Minister goes down to the line on legally contested fish quotas

Minister Shane Jones has met with the Waitangi fisheries commission in a last-ditch bid to resolve a legal standoff over big changes to commercial catch allowances.
The Thursday evening meeting with Te Ohu Kaimoana came ahead of his anticipated announcement, on Sunday, of a big increase to allowable commercial catches in the contentious and lucrative snapper fishery off the west coast of the North Island.
That will be balanced by an even sharper reduction to catch allowances for the conservation -dependent orange roughy. “I know that orange roughy has for a long time been under stress,” Jones tells Newsroom.
There is general agreement that the catch limits for orange roughy, a slow-growing deepwater fish, need to be reduced. But the increase to inshore snapper fisheries is more contentious.
The commission doesn’t oppose increasing the snapper allowance, but it does oppose giving nearly all of it to certain fishing companies, in particular Sanford. Of the most important North Island west coast SNA8 fishery increase of more than 700 tonnes, it’s likely none will go to customary Māori take, and none to recreational fishers.
Neither the minister nor the commission would discuss how the meeting went.
But Newsroom understands the minister has opted to increase the snapper catch allowances (SNA2, SNA7 and SNA8) from 4283 to 5470 tonnes, effective from October 1. Allowances for Māori customary take and recreational fishing are likely to be increased very slightly in SNA2 (off the North Island’s east coast) and SNA7 (off the west coat of the South Island).
“I’m very conscious that the snapper off the west coast, it’s almost biblical, so thick you can nearly walk on it,” Jones says.
By far the biggest share will go to Sanford, which gambled on a share of future fisheries rather than cash compensation after quotas were introduced. 
Sanford chief financial officer Paul Alston said the company couldn’t comment until the minister’s decisions were announced, this weekend. They have to be gazetted in time for the start of the new fishing season on October 1.
But last time the SNA8 catch allowance was increased, by 300 tonnes in 2021, Sanford was awarded 271 tonnes of that. So similarly, it’s likely to get about 576 of the 640 tonnes of new SNA8 quota next week. That’s about a $10m windfall for the company.
In 2021, Sanford agreed to transfer a portion of its section 28N allowance to Te Ohu Kaimoana, to avoid a legal battle. But this time, the lawyers have already bolted.
Seafood NZ is an industry body for fishing companies. Tiff Bock, its general manager of inshore fisheries, say the increase in snapper allowance will be great news for export earnings, and for domestic consumers. “Recreational fishers and commercial fishers all around the country, everyone loves catching and eating snapper,” she says. “I like it just pan-fried with a little butter!”
She says snapper is worth about $35m a year port price to commercial fishers, and SNA8 alone is $8.5m. Just over half the snapper caught by commercial fishers is exported.
She echoes fishers like Egmont Seafoods owner Keith Mawson and RMD Marine director Roger Rawlinson, who say the low catch limits on the abundant west coast snapper fishery have constrained them from going out catching other fish like gurnard, trevally and John Dory, lest they inadvertently pull in snapper in excess of their allowance, and are charged penalties.
“Snapper has been a choke species, on catching other fish,” she says. “Increasing the allowable catch for snapper will allow fishers to operate more efficiently.
“It’s a relief, because it eases added costs on their business, as well as allowing them to catch more fish. So yes, the reaction will be quite positive.”
But the fisheries commission has already gone to court, concerned that the Sanford settlement comes at the expensive of iwi fisheries. Last week, a High Court judge sent a shot across the minister’s bow, warning that eroding the historical Sealord fisheries settlement could come at a cost.
In court, the commission had argued that Māori stand to lose a substantial, and valuable, block of their west coast settlement quota if the minister increases the snapper commercial catch limit without putting protections in place to preserve the Treaty settlement quota.
Depending on the size of the increase the minister selects, Māori stand to lose between 20 and 29 percent of SNA8 settlement quota, through the operation of a section of the Fisheries Act (section 28N) that allows companies like Sanford to claim first dibs on increased catch allowances.
The commission argued this would compound the harm Māori have sustained since they first began losing settlement quota through the operation of 28N rights in the 1990s.
Barry Weeber, the co-chair of Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand, says the minister seems to be having a bob each way, in increasing the snapper limits while he reduces the orange roughy limits.
The minister is doing “the bare minimum required” for orange roughy, he says, and it’s disappointing the Ministry of Primary Industries didn’t put up more options to actually rebuild the stock – as he says it’s already below the level agreed internationally.
On snapper, Weeber says: “These increases will mean more bottom trawling impacts and more bycatch of dolphins and seabirds. There’s a growing reported capture of hectors dolphin in trawl fisheries.”