Big donor’s ask: Minister reviews cameras on fishing boats

A fishing boss, who Newsroom has confirmed is one of NZ First deputy leader Shane Jones’ biggest campaign donors, is pushing for the minister to get rid of cameras on boats.

“I think they’ve gone overboard and invaded workers’ privacy,” says Westfleet chief executive Craig Boote. “It’s going to be very, very difficult for us to recruit young men when they’re gonna get perved on 24/7.”

Boote was one of the industry leaders putting his case on cameras, catch limits, bottom trawling and immigration waivers to the minister at an exclusive wine and oysters function last night.

And the pleas are falling on sympathetic ears. Jones tells Newsroom he’s already asked officials to develop a Cabinet paper to overhaul the fishing boat camera monitoring regime. “I think the cameras were introduced under the last government without a true conception of the costs,” he says.

“I’m going to take options to Cabinet as to what is the future of the camera regime. What’s the value associated with it as a fisheries management issue and who’s going to pay for it?”

Jones says he’ll discuss the cameras issue further with industry leaders at a meeting at the Ministry of Primary Industries on Monday; he worries that critics are using the cameras to “stigmatise the industry”, but he also acknowledges some firms like iwi-owned Moana NZ believe the cameras help preserve the industry’s social licence.

The cameras have already been installed on about 300 inshore vessels, and Jones acknowledges he’s unlikely to get rid of them entirely – but he’s dubious about rolling them out further.

Some fishing bosses like Boote want cameras removed entirely; others like Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin want the Government to pay the cost rather than imposing it on fishing companies.

(Sealord previously donated to Jones’ campaign as a Labour MP; that was more than 10 years ago and it’s since introduced a policy that donations cannot be made without board approval. The company says it’s made no further political donations.)

Some sector leaders are concerned that the images can be released to environmental groups and media, under the Official Information Act. Talley’s boss Tony Hazlett is concerned about rules and regulations around programmes such as fishing fleet cameras.

And all of those bosses were at last night’s meeting at Eight Plates restaurant in Nelson.

It’s a meeting that’s sparked criticism from environmentalists, given Jones’ newly revealed donations from Westfleet and Aimex Hydraulics, and his past donations from Talley’s and Sealord.

Barry Weeber, the co-chair of Environment and Conservations Organisations NZ, said the new minister seemed to be putting commercial fishing ahead of the wellbeing of the environment.

Jones has already come under fire from environmental groups at international fisheries talks this months, after New Zealand backed away from a deal to protect seamounts, while the new minister takes stock.

And he’s harpooned plans for a vast Kermadec marine sanctuary – it’s now sunk as deep as the 10,000 metre ocean trench.

“That is not a conflict of interest that I would tolerate in a Cabinet that I was the prime minister of.”

Chris Hipkins, Labour leader

Weeber says a politician who’s receiving donations from the fishing industry should not be put in charge of fisheries: “There’s clearly conflicts of interest,” he says.

Opposition leader Chris Hipkins says it’s not acceptable for a Fisheries Minister to be taking policy bids from donors. “That is not a conflict of interest that I would tolerate in a Cabinet that I was the prime minister of; it’s not a conflict of interest we would have tolerated in the last Labour-New Zealand First government; it is not a conflict that we were willing to entertain.”

Fishing is a big and important industry for New Zealand, Hipkins says. “But the closeness of the Government to the fishing industry, the prioritisation of the economic interests of current fishing industry players over the long term sustainability of our fisheries and over the environmental impact of fishing, that is really concerning.

“We need to make sure that we’re actually leaving a fisheries for future generations that are sustainable, and over-fishing is a very real issue. Destruction of natural fish habitats is a very real issue. And that’s something that the government needs to take more seriously than they are.”

“Would you like a camera sitting above your office looking at you right now where you’re working? Probably not.”

Craig Boote, Westfleet

NZ First’s coalition partner, Act leader David Seymour, says in a small country like New Zealand, the question is whether Jones is being open and transparent and declaring his interest, and involving other ministers in the decision making. “Those are the kinds of steps that I imagine – I hope – he would be taking.

“It’s just the reality of a small country. You can’t stop people talking to each other. But you can have openness and transparency and deal with even the perception of a conflict of interest, to
ensure that people can have confidence in the system.”

In the Labour-NZ First coalition in 2017, former prime minister Jacinda Ardern refused to give Jones the fisheries portfolio because of the perception of conflict.

