
can still travel way way out to see and catch
a few harpooker if you're a commercial fisherman. But their
serial depletion has seen them vanishing the lakes of our
Gernard and John Dory Tarakuihi massively over allocated. They can't
possibly catch what they're allowed to catch, no matter how
hard they try. So we're saying, hey, guys, let's stop

(03:12):
this sham of management with property rights and have a
real go at reform, proper reform.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
What about the fact that you can't you won't be
able to use the OIA to access what's been going
on on the cameras.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
A The defense is the privacy of those men and
women working at sea and their rights of privacy, and
that has to be taken into account.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
What we know is that when cameras were implemented, the
catch of protected species and the declared catch of fish
that they didn't have quoted for went through the roof. Yeah,
these guys have there are a lure under themselves when
they get over the horizon. Okay, and where I'm really

(04:04):
if I was a commercial fisherman, I'd welcome cameras because
that's provenance. I've got nothing to hide. I'm fishing with respect.
I'm doing my best to utilize every fish I catch,
and my customers are going to value that, and I'm
quite confident that they're going to be willing to pay
for that good behavior, for that respect. Scott, that's gone missing.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Thank you for your time. I appreciate it that. Scott McIndoe,
Sport Fishing Council President. Sorry to see the text coming in,
so I'm sure we're going to get a bit of
feedback on that.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
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