Christopher Luxon, New Zealand Prime Minister 2023

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#3501916 11-Jun-2026 08:36

SaltyNZ:

MikeAqua:

Things have been dramatically improved for the seafood sector.

Well, at least until they finish killing off all the fish, anyway.

Yeah. Blocking OIA of camera footage, not counting excess catch, allowing catch to be dumped at sea. Great stuff, if you mean making things unsustainable but keeping profits for these private companies.

The government doesn't directly helicopter-drop money to them. But they do redistribute with their actions.

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#3502072 11-Jun-2026 13:52

SaltyNZ:

Well, at least until they finish killing off all the fish, anyway.

About half of the seafood industry (by revenue) doesn't catch fish. They farm it.

No-one who goes fishing wants to "[kill] all the fish". Otherwise ... they can't catch any next year.

Most stocks are stable or improving. Those that aren't are generally shared with recreational fishers.

Commercial fish take is collectively constrained. Although it's estimated for Total Allowable Catch each year, recreational catch is unconstrained in aggregate, and unknown. There are of course daily bag limits for many recreational species. But ... how many people go fishing how often and how much they catch is poorly understood.

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#3502088 11-Jun-2026 14:56

MikeAqua:

Commercial fish take is collectively constrained. Although it's estimated for Total Allowable Catch each year, recreational catch is unconstrained in aggregate, and unknown. There are of course daily bag limits for many recreational species. But ... how many people go fishing how often and how much they catch is poorly understood.

Recreational fishing limits absolutely need to be better enforced. But it's difficult to square the experience of our grandparents going fishing with the reality of today and still say that stocks are fine and recovering. Individual commercial fishermen may well be responsible but the big companies certainly don't go out of their way look responsible. Using the old "if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide" line - which I admit I hate - what is the reason to be so frightened of the cameras? Everyone else has cameras where they work.

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#3502099 11-Jun-2026 15:26

In other news, the Luxon government is going in to bat for the environmentally responsible fishing industry to ask the US government not to ban NZ seafood imports on the grounds that it won't make any difference anyway:

The Government has asked a United States court to toss out a bid to ban New Zealand fish imports to help protect Māui and Hector’s dolphins. It argues there is no evidence the fishing industry would change its practices as a result of a ban.

Your honour, no point sending my client to jail because we all know he's simply going to murder someone else as soon as he gets out anyway. May as well save ourselves all the hassle and just let him get on with it, eh?

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#3502110 11-Jun-2026 16:31

freitasm:

Yeah. Blocking OIA of camera footage, not counting excess catch, allowing catch to be dumped at sea. Great stuff, if you mean making things unsustainable but keeping profits for these private companies.

The government doesn't directly helicopter-drop money to them. But they do redistribute with their actions.

Imagine you undertake some sort of work that is controlled by government regs. Would you want video footage from your workplace subject to OIA? Probably not. What if you showered in your office under a hose? Or worked topless or ... what if your toilet was within shot of that camera?

FNZ gets and can surveil all video footage, and detect and prosecute any offences. Similar to police surveillance footage. Potentially interesting for Geekzoners is the R&D going into developing videos analysis tools to identify pertinent footage. Landing of gear and handling the catch is the pertinent time span but it's often <10% of footage.

Dumping is illegal. Has been for decades. However, fishers are currently legally obliged to discard of at sea, fish that are undersize. What is proposed is that fishers will have to report those fish against their Annual Catch Entitlement. That means less legal sized fish they can catch and sell each year. There aren't good markets for undersized fish. Catching fish is expensive. Catching fish of low value is worse. The incentive is therefore to move, and/or change the gear if they are catching small fish.

Most commercial fisheries in NZ are sustainable. By volume and revenue they tend towards highly sustainable. Some of them are independently certified as such. For example, in fisheries shared with recreational fishers, it's not unusual for commercial fishers to shelve quota (voluntarily reduce catch), and/or use high size limit.