Jones rejects that perception. “There’s a sense that it could be a conflict of interest if you’re pro-industry,” he acknowledges. “My job is to promote the fishing industry, quite apart from enabling the regulators to come up with sensible regulatory outcomes. The industry needs champions, the industry needs promoters.”

He declines to disclose details of his donations ahead of their publication by the Electoral Commission. “My donations will be fully revealed,” he says. “Historically I have been the recipient of donations from people within the industry. And people should not be surprised when they see my upcoming donation schedule.”

He says the previous government’s cameras on boats rollout is about 40 percent implemented – there are cameras on about 300 inshore vessels. “But we need to understand how it will play a more valuable role in the management of fisheries rather than being a punitive tool.”

He argues that the National Animal Identification and Tracing programme, set up to manage infectious diseases by tracking the movements of farmed cattle and deer, is exempt from the Official Information Act – and the footage obtained by cameras on boats should be too.

That’s at the very least. Asked if his Cabinet paper will discuss the scenario of getting rid of the cameras entirely, he says: “I’ve asked for a whole spectrum of options.”

Jones also plans to back fast-track resource consents for half a dozen aquaculture projects, including the 2500-hectare Hananui open ocean salmon farm off Stewart Island, which was declined in August 2023.

Other projects include ocean finfish aquaculture trials in Tasman Bay, and the bid for more mussel spat farms in Marlborough Sounds.

“The contemplated fast track legislation is to give certainty to investors and to overcome the problems at Ngāi Tahu and the millions of dollars that were squandered by King Salmon in their aborted attempt to secure a consent in the Marlborough Sounds.

“The real tragedy is they’ve spent millions and millions of dollars unnecessarily in a constipated permit regime. The industry should regard the upcoming fast-track as a bureaucratic laxative.”

Jobs in the fishing sector

Jones believes that in coming years, the fishing industry will flounder, and New Zealand will need to support aquaculture to take up the slack.

“Fisheries is not just about the wild catch, it’s moving into a new sphere which is growing fish, farming the ocean. And there’s a lot of ambivalence in some parts of New Zealand about the wisdom of doing that,” he acknowledges.

“But in terms of our political mission, we campaigned on delivering regional growth opportunities through farming the ocean. No one should be surprised if I’m an enthusiast for that outcome – that’s what we campaigned on.

“I need to be particularly judicious is ensuring that the regulatory side of the fishing of MPI can carry on with its regulatory responsibilities of pinging people who break the law, ensuring that newer and scientific information is robust, to enable us to make sustainability-friendly decisions as to how much fish should be taken from the ocean.

“But as their task becomes more complicated because there’s more pressure on fisheries, that enhances and increases the role of growing more fish.”

He says his job is to promote the fishing industry. “If you have a look at the Fisheries Act, it talks openly about the industry being championed.”

By the minister? “Yeah, well I’m responsible for the Fisheries Act.”

But the law isn’t quite so black-and-white as Jones would argue. According to his briefing, as incoming minister, he does have a role supporting aquaculture development.

But with regard to fishing, his role is providing for the use of fisheries resources while ensuring sustainability under the Fisheries Act 1996. This includes decisions about how much fish can be caught, and how that impacts on the aquatic environment and protected species. He must also ensure Māori fisheries and aquaculture rights are provided for.

In 2023, the seafood sector generated $2 billion in exports. There have been more people out on the fishing boats in the past 10 years. But overall, employment in the wider fishing sector has been dropping.

The biggest part of the industry, seafood processing, is down 28 percent on its 2002 peak. The industry says it’s enduring “difficult times” and is lobbying for more government support.

For Craig Boote, that’s included election campaign donations.

The Electoral Commission isn’t expected to publish details of 2023 election campaign donors until next week, but Boote confirmed details to Newsroom yesterday.

He says he gave $10,000 to Shane Jones, $10,000 to National’s West Coast candidate Maureen Pugh, and as he recalls, $10,000 to the Act Party. The donations were split between two of his companies, Westfleet and Aimex Hydraulics, the biggest engineering firm in Port Nelson.

Westfleet is 50-50 owned by Boote and Sealord – which previously donated to Jones, when he was a Labour MP.

Boote employs about 300 people, and runs six fishing boats, making him an important employer in Nelson and on the West Coast of the South Island.

But that’s been marred by the forfeiture of his biggest trawler, the 320-tonne Tasman Viking, after it failed to report coral it had pulled up in its nets in 2020. Nelson District Court Judge David Ruth  said the company and its skipper had taken a “cavalier approach to the whole area of compliance”.

