The Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations has deep concerns over a government bill which if passed, will replace the controversial Resource Management Act.
“This bill attacks the very essence of the public ownership of fish and game resources in New Zealand,” said CORANZ spokesman Tony Orman.
CORANZ’s opposition followed a very recent press release in which Fish and Game NZ deplored the bill and expressed “extreme concern”.
“Trout and salmon fishing, duck and game bird shooting are fundamentally public sports in line with the ethos, introduced by early European settlers, of an egalitarian society of equal opportunity for all”, he said. “I believe New Zealand was founded by people who had deliberately abandoned a feudal society built on privilege and a pecking order to establish one based on social equality and opportunity for all.”
The proposal in Minister David Parker’s bill is to abandon the valued recognition of trout and salmon – the fish introduced by early European settlers – by removing the protection of habitat vital to these fish (and game) resources.
Fishing and hunting are major participant sports with an estimated 300,000 enjoying freshwater trout and salmon fishing and duck and game bird shooting.
Tony Orman said he found the bill promoted by the Minister for the Environment David Parker at odds with the minister’s reported interests in tramping and fly fishing for trout.
He also recalled several years ago, the minister and a Labour MP Megan Woods campaigning on a video extolling the need for restoring rivers to quality ample flows to enable New Zealanders to enjoy outdoor recreation such as fly fishing for trout.
“Yet here in 2023 is the same minister advocating legislation which will essentially remove the protection of trout and salmon habitat. Those electioneering words from that 2017 video have a strong echo to to them, i.e. hollow promises,” said Tony Orman.
He praised Fish and Game NZ’s alertness and energy in publicly making the government bill’s alarming short-comings apparent.
Tony Orman – fishing and hunting are truly public sports.
Government RMA moves endanger that “public ownership”
Eugenie Sage when Minister of Conservation acknowledged the positive work Acclimatization Societies and F&G have done for our environment.
David Parker seems to want to be an effective Minister for the Environment. He did achieve a measure of improvement in the NPS FM standards. (Bottom line for nitrate in rivers reduced from 6.9 to 2.4 mg/L NO3-N).
By leaving trout and salmon from his replacement Act for the RMA, the Minister or his staff have truly dropped the ball.
Without Statutory authority to protect our recreational fisheries, (and by default our native fisheries), F&G will be unable function.
One can only assume this omission was the result of incompetence rather than done by design.
Please take corrective action asap Minister.
Peter Trolove
New Zealand Federation of Freshwater Anglers
Environment Minister David Parker’s Resource Management law reform proposals have been in the making since a government task force was established in 2019. Minister Parker and his bureaucrat law draftspersons have come up with a lemon.
Apparently the Environment Select Committee have begun hearing submissions on the Parkers trio of bills to replace the RMA. But Parker’s package is fatally flawed.
For a MP who reportedly professes to enjoy tramping and fly fishing and the outdoors his omission of “protection” for trout and salmon habitat is a shocker.
Let it not be forgotten the original Resource Management Act which replaced the Town and Country Planning Act and other law, was the brain child of Labour government’s Geoffrey Palmer. I recall – correctly I am pretty sure – National MP Simon Upton back in the 1990s as a National cabinet minister saying the beauty of the RMA was it allowed people to do what they wanted to do with their land.
That’s not planning or respect for the environment. Is that basically why we have environmentally detrimental monocultures in pines with absurd carbon farming speculation and monocultures of other rural uses such as vineyards in Marlborough, most foreign and corporate owned, all sucking water from the ecosystem and rivers?
The RMA was poor law but at least it recognised the public’s trout and salmon resource.
Parker’s law has wiped that recognition.
Go back to the drawing board, David Parker.
There is a lot of fuel & energy/oxygen, pumped into this topic, while the real missing link is public exposure of, thanks to the treasonous St. Cindy, & her cabal of racist caucus having instructed DOC TO FORM THE “OPTIONS wORKING Group” to prepare the paper work to hand over the entire conservation estate ownership to elite Iwi tribes, Soon, there will be nothing to discuss on the topic, since we will be locked out completely a forbidden no go into this space.
Add to that the new “Government Regulator Agency” can impose fines & punishment if anyone or group, i. e. [CORANZ], IS FOUND TO BE ARGUING against such a proposal, as it would remove that entitlement/ownership of that conservation estate from tribal Iwi & therefore deemed to be punishably “CULTURALLY UNSAFE” i. detrimental to a protected group–moedis.
