Govt told domestic fleet in peril

Press, 18 March 1988, Page 5

Govt told domestic fleet in peril

j -; il By

TONY SMITH

in Nelson

The Zealand fish industry was dying while the Government played host to foreign fishing fleets, the vice-president of the Fishing Industry Association, Mr Peter Talley, said! in Nelson yesterday. ! ! . . i : .

Mr Talley, the managing director of Talley’s Fisheries in Motueka, was called on to thank the Minister of Fisheries, Mr Moyle, for a keynote address. to the association’s annual conference. However, he seized the: opportunity to lambast Government policies wh’ich he claimed had placed the fishing industry in a "very real crisis.” “From our point jof view your Government's policies are killing the domestic fleet, (chasing away the . charter fleet and hosting the I foreign fleet, and dare say it, the | Maori canoes,” Mr Talley said. |

Four large domestic trawlers were field up at New Zealand wharves, with a loss of . 74, jobs. A host of inshore I vessels were also idle | because they did not have sufficient by-catch quotas tomake it economic 1 to go to sea. They could no longer survive with a negative cash flow, Mr Talley said.

Mr Talley said two association members had expressed deep I concern that overseas j charter operators had withdrawn from their contracts principally because New Zea-

land’s ( resource rental charges were the highest in the world. They had been required to pay for fish they could not catch and in many cases, pay for fish that did not exist. He also cited the crippling diesel fuel excise duty which meant 50.2 per cent of fishing companies’ total fuel costs were going into Government coffers. "We are unable to accept this burden,” Mr Talley said. . The association had "washed its dirty linen in the laundry and had not reverted to news media or political lobbying, but the Government's policies were forcing it to consider those options. It was a crying shame that the industry had had to use litigation on squid fishing and resource rental issues, Mr Talleytold Mr Moyle. “Had your staff listened to us, ' that could have been averted.” I Mr Talley said the industry was dying and needed urgent action from the Government. His impromptu attack is unlikely to help smooth the stormy seas which have kept the industry and the Government apart

for the last year. ( In( his address to the conference Mr Moyle had alluded to the testy relationship between the two parties. He bemoaned the fact I that industry stances had j become so entrenched that it was no longer possible to settle disputes without recourse to: legal action.

i Oh-going challenges to the ( quota management system meant it would be difficult to continue the "free and frank exchange” the two parties had enjoyed in the past. i The recent legal moves had made it necessary for each action taken by the Government to be prefaced by consideration of legal implications. j Stateme.nts from Ministryistaff had to be cleared first from a legal point of view and they would enter debates with a concern for the consequences of i any unguarded statement they might make. : “I hope that in due course as the new quota system settles down, people will find less need to I seek legal remedies and the former process of debate and conciliation will continue,” said Mr Moyle.

He said the controversial individual transferable quote system’s principles and practices how seemed to be well understood and the Government was not contemplating any further major changes. He said increasing “New Zealandisation’'’ of marine had led to a marked reduction in the foreign allocation from that provided at the introduction of (the 200mile economic zone. Foreign-licensed nations had (accepted 65,000 tonnes, or 10 per cent of the total Allowable catch for all I.T.Q. species in the current fishing year.

' A policy of ah annual 10 per cent reduction of foreign-licensed quota was adopted after the 1985 review of the deepwater fisheries policy,; with the reduction to be (tendered to the domestic industry. However, advances in New Zealand’s ( catching capacity had caused closer attention to be paid to the fishing industry's specific requirements for particular species’ quotas held by foreign nations. ( Reductions of foreign quotas had had to be

made in line with domestic capacity to (take particular species, Mr Moyle said. i ' ! i: i

“It is still the Government’s intention that any increase in quota available to] the industry will be put up for tender.” Mr Moyle said a much closer scrutiny of the processes by which foreign allocations were determined would need to be made for the next fishing year. ; To a degree, some foreign nations' were already working their licensed fishing fleet at the minimal level needed to maintain a presence in New Zealand waters.

“The maintenance of this presence has wider implications in the bilateral relationship between New Zealand and other nations, touching on questions of trade, for example,” Mr Moyle said. “So before decisions are taken on whether New Zealand should continue to maintain a foreignlicensed presence in the economic zone, there is little doubt that an examination of the wider bilateral implications will be taken.”