Boote says the ship has now been returned, and the company will soon seek a new high seas fishing permit.

But the case went to the heart of the extent of monitoring (observers or cameras) and concerns about bottom trawling.

Judge Ruth said protection of the marine biodiversity was important, and this case was a “prime example” of the inherent difficulties in detecting fisheries offences.

That case, says Boote, was defining for his politics. Local Labour MP Damien O’Connor “turned his back on me” when the Tasman Viking failed to disclose its coral bycatch – so the fishing boss swung his support in behind National MP Maureen Pugh and NZ First’s Shane Jones.

Boote says: “We need fishing boats and we need the fishing industry to survive, basically. And the way it was going, we were all going to be out of f***ing business. So we endorse the coalition.”

NZ First and Act also received $50,000 apiece from Sir Peter Vela, though the businessman exited his well-known family fishing firm in 2013 to focus on horse breeding and racing instead. Vela Fishing is now owned by Lyn Vela, and sisters Anita and Andrea Vela.

In camera

Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin is also unhappy with the cameras on boats regime, though unlike Boote, he wouldn’t toss it out entirely.

He says Sealord was required to pay $500,000 in levies last year to implement the camera monitoring – even though the company doesn’t have any cameras on its boats. The cameras have only been placed on inshore vessels, thus far, and Sealord is primarily a deepsea fishing company.

Sealord was required to pay several hundred thousand dollars more to cover the costs of ministry observers on its trawlers, Paulin says.

“If you continue to just push that levy up then at some point, economically, you actually can’t continue to fish. And last year, every deepwater fishing company hit very difficult times.”

Seafood NZ chief executive Dr Jeremy Helson says the industry is not opposed to cameras, but would prefer to have fewer of them, and to pay less for them. “What we want out of cameras on boats is useful information that will lead to material advances and increases in the quality of our fisheries management.”

“There is a mix of public goods and private goods associated with cameras on boats, so what’s the most equitable way to pay for this service? We think there’s a debate to be had about where the balance of cost lies.

“We would prefer not to pay, in the same way that people don’t pay for a visit from the police. They pay through general taxation.”

Last year, the industry paid $2.4m for cameras on boats, he says, but they have no idea what the ministry will charge them in coming years. “We want some certainty about what cameras will cost. And we want some certainly about the extent to which we’ll have to pay a portion of those costs, and to make sure that it’s fair, equitable and transparent.”

However, Barry Weeber says cameras provide important additional data on fishing boats’ bycatch. “It’s shown its worth in the reports of Hector’s dolphin being killed by trawlers and set-netters over the past three or four months.

“I think the cameras have forced the industry to be better in their reporting – because they’re certainly reporting more than they previously had, for corals and sponges and other things, both in the inshore and in the deep water.”

One company that’s been supportive of cameras is the big Moana NZ. It’s proactively placed cameras on all its contract trawl vessels as well as some of its longline vessels for the past nine years.

Moana NZ is a pan-iwi owned seafood company, fishing the quota returned to Māori in the Waitangi Fisheries settlement. It is the largest North Island inshore fishing company and, as such, it probably carries more cameras than any other company.

But Moana has told the minister it sees the merits of cameras for preserving the industry’s social licence.

Chief executive Steve Tarrant was at the meet-and-greet in Nelson, with Jones, Boote, Paulin and Helson and 20 more industry leaders. The morning after, he expresses the hope that the Government will support science and innovation for the fishing industry, to enable sound decision making.

And he calls for it to cut “red-tape and high regulatory costs” for businesses, rather than rushing through laws that impact on the livelihoods of the company’s regional contract fishers across the country.

Cameras play a role in increasing confidence and trust between fishers, customers, Government and the general public, he says, but they are just one of a range of tools.

“We need to be mindful of what current camera technology is and is not capable of doing, and how the costs will directly impact the value of quota and settlement assets,” he says. “There is also the critical issue of fishers’ privacy of which we have expressed our concerns.”

The company understands the desire for a review of the cameras on vessels policy, he says, and would be keen to learn more about what will be considered under the review.

Workforce

Tarrant has also asked the Minister to support career development programmes for the industry.

“We lack a viable pipeline of skilled labour in our workforce, similar to other parts of the primary industries,” he explains.

“This could require some short-term mitigations to help fill vacancies as we work on a long-term solution to this issue.”

The fishing sector body, Seafood NZ, has written to the minister formally requesting a review of immigration settings “to allow our industry to function effectively while we work towards employing more New Zealanders”.