Problems ‘inevitable’ if fishing rentals raised

Press, 19 July 1988, Page 8

Problems ‘inevitable’ if fishing rentals raised

p A Nelson Dozens of fishing vessels could be permanently laid up if resource rentals are increased as part of a Maori fishing rights settlement, the chief executive of Sealord Products, Dr Brian Rhoades, says. , J n f ,vh ch nwv hp tn

That would lead to several hundred redundancies and many millions of dollars lost, he said. Sealord contributed about $26 million a year to the Nelson economy through the wages and salaries paid to its 700 staff, and •goods and services bought locally. Dr Rhoades said that problems for the fishing industry were inevitable if the Government decided to markedly increase fish-

ing resource rentals to fund a new fishing corporation owned 75 per cent by the State and 25 per cent by Maori. “It is well-known that this is the intention,” he said. “It is stated in the recommendations of both Maori and Government members of the working party set up to negotiate a settlement to the Maori fishing rights issue.” It was equally wellknown that the funding

was expected to come from vastly increased resource rentals of well over $lOO million a year compared with the present $2O million, which was already crippling the industry. Dr Rhoades said. “If this happens it will be disastrous for places like Nelson where there is a concentration of commercial fishing activities, because the industry’s profitability simply cannot cope with it.

"Sealord would have grave difficulty meeting its share of the sort of increases being mooted and most of the other fishing companies working out of Nelson would face the same problem. "There would, in effect, be no industry.” Dr Rhoades said that the industry’s argument was not with Maoridom, but with the Government, which he accused of operating to a “secret agenda,” the ultimate aim

of which may be to nationalise the industry as a means of arriving at a settlement with Maoris. He said the Maori people appeared to have been given an expectation that they would receive tens of millions of dollars annually from resource rentals, and the Government could expect a backlash from them when it was proven that the industry simply could not afford to pay such sums.