Seafood NZ is the Commercial Sectors Representative Body - Promotes their interests.
This is their response / analysis to the election result - As published in their Friday update:

The Seafood Industry Dodged a Bullet in Last Saturday’s General Election.

Whatever your political affiliation, it would be hard to dispute that National is more aligned to fishing and aquaculture interests than Labour, Greens and NZ First.

The current Government recognises this tiny, remote nation has to sell stuff to maintain its standard of living.

That is what drives its export growth agenda and underpinning that is our primary produce.

Seafood has an important part to play in that and as long as we fish and farm sustainably and minimise our impact on the environment, everybody wins.

National’s progressive approach still does not preclude it from blatant vote buying, evidenced by its Hauraki Gulf and Marlborough Sounds recreation fishing park proposals which cut across existing consultative groups and were not referred to MPI or industry beforehand.

There is discussion to be had there but the political winds in the medium term are generally fair.

That is a marked contrast to other main parties.

Current Labour leader David Cunliffe was previously fisheries spokesman and in that role on visiting Seafood NZ he said that in the Hauraki Gulf, Labour would put recreational interests ahead of commercial in the iconic snapper fishery.

He agreed this contravened the Fisheries Act, which does not distinguish, but that it was a matter of voting strength in Auckland and the controversy generated around Snapper 1.

It was pragmatism over principle.

At least we knew where we stood.

Cunliffe went even further in a self-serving article in the NZ Fishing News September edition. “Inshore is not a place for commercial interests to catch fish and we would be prepared to push quota down, or even create exclusive recreational zones if required,” he said.

Winston Peters offered no comfort either.

At a public meeting in Waihi he said the recreational sector should be paramount and the “inshore fishery must be the primary preserve of recreational fishing”.

Under NZ First policy the extent of the inshore fishery could vary. In most regions it would be to the 12-mile (16km) territorial limit but in some it might be a depth limit such as the 100-metre line.

No trawling would be permitted in the inshore fishery (bye bye flat fishery) and there would be export bans on commercial catch.

At one stroke some $220 million would be wiped off export earnings, thousands would be put out of work, consumers would be denied healthy, fresh food and the Treaty settlement assets agreement would be ripped up.

Fishing is a whipping boy.

Imagine the outcry if farmers were arbitrarily told their property rights were being trampled and they could no longer use certain paddocks.

Peter Dunne’s United Future is equally antagonistic.

It proposed a new category of “recreational only species” that included kahawai, snapper, kingfish and blue cod.

The party seemed ignorant of the fact recreational and customary allowances have already been provided for in MPI’s setting of the total allowable catch.

Dunne, desperate to advance his party vote, was making a blatant play to the fishin’ and huntin’ lobby but once again that proved elusive.

United’s Party vote sank to a mere 4533 nationwide.

The Greens support an international moratorium on bottom trawling and would “more vigorously control long lining”. They also cite “the collapse of the orange roughy fishery and the marked decline currently occurring in the hoki fishery”.

When challenged by Seafood NZ on this demonstrably incorrect assertion, then fisheries spokesman Steffan Browning was prepared to revisit the policy but it remains unchanged.

The Greens struggle with the concept of industrial fishing and are much more comfortable with a romanticised artisan fishing model whereby family fishers in brightly painted boats go out daily and nose up against the wharf to sell to the village folk.

The political warning signs could not be clearer.

Elections are dangerous times for sector groups and in the white hot heat of a close election campaign policy can be developed on the fly, with half-baked measures hurtling out of left - or right - field.

The recreational fishing lobby is not yet an organised political force, witness Dunne’s failure, but it is becomingly increasingly strident and is clearly capturing MPs’ attention in Auckland in particular, where the sheer weight of numbers decides elections.

It is clear we have issues around our social licence and we need better understanding in a shared fishery.

That will be the major focus for Seafood NZ as the industry’s peak body in the three years to the 2017 election.

Hardworking fishermen and women in catching and processing do not have the respect they deserve.

We need champions.

Maybe that would be a good start for a Labour Party that has lost the support of its working class base.

In discussion over the weekend, it was recognised that Sandford has been working / defending their position in political circles since the early 1900's when depletion by trawling in the Hauraki Gulf was first noted and raised in parliament. (See their own book on Sandfords - The first hundred years - 1981 - Pre QMS.)

Nowadays, they have the major shareholders family as President of the National Party. They recognise that recreational fishers are way behind the game... But also that we are gaining momentum. The quickest way to bring about change is going to be via public pressure rather than involvement in politics.

Focus on publicity esp Media. Waste is a low hanging fruit, as are gifted opportunities such as Hawkes Bay Seafoods.

So reading between the lines,the government are not going to change anything soon?so it is up to recreational to get a well organised plan together.