The Fisheries Act is being deconstructed to pass power to quota owners while weakening existing environmental protections and the need for Kiwis to have access to fish to feed their families.
Who really is Shane Jones? He often refers to himself as “Matua Shane”. Well he isn’t our matua. Jones is a walking advertisement for the commercial fishing industry, which isn’t surprising considering his history as ex-chairman of Sealord and ties to political donations from large commercial fishing companies.
Quota owners wishlist for changes to the Fisheries Act is not new. In fact it’s been in the works for the past 13 months since they now have a compliant Minister who is willing to erode public consultation and bury incriminating footage of fish dumping to ‘maximise profits’.
If Jones were truly the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, you’d think he’d at least pretend to care about marine health. Instead, his plan helps maximise commercial catch by weakening constraints on commercial fishing, and granting wide powers to himself – the Minister.
It is unacceptable for a minor party to be facilitating a massive transfer of public benefits and governance powers to private quota owners.
Let’s just call this what it is: regulatory capture in full view, where those who are meant to be governed are instead steering the ship. If we don’t push back now, we’ll have no one but ourselves to blame when the fish are gone and the control remains firmly in the hands of a privileged few.
Fisheries reform? It’s more of a scam.
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Corporate power is all about the money game–making political donations, hiring expensive lawyers to challenge that fisheries are public resources. Surely there is a glaring conflict of interest here?
This is all about back-door lobbying by a few corporate fishing industry players. It is a disgrace. The Act says fisheries should be managed equally for cultural, social (public) and economic sectors. Not just for corporate commercial greedies.
Fisheries belong to the people, not to commercial. The QMS is a rort where the big wealthy corporates buy up Kiwi quota holders so in time, the resource becomes controlled by those corporates. The people must stand up to Bully Boy Jones and his corporate mates.
There are serious concerns to be had about where this coalition government is taking our country, in some areas.
Politicians must always remember .. they are put in place to govern, on behalf of the people. Not to follow their own, ideological agenda (whatever that may be).
In hindsight, it was incredibly short-sighted of our country to put politicians in charge of.. without a well-written constitution to guide their behaviour.
Mechanisms like accelerated economic development, and markedly increasing foreign investment, ownership, and control of assets .. are examples of things that New Zealanders should all be very concerned about. Such things have the potential to substantially alter the country our children will inherit.
Politicians are not always the best people to make long-term, strategic decisions in this space.