Did the David Lange Government save the NZ fishery from being depleted and do we and future Generations owe them .

Yes I think they deserve a medal.even if the fishery improved massively and they said you could take 27cm snapper again,I would say no they are too small.

Wasnt aware that anyone saved the snapper. Their current biomass is a national disgrace.

Would like to know the estimated bio mass in the various snapper zones. But suspect that in some areas figures are very dated.When did they last  do serious bio mass  research for H.G or Auckland west coast.

Ooooooooooo...............
The biomass figures MPI had a coupla years back when they wanted to change the bag limit were current Cirrus, that is where they gave out the figures we have so often quoted....20% ( but I think it may have been 22%, can't remember) for the HG, and down to just over 6% for the bay of plenty.
I didn't notice any figures though for the west coast, but that area wasn't covered as the issue was regarding the SNA1 bag limits/quota issue on the table at the time.

Interesting figures Capt A. But notice how suddenly we have 19% BOP and H.G combined.
Before it was BOP at 6%. Suddenly they regard BOP & H.G as a combined fishery.Is this to Fudge the 6% BOP.
Further it was regarded that 2011-2012 was an unusually productive year for snapper,with general consensus that decline followed 2012 year.

Even if the figure of 22% H.G and 6% BOP were added and divided ,that would become 14% combined total.  So can only conclude they dont really have a clue.

Agree.

remember this from Tagit????

here is what he worked out from the papers he managed to get from MPI...

Whats commercial fishing worth to you?

I am not sure if I have all this stuff below correct, so if anyone can find a major flaw in it please let me know so I can correct it. They way I worked it out the whole thing seems to bizzare to be true.

So how does the average Kiwi benefit from Commercial Fishing which we are told by the sector is a critical part of our economy.

Comms currently harvest around $1.2B per year from NZ’s ‘public’ fish stocks. They do this by owning a share of the TACC (Total Allowable Commercial Catch), and through the allocation of ACE (Annual Catch Entitlement) proportional to their TACC share once the Minister of Fisheries signs off the TACC for each species each year. The commercial operators pay no ‘lease’ or similar payments to the government (the people of NZ) for their TACC or ACE. These ‘property rights’ were gifted to them by the government during the establishment of the QMS (Quota Management System). So the companies and individuals who were gifted the TACC take $1.2b out of our supposedly publicly owned fishery for their own benefit and pay nothing to the people of NZ for doing so.

So what do the 99.99% of Kiwi’s who don’t work in commercial fishing receive?

-          We get overpriced fish in our stores

-          We get severely depleted recreational angling opportunities

-          We get the tax paid by the fishing companies who work in the industry. Using the publicly available 2012 Sanfords accounts as an example, they paid tax of $9m on $460m of revenue. So if this is typical of the industry, the $1.2b of seafood harvested by our commercial operators would return $23.5m in tax take. Now we know that another large player just dumped $10’s of millions into failed offshore ventures and posted a loss, so using Sanford’s as the base example may be optimistic.

-          We also have PAYE from the estimated 5680 (full time equivalent) jobs in the industry. We don’t know the average wage, but it is unlikely to be very high even if some individuals do very well, the bulk of the jobs are relatively low paid. Let’s say that the average wage is $40k, which gives $6k in tax per wage earner. Total for 5680 jobs is $34m.

So the effective 'resource rental' that the people of NZ get from the commercial fishing industry for them taking $1200M worth of publicly owned seafood is around $58m collected in taxes. By comparison, 400,000,000 kg’s of seafood are harvested by the owners of TACC (and hence ACE). Snapper ACE is between $2.50 and $4.95 per kg, but other species will be higher or lower, with some high volume species definitely lower, so let’s say that average ACE is $1per kg. So whilst the people of NZ received $58m from ‘their’ asset, the small group of companies and individuals who were gifted the TACC received a ‘resource rental’ somewhere around $400m.

