Fishing industry attacks study

Press, 27 July 1989, Page 7

Fishing industry attacks study

By

RICHARD CRESSWELL

Proposals in a Govern-ment-commissioned study on the fishing industry, suggesting a large increase in resource rentals, have been attacked by the fishing industry. The report, by Peat Marwick, proposes the industry pay $lOO million a year in rentals. The acting group director of MAFFish, Dr Robin Allen, said MAFFish would check the validity of the report’s findings, “but it has no reason to question them.” In a statement yesterday, the vice-president of the Fishing Industry Association, Mr Peter Talley, said the proposals were preposterous. The report was riddled with technical inaccuracies, he said. Total fish sales had been overstated.

Mr Talley said Government officials had appeared obsessed about orange roughy, which represented only 20 per

cent of the industry’s total revenue.

The report also concluded assets in use by the industry had increased in value. “Those who wrote the report were obviously unaware of the corrosive effects of salt water on fishing vessels," he said.

The board’s chief executive, Mr Ray Dobson, suggested it might be unconstitutional to increase the rental, which was a form of tax.

The industry had not been approached about the report, he said. Rentals, the fee paid for holding quotas and to cover the cost of the Government’s organisation of the industry, totalled $25 million a year. The report proposed an additional rental of $75 million from a total turnover of $B5O million, said Mr Dobson.

“The industry is just beginning to return to a normal level of return, and now this descends on us/’ he said.