Fishermen Want Stay On Committee’s Findings

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30056, 14 February 1963, Page 12

Fishermen Want Stay On Committee’s Findings

The New Zealand Federation of Commercial Fishermen has asked the Minister of Marine (Mr Gerard) for an assurance that the Government will not implement recommendations of the Fishing Industry Committee until Parliament resumes. It wants to discuss the report and make representations on any proposed legislation.

Members of the executive, which met in Wellington on Tuesday, had expressed full support for several of the recommendations, especially those aimed at promoting research into the fishing potential of New Zealand, more orderly marketing, the elimination of waste and finance for fishermen who desired to own their own boats, said the secretary (Mr J. P. Davies) yesterday. It seem incongurous to the executive that the committee had ignored an offer from the two main sections of the industry to contribute to the cost of promoting the development, and that the Government was being advised to undertake the project on a departmental basis instead of assisting the establishment of a development corporation which had been proposed by the organised fishermen and the fish wholesalers, Mr Davies said. The fishing industry board proposed by the committee fell far short of that asked for by the federation, Mr Davies said. It would be little more effective than the present Fishing Industry Advisory Council

The federation has submitted that the board should be an autonomous body with Government backing, Mr Davies’s statement said.

Licensing Concern had also been expressed by the executive lest the proposal to abolish the licensing of fishing vessels should be implemented before there was research into the possible consequences, the statement continued. Noone knew whether unlimited fishing would deplete the stock in New Zealand waters. On the other, hand, regard

had to be taken of the periodic over-supply of markets, such as now threatened Auckland fishermen with under-employment.

On the recommendation to abolish one-port landings, the executive said this could lead to a boat discharging anywhere and any number of vessels could follow fish movements to any port they chose. This could mean that a considerable number of Wellington boats could go to Auckland and discharge their catch, causing a glut in Auckland and a shortage in Wellington. This would entail additional port facilities and railage to points of shortage, and this must increase the cost of the fish after it had been landed by the fisherman, the statement continued.

Crayfishing The executive had also thought that the report had not given sufficient regard to the unusual conditions governing crayfishing in the southern half of the South Island and that “implementation of the committee’s recom-

mendations could kill the crayfishing industry and throw fishermen out of employment in this region.”

On the recommendation that tailing at sea should cease, the statement said the only places in the southern part of the South Island where fish could be landed were Bluff or Milford. More often than not the weather was such that neither boat nor man could make the trip. To establish receiving depots in the sounds would certainly not be economic and it was doubtful if staff to man such a place would be available.

If crayfish died before processing they were useless, the statement said, so the fishermen believed there would be a much greater waste if the measures recommended by the committee were adopted than there was by the present method of tailing almost immediately. Few persons ate the meat from the body of crayfish, the statement said. “It is only from large crayfish that there is any worthwhile meat from the body, and this sized crayfish is almost a thing of the past.” The Minister and the Secretary of Marine (Mr G. L. O’Halloran) had been invited to speak to the annual conference of the federation in Auckland next month, Mr Davies added.