So the question is, why do the asset owners (i.e the people of NZ) receive $58m in annual ‘benefit’ whilst our government gave away the other $400m of annual income to the fishing industry. When you think of how we have just sold a bunch of public assets like power companies, Air NZ etc, to get a cash return for the people of NZ, why did we give away one of our largest and best performing assets, a $4B fishery returning 10% per annum (to the TACC holders).

Just to make it even better, our government holds of our behalf TACC in some species where it was not all issued to commercial operators. If the commercial sector fish one of those stocks down until a TACC reduction is needed to protect the stock, our government will GIFT some more of the TACC that (we) own to the operators so that they won't be so affected by the changes. So they take too many fish to line their own pockets, and once the stock is in danger we just gift them $millions more in TACC as a 'reward' for wrecking the stock in the first place. I guess this makes sense to someone, but it isn't me.

Want another view from MPI’s own papers –

“The average port price (the gross price that fishers receive) for the 2012/13 fishing year is $5770 per tonne for SNA 1.”

“The average ACE value (the earnings quota owners receive when selling their ACE) for the 2011/12 fishing year was $4130 per tonne for SNA 1”

Assuming not too much changed between 2012 & 2013, the guys out there doing the fishing received $5770 per tonne for Snapper, and paid the ACE (TACC) holders $4130 to lease the quota. So the guys sitting on the TACC we gifted them, got $4130 per tonne for doing nothing, whilst the guys doing all the work and taking all the risks received $1640 per tonne or $1.64 per kg. Why isn’t that $4130 going into the public coffers instead of making a few individuals super wealthy?

Lethal wrote: remember this from Tagit???? here is what he worked out from the papers he managed to get from MPI... Whats commercial fishing worth to you? I am not sure if I have all this stuff below correct, so if anyone can find a major flaw in it please let me know so I can correct it. They way I worked it out the whole thing seems to bizzare to be true. So how does the average Kiwi benefit from Commercial Fishing which we are told by the sector is a critical part of our economy. Comms currently harvest around $1.2B per year from NZ’s ‘public’ fish stocks. They do this by owning a share of the TACC (Total Allowable Commercial Catch), and through the allocation of ACE (Annual Catch Entitlement) proportional to their TACC share once the Minister of Fisheries signs off the TACC for each species each year. The commercial operators pay no ‘lease’ or similar payments to the government (the people of NZ) for their TACC or ACE. These ‘property rights’ were gifted to them by the government during the establishment of the QMS (Quota Management System). So the companies and individuals who were gifted the TACC take $1.2b out of our supposedly publicly owned fishery for their own benefit and pay nothing to the people of NZ for doing so. So what do the 99.99% of Kiwi’s who don’t work in commercial fishing receive? -          We get overpriced fish in our stores -          We get severely depleted recreational angling opportunities -          We get the tax paid by the fishing companies who work in the industry. Using the publicly available 2012 Sanfords accounts as an example, they paid tax of $9m on $460m of revenue. So if this is typical of the industry, the $1.2b of seafood harvested by our commercial operators would return $23.5m in tax take. Now we know that another large player just dumped $10’s of millions into failed offshore ventures and posted a loss, so using Sanford’s as the base example may be optimistic. -          We also have PAYE from the estimated 5680 (full time equivalent) jobs in the industry. We don’t know the average wage, but it is unlikely to be very high even if some individuals do very well, the bulk of the jobs are relatively low paid. Let’s say that the average wage is $40k, which gives $6k in tax per wage earner. Total for 5680 jobs is $34m. So the effective 'resource rental' that the people of NZ get from the commercial fishing industry for them taking $1200M worth of publicly owned seafood is around $58m collected in taxes. By comparison, 400,000,000 kg’s of seafood are harvested by the owners of TACC (and hence ACE). Snapper ACE is between $2.50 and $4.95 per kg, but other species will be higher or lower, with some high volume species definitely lower, so let’s say that average ACE is $1per kg. So whilst the people of NZ received $58m from ‘their’ asset, the small group of companies and individuals who were gifted the TACC received a ‘resource rental’ somewhere around $400m. So the question is, why do the asset owners (i.e the people of NZ) receive $58m in annual ‘benefit’ whilst our government gave away the other $400m of annual income to the fishing industry. When you think of how we have just sold a bunch of public assets like power companies, Air NZ etc, to get a cash return for the people of NZ, why did we give away one of our largest and best performing assets, a $4B fishery returning 10% per annum (to the TACC holders). Just to make it even better, our government holds of our behalf TACC in some species where it was not all issued to commercial operators. If the commercial sector fish one of those stocks down until a TACC reduction is needed to protect the stock, our government will GIFT some more of the TACC that (we) own to the operators so that they won't be so affected by the changes. So they take too many fish to line their own pockets, and once the stock is in danger we just gift them $millions more in TACC as a 'reward' for wrecking the stock in the first place. I guess this makes sense to someone, but it isn't me. Want another view from MPI’s own papers – “The average port price (the gross price that fishers receive) for the 2012/13 fishing year is $5770 per tonne for SNA 1.” “The average ACE value (the earnings quota owners receive when selling their ACE) for the 2011/12 fishing year was $4130 per tonne for SNA 1” Assuming not too much changed between 2012 & 2013, the guys out there doing the fishing received $5770 per tonne for Snapper, and paid the ACE (TACC) holders $4130 to lease the quota. So the guys sitting on the TACC we gifted them, got $4130 per tonne for doing nothing, whilst the guys doing all the work and taking all the risks received $1640 per tonne or $1.64 per kg. Why isn’t that $4130 going into the public coffers instead of making a few individuals super wealthy?

