Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Ellie Hooper: Greenpeace Aotearoa Oceans Lead on the government's u-turn on the fisheries act

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Ellie Hooper: Greenpeace Aotearoa Oceans Lead on the government's u-turn on the fisheries act · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Commercial fishes won't be allowed to catch and sell popular
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: undersized fish. After a Shane Jones walk back, there's about
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: a million recreational anglers in the country. Many said it
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: would harm the fish stocks, kill them off before they
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: could spawn. Ellie Hooper is with Greenpeace, joins me this morning.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Hey Ellie, Ellie, you're there.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yeap?
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Gotcha? All good? So so you're happy with this?
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: No, I'd say we're not happy with it, to be honest,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: And I don't think either of the wreck fishers. I mean,
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: I think basically what's happened here is the government have
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: been given one small concession in a bill that is
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: essentially a bonfire and will cause the ocean health to
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: degrade further if it's allowed to pass. I don't think
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: that New Zealanders are fooled by one of the worst
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: parts of this bill being removed, but a whole bunch
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: of really problematic things remaining. What's the bill?
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: What's the most problematic for you is that the fact
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: that you can't come back and argue You've got a
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: limited timeframe. Who argue if something goes wrong? What is it?
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, well, I think ensure. I mean it
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: reads like a wish list to the commercial trawling industry. Still, so, yes,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: there's the big problem with the kind of erosion of
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: public participation, public consultation, just as you said, the kind
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: of the limit on judicial review, which has been a
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: really useful pathway for groups to actually challenge bad decisions
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: made by the Fisheries Minister. And there's also the issue
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: of cameras on boats, because that is a really important
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: part of transparency around this industry that they struggle with.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: But essentially under this bill, it says we're going to
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: lock that footage up, you can't access it, and anybody
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: who leaks it, so that includes a journalist individual organization
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: could be finned up to fifty thousand dollars. So it's
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: really problematic because essentially silencing all New Zealander's right to
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: have a say and saying the only people who get
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: to talk about what happens in the ocean is the
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: commercial fishing industry.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Ellie, you know bottom trawling, which I know you have
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a big problem with. Was reading this morning. This is
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: from that the total area trolled in our Exclusive economic
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Zone and territorial waters between nineteen ninety and twenty twenty
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: four was only eleven percent.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting statistics that the government us. I mean,
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: I think my understanding is that fishable depths in New
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: Zealand is a huge percentage of the fishable depth in
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: New Zealand that has been trolled at some point in
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: our history. And I think you know also, we're incredibly
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: reliant on bottom trawlling in New Zealand and that's a problem.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: A huge amount of our catch comes from it. We've
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: all watched David Attamer's Ocean documentary. We've seen the impact.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: And no matter what the fishing industry says about how
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: bottom tralling is somehow magically better in New Zealand, it's
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: simply not true. What we could have done under these
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: reforms is start addressing some of those real problems that
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: we're facing in fisheries in New Zealand, like maybe not
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: incentivizing the worst types of fishing bottom trawling and incentivize
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: more selective practices. But actually this just reads like a
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: wish list for the commercial touring industry to make things
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: easier for them.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Really appreciate your time. Elie Hooper Greenpeace for more.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: From early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live to news
• 3:09
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• 3:12
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