The govt isn't redistributing anything to fishers. The distributions (quotas) happened a long time ago. Commercial fishers are using assets they own. You might not like that, but it's been the model since the mid-80s and it's benefitted fisheries.

The science work and regulatory work to support fisheries management is cost recovered by govt. Auditing individual fishers and licenced fish receivers is cost recovered. Onboard observers are cost recovered. Commercial fishers pay maritime transport levies. I can't think of a redistribution or subsidy particular to the fishing industry. Perhaps you can.

Recreational fishing in my experience is the best it's been since I started fishing (1980). As a recreational fisher, I get access to marine fisheries for free. The govt pays my share of the fisheries management costs for me and for everyone else - but most of you don't fish!

Mike

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#3502111 11-Jun-2026 16:33

SaltyNZ: But it's difficult to square the experience of our grandparents going fishing with the reality of today and still say that stocks are fine and recovering. Individual commercial fishermen may well be responsible but the big companies certainly don't go out of their way look responsible.

Many recreational type fishers will tell you that all coastal set netting and trawling should be banned outright for exactly that reason. It's easy to understand why. When you're on your fishing perch - you can see commercial vessels operating off the coast while you're catching very little - that is definitely going to grind your gears in a very specific way.

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#3502113 11-Jun-2026 16:38

MikeAqua: Would you want video footage from your workplace subject to OIA? Probably not. What if you showered in your office under a hose? Or worked topless or ... what if your toilet was within shot of that camera?

OIAs are almost always redacted to some extent. It would not worry me. Blurring irrelevant details like a person in an openair shower isn't going to be a serious problem.

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#3502114 11-Jun-2026 16:40

MikeAqua:

freitasm:

Yeah. Blocking OIA of camera footage, not counting excess catch, allowing catch to be dumped at sea. Great stuff, if you mean making things unsustainable but keeping profits for these private companies.

The government doesn't directly helicopter-drop money to them. But they do redistribute with their actions.

Imagine you undertake some sort of work that is controlled by government regs. Would you want video footage from your workplace subject to OIA? Probably not. What if you showered in your office under a hose? Or worked topless or ... what if your toilet was within shot of that camera?

This strawman argument is irrelevant to this discussion.

MikeAqua:

FNZ gets and can surveil all video footage, and detect and prosecute any offences. Similar to police surveillance footage. Potentially interesting for Geekzoners is the R&D going into developing videos analysis tools to identify pertinent footage. Landing of gear and handling the catch is the pertinent time span but it's often <10% of footage.

Dumping is illegal. Has been for decades. However, fishers are currently legally obliged to discard of at sea, fish that are undersize. What is proposed is that fishers will have to report those fish against their Annual Catch Entitlement. That means less legal sized fish they can catch and sell each year. There aren't good markets for undersized fish. Catching fish is expensive. Catching fish of low value is worse. The incentive is therefore to move, and/or change the gear if they are catching small fish.

Exactly why, cameras should be auditable and available to OIA requests, ensuring these cameras are always operating to the required standards.

Trust, but verify.

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#3502143 11-Jun-2026 19:59

MikeAqua:

Imagine you undertake some sort of work that is controlled by government regs. Would you want video footage from your workplace subject to OIA? Probably not. What if you showered in your office under a hose? Or worked topless or ... what if your toilet was within shot of that camera?

Pretty sure the cameras are most useful out on deck where they are processing live fish. Not in the toilets where they are processing digested fish. But if they are processing fish for human consumption close enough to the toilet that the camera can see you taking a dump, I'd really like to know so I don't accidentally eat anything they caught.

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#3502170 12-Jun-2026 07:10

I don't like how Jones is constantly running interference with fisheries etc. But both major parties keep working with NZ Firsts and then acting shocked in opposition.

But I would have thought the best way to check whether cameras are operating is to make FNZ report on it on the uptime on a regular basis? If they are the regulator then that should be their responsibility, you could come up with a pretty straightforward dashboard to show it if you had the data coming in the right way.

OIA requests for individual boat feels like it's going too far, but 'trust us bro' is definitely too far the other way.

