Association to appeal review rejection

Press, 16 August 1988, Page 5

Association to appeal review rejection

PA Nelson The Fishing Industry Association says it will appeal against a High Court rejection of its call for a review of the setting of the controversial fish resource rentals. 1 The association’s vicepresident, Mr Peter Talley, of Motueka, said the industry would fight the Government’s proposal to increase resource rentals by the maximum legal limit of 20 per cent this season. The High Court ruling, made last Thursday in Wellington by Mr Justice McGechan, dismissed the association’s application for a review of the actions of the Minister of Fisheries, Mr Moyle, in setting last year’s resource rentals. The association sought

to have last season’s rentals declared invalid, claiming Mr Moyle had acted unreasonably without proper consultation with the industry and had failed to take into account industry profitability when he set the 198788rentals at 20 per cent. Mr Talley said yesterday that the association intended to appeal, though it was “a great pity that we are forced to resolve our differences by litigation.” Confidence in the value of appealing was fuelled by Judge McGechan’s summation whch read, “there might now be some doubt, a hindsight, as to whether Mr Moyle’s view was correct.” Mr Talley said although the resource rental increase — expected to net

the Government an extra $4 million in the 1988-89 fishing year — was announced by Mr Moyle, there was a distinct feeling the decision to hit the fishing industry was Treasury-motivated. “We have been given until September 7 to counter the proposed level and we intend to use this time on careful evaluation of the philosophy that appears to motivate Treasury.” The industry had tried in vain to convince Treasury that fishing was in a “negative cash-flow situation.” “They disregard the proof of profit and loss statements instead prefer to concentrate on quotatraded prices as their source for profit assessments.”