So you are saying that.....what? The govt should compulsorily repurchase all snapper quota, then act as the quota holder to commercial snapper fishing boats? Or that these boats should also be bought and run by the govt, making the snapper fishing industry a govt run business (like NZ rail or solid energy), or hell, just ban commercial snapper fishing.
You have not given any value to the actual jobs of those, you merely state their taxes are X amount...so what? They are JOBS,each and every one. They pay people's mortgages, they feed families, you would gave them all wiped out, put them all out on the dole? Then instead of "only" paying a little tax, our taxes will be paying them each 20k or more each . So instead of a 34million tax take, it would be a 113million tax payout.....147million dollar difference.
And that is not counting the money spent buy the industry on fuel, supplies , chandlery, all that stuff, all jobs for someone.
Commercial fishing is here to stay. Nothing you, me or anyone can do about, it is the source of income for thousands of people, it does indeed earn export dollars for NZ, which is important as this helps pay for everything here in NZ, so just get used to it.
The devil is in the details of just how the resource is used.
The qms system is, I totally agree, very flawed, in that by making it transferable and a tradable item, it has concentrated it all in the hands of larger corporate entities, not in the hands of the small operators it was initially hoped for.
Saying the return to the public for the use of this asset worth X billion is bad is also deeply flawed....as if you ban the fishing as is the back door inference to hopefully get a better return on that X billion....then the asset immediately be one zero asset. The resource is worth exactly what it earns from being caught. Leaving it in the water makes the value zero.
Back to the quota itself..., by making those tonnages a property right, reducing the size of those quotas to rebuild stocks or reassign catch allowances...to say, rec fishing for example, in the case of snapper, means that the owners of that quota have a right to sue the govt for their loss of asset, costing big bucks and forcing the bureaucrats to shy away from this option until things are intolerably bad.
So banning commercial fishing is impossible and suggesting it is bonkers. Nationalising is only possible if you accept that the govt should run any and all businesses it so desires, extreme socialism, and that model has spectacularly failed everywhere in the world it has been tried, look at Venezuela, where they nationalised the oil industry. Catastrophic results.

Changes SHOULD be made....tweaks, not wholesale destruction of the system. Especially in areas where the commercial and recreational spheres conflict, recreational fishing....that I'd us folks, should gave absolute priority, I agree with that. I think the system should be to 1/ ensure a strong biomass, 2/ Ensure recreational access to a fair proportion of this resource, and then 3/ allow commercial harvesting of such excess as will allow 1 & 2.

Anyhow, that is what I think.