Trawlermen to defer stoppage

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34048, 12 January 1976, Page 15

Trawlermen to defer stoppage

Y.V.Z. Press Associations • WELLINGTON, j Wellington trawlermen will defer their stoppage planned to take place from next Thursday until after Cabinet consideration of their case on January 20. The trawlermen had decided not to put to sea from January 15 in protest against price control on the fishing industry, and rising costs. Last week, after a statement by the Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr Adams-Schneider), a committee member of the Wellington Trawlermen’s Association Mr H. Hunter, conferred with the association’s president (Mr P. Stevens) by radio telephone. Mr Stevens had put to sea on Wednesday night and was not due back until the week-end. The two decided that in light of the Cabinet’s early meeting, the trawlermen would defer their stoppage until a “reasonable time” after the Cabinet meeting.

Mr Adams-Schneider said that the situation would be presented to the Cabinet on January 20, and that he hoped for an urgent decision. The Government would

maintain price control but would allow trawlermen to Irecover costs, he said. His eventual aim was to get rid of price control in the industry in the long term. Mr Hunter said after his discussion with Mr Stevens that the trawlermen would ask that the matter be considered by the Cabinet on January? 20. “We will defer our stoppage for a reasonable length of time after the 20th,” he said. The Wellington association’s action was for all New Zealand trawlermen, not just the local group, he said. PAYMENTS The association would like some indication from the Government that when a settlement was reached, payments would be distributed among the owners of the vessels and that capital would not be made by those who did not own boats and who did not have relevant costs. Mr Hunter said that the last increase was given to wholesalers to distribute as they saw fit and that this was unsatisfactory.