My mere comment above here, is drawing attention to, & by extension asking for, a backlash push against a perceived tribal right to take ownership of the conservation estate. I could be held punishable as CULTURALLY UNSAFE, having called for a reduction of privilege. of a protected group, i. e. tribal elite. Simply by discussing it here.
This is the madness of Orwellian government over-reach control we can expect in the future.
Everything we post will be monitored & scrutinized for the slightest hint that it could be CULTURALLY UNSAFE TO A protected group.Even government policy such as biligual road signs, 3 waters/co governance & dozens more.Anything that could be construed to be a reduction of privilege or entitlement,no matter how small could attract a case to answer in court.
What the government and political parties don’t realise is that according to the NIWA Freshwater Angling Survey carried out every 7 years for Fish and Game (2016) survey is that there are 1,240,000 freshwater angling days a year in New Zealand. That is a lot of eyes out there seeing what happening and what needs protecting. If it was not for freshwater anglers and duck hunters a lot of fresh water protection that is around now and has volunteers constantly restoring wetlands , fighting to keep water in rivers and working to prevent the loss of native and sports fish there would be a lot more cost to councils and government. Undercutting the protection of trout and salmon ,which by the way the government own according to the freshwater consevation act is not only going to cost them more funding to fix -it will also lose them a lot of votes in the upcoming election.
Nothing to worry about here.
The only important thing is continuing to “grow the economy” by having more people paying more money for more things.
There is currently too much public property where people can go to enjoy themselves without paying enough.
There are also too many natural resources in this public property that cannot be accessed and exploited efficiently for commercial gain by the owners of the global corporations.
How can the people who legally own all of this common property be made to agree to its commercial exploitation?
New Zealand was quite unique for a long time. It had an egalitarian culture in which every citizen had equal access to their public lands to hunt, fish, gather or just wander about in nature.
This changed in the 1980s with the acceptance of “user pays” and people in government departments began to pretend they were operating businesses instead of publically funded services.
The magement of these government enterprises became more concerned with their revenue than the service they provided to taxpaying citizens.
The Department of Conservation began charging for access to the public land they called DOC(S) LAND. More people had to pay for access.
Health and Safety regulations were used to encourage people to buy “approved foods” instead of hunting, fishing or gathering.
The abundance of fish and game was reduced.
Access to farms was discouraged by making their owners liable for any injuries that might occur.
The naturally living fish and game were declared to be pests to be eradicated with toxic poisons that might harm or kill people that ate them.
Hunting permits are now required and there will be fees for them.
Fees for fishing were increased, while the numbers of fish were decreased by pollution of the fresh water ecosystems.
People that still hunted and fished were vilified by propaganda that said they are violent and cruel.
The firearms licencing system (another user pays scam) was made more and m0re difficult to discourage people who still hunted from having them.
The idea that people who had some “special” ancestors are entitled to ancestral rights of ownership of our common property was introduced so that legal title of ownership can be established and then transferred so that our resources can be accessed and commercially exploited without our consent.
But don’t worry. The once public lands will be allocated for specified uses.
Some will be for watching birds.
Some will be for tramping (but stay on the track).
There will be hunting areas.
There will be fishing areas.
Wildreness bike trails? Sure, no problem.
More minerals will be availble to be mined.
More bush will be converted to farmland.
There will be more “wilderness resorts” for the wealthy.
More expensive and secure housing estates for rich foreign owners?
No worries. She’ll be right mate.
Everyone will still be able to enjoy their preferred outdoors recreation in the once public lands.
AS LONG AS THEY CAN AFFORD TO PAY FOR IT.
New Zealand is and will remain a GREAT PLACE TO LIVE IF YOU ARE RICH and even better for those with the right political friends.
Hmmm???
let’s unpick that “great place to live” with a shopping list:
1.If you want to discard 2000 years of science learning philosophy & democratic civilization, & exchange it for:
2. Stone age tribal rule of a dictatorship.
3. Apartheid.
4.there is no personal wealth, it has been nationalized as being belonging to indiginous the estate & as such theft from that state to be returned.
5.being a slave, second class citizen, under harsh rule.
6. Anything & everything you are will be determined by the amount of indigeonous blood you can prove containedin your veins.
6. You have nil value except what you & your generations to come can enrich the state rulers.
7. you will have nothing, every scrap of everything belongs to the state.
BLEAK,
NO GREAT PLACE TO LIVE,RATHER TOO CLOSE TO HELL