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#3502385 12-Jun-2026 13:38

freitasm:

[1] This strawman argument is irrelevant to this discussion.

[2] Exactly why, cameras should be auditable and available to OIA requests, ensuring these cameras are always operating to the required standards.

Trust, but verify.

(1) A strawman argument would be if I incorrectly attribute a viewpoint to you and then attack you for holding that viewpoint. I was trying to get you to understand why some fishers don't want footage from their workplace subject to the OIA. No-one else's is.

(2) The situation is analogous to footage collected by the police. That isn't usually subject to the OIA, but can be used for detection of unlawful behaviour, investigation and prosecution and can be subjected to the scrutiny of the courts. There are plenty of verification steps. I would have thought that was a pretty typical approach to enforcement.

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#3502398 12-Jun-2026 13:58

SaltyNZ:

Recreational fishing limits absolutely need to be better enforced. But it's difficult to square the experience of our grandparents going fishing with the reality of today and still say that stocks are fine and recovering. Individual commercial fishermen may well be responsible but the big companies certainly don't go out of their way look responsible. Using the old "if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide" line - which I admit I hate - what is the reason to be so frightened of the cameras? Everyone else has cameras where they work.

Yes and ... although I comply with all the limits, the govt has no idea how many fish I catch each year. I don't actually know either, because I don't keep records.

Further no-one knows how many people fish how often, etc etc.

The way stocks are managed is to work out the total allowable catch (TAC), then deduct customary and recreational catch, and then the remainder is the Total Allowable Commercial Catch. The TACC is then allocated to individual quota owners (I proportion to the percentage they own) as Annual Catch Entitlement.

The TAC is set to keep total biomass of the fishery at a level that allows the largest annual harvest. This is called Maximum Sustainable Yield and the biomass level that delivers it is called Bmsy. Conceptually, it's like grazing pasture, graze too hard and you damage the grass. Graze too light, and the grass goes rank and stops growing.

In a fishery like Hoki, it's reasonably easy to manage the population around Bmsy. As natural peaks and troughs of recruitment (young fish joining the fishable population) come through the population structure, it's easy to adjust the ACE to keep the population around Bmsy. There are only commercial fishers, they can take a long view and adjust their catch plans accordingly.

Mike

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#3502402 12-Jun-2026 14:02

SaltyNZ:

Pretty sure the cameras are most useful out on deck where they are processing live fish. Not in the toilets where they are processing digested fish. But if they are processing fish for human consumption close enough to the toilet that the camera can see you taking a dump, I'd really like to know so I don't accidentally eat anything they caught.

Cameras are most useful on small boats. Bigger boats tend to have MPI observers on them. Small live-aboard boats are 8 to 10 metres with few creature comforts. The toilet might be porta potty that is bought out on deck for any .... noxious transactions. The shower might be a deck hose. People fish shirtless in summer. Imagine having camera in your workplace with the footage subject to the OIA. Not nice.

Mike

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#3502405 12-Jun-2026 14:09

Reasoning that footage should not be subject to OIA because someone just might be taking a shower or a slash in that environment seems absolutely spurious reasoning.

It is trivial to deal with the (potential) issue before release particularly with modern tools available.

Imo the main issue is that the industry does not want the public to be influenced by pictures of dead and dying dolphins, and also pictures of other bycatch, and (while minimised) the generally destructive result of trawling which is somewhat inevitable in many trawling operations and accepted.

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#3502412 12-Jun-2026 14:48

gzt: .

Imo the main issue is that the industry does not want the public to be influenced by pictures of dead and dying dolphins, and also pictures of other bycatch, and (while minimised) the generally destructive result of trawling which is somewhat inevitable in many trawling operations and accepted.

Witnessing any large creature Dead or Dying is pretty impactful...
Most people would be pretty horrified to witness the processing of cattle at an abattoir ...

But, items released under the OIA are generally copyright free and can subsequently used for any purpose...
Damn sure the meat industry wouldn't want SAFE having free access to footage from inside the local meatworks..

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