Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / James Meager: Hunting and Fishing Minister on changes to Fish and Game New Zealand

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James Meager: Hunting and Fishing Minister on changes to Fish and Game New Zealand · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The governments announced this morning in overhaul of fishing game
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: in z to improve management of fishing and hunting resources.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Changes include things like making license holder is eligible to
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: stand in fishing game elections more of them, shifting to
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a national fee collection system, and requiring a national policy
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: around restricting court proceedings. Minister for Hunting and Fishing is
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: James Mega with me this morning. James, Good morning, morning, Ran.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Good to have you on the show. This all sounds
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: quite complicated, is it. Why do you need to do
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: anything to fit to fishing game.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of the reformers some technical reform, but
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: for a while we've seen that fishing game has had
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: some issues around how efficiently it operates. There's been a
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: bit of dysfunction between the regions and the National Council.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: So pre election we campaign on modernizing and reforming fishing games.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: So we're going to pull it out of the Conservation Act,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: make its own standalone act and then tidy up some
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: of the issues around consistency across the country, standards operations
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: of the region, and make sure that license holders get
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: better value for money.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Has this got anything to do? You know, the fed
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: farmers in South and have the starts for fishing game
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and fishing game are going and advocating for cleaner waters
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and it's affecting the farmers. Has got anything to do
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: with that? Will it change anything to do with that?
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's an example of some of the consequences
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: of how the organization has been running over the past
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: few years. So one of the changes will be to
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: tidy out that so that the National Council actually sets
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: a standard advocacy policy across the country and any court
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: proceedings would have to go through the National Council. And
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: that will limit some of the advocacy functions of some
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: of the regions, but it also makes them consistent across
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: the country so that they actually focus on hunting and
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: fishing outcomes rather than getting involved in other areas that
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: actually perhaps other NGOs are better place to be involved in.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: So if you're a farmer in Southend right now, you're
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: hearing this as ministers gagging fish and game Southend.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: No, it's not gagging fishing games South because fishing game
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: will still have their advocacy functions in terms of being
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: able to go up there and promote say fishing to
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: young people or go out there and tell people where
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: they can and can't be fishing or hunting game birds.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: The better way of looking at it is that we
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: want Fishing Game to be seen as a reputable national organization,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: so they need to have a consistent approach to their
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: activities and we want them to be focusing on managing
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: the game bird populations in the sport fish populations rather
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: than getting involved in how muti of long lost and
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: cause cases.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: How much cow urinees in a river. So they won't
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: because the problem was this went back and forth in
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: the environment caught in Southland, Fishing Game was heavily involved
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: in advocating for the health of the waterways, et cetera.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: You're saying that that wouldn't that wouldn't be their role anymore.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Well, they can still advocate for the health of waterways
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: where it improves fisheries. But what I'm going to say
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: is that there should be a consistent approach across the
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: country where all regions are taking a similar pathway to this,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: and we want it to be set at a level
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: where the National Council are actually directing this and so
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: they'll be the ones that will be able to say
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: where the legal proceedings go ahead or not, and the
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Minister as well. We just want to make sure that
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: we're license holders are being forced to pay a fee
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: to fishing game that that sees not then being used
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: to restrict the license holders income war businesses for example.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: We don't think that's necessarily fair. We want to make
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: sure that all that kind of really strong advocacy is
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: well thought out and is actually contributing to enhanced fisheries
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: and game god management.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: All right, Minister, appreciate you time this morning. Having a
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: great day, James Mega, Minister of Hunting and Fishing. For
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.
• 3:35
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• 3:39
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