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Fishing boat cameras: Who is telling the truth? New Zealand is behind the times New Zealand is behind the times when it comes to putting cameras on fishing boats. The Australian industry has had them running very successfully, as the cameras forced fishers to be considerably more honest in reporting their catches. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has highlighted the Australian model of how cameras could be used effectively to cut down on the bycatch of birds and mammals such as dolphins. But, this is in contrast to the government, which is now considering scrapping the cameras altogether. New Zealand would become the only member of “Five-Eyes”, not to have cameras on fishing boats. Australia first began trialling cameras on its tuna boats two-and-ahalf years ago. The country’s first reports on the difference they had made, showed a 700 percent increase in reporting by skippers of bycatch, of seabirds and mammals.
In Australia and also in New Zealand currently, fishers primarily record their catch in a log book. What they found in Australia is when there was a camera on the boat and what was being reported in the log book could be verified against camera footage, fishers were suddenly a lot more honest. Australia and their Five Eyes partners are not the only countries employing the technology - five Pacific Island countries are using it as well, including Fiji, which had 17 long lining vessels equipped with cameras and planned to roll them out on another fifty boats. Compare that to New Zealand where only 8 percent of boats had observers on board, leaving the activities of the rest of the fleet shrouded in secrecy. The MPI planned to roll out the cameras under National, but Minister Nash found loopholes and inconsistencies that left National’s plan open to abuse and gave commercial fish-
ers a dictionary of excuses to avoid accountability and prosecution. It also appears that significant pressure has been applied from the seafood industry and some MP’s on Stuart Nash and the MPI to dump the idea of cameras. The industry says that as well as risking giving away the secret fishing spots, putting cameras on boats and asking fishers to pay for them would be unfair. It makes no comment on the fact that it is the public’s resource that they are exploiting nor the fact that their fishing spots are not actually secret as fishers fish together. What the industry and their political friends are blind to, is cameras won’t be optional if they wish to sell their catches to the other Five Eyes countries. This will happen much sooner than later. The NZ Labour party is in a precarious position with their co-alition partners NZ First and the Green Party. Shane Jones and Peters (re-
ported as being owned by the Fishing Industry) are believed to be putting pressure on Nash on behalf of Fishing Industry to cancel the cameras on commercial fishing boats. Under the current regime Moana NZ have lost the lease of some Maori quota to Sanford’s. What this will do is that instead of the elite iwi taking every last cent as they did with Moana, Sanford’s will now pay the Maori people the benefits. These folk have always wanted to be paid for their fish that are caught rather than corporate Maori, who have not allowed the money trickle down. This could well be the reason that former CEO Carl Carrington left because the iwi quota that was being leased by Moana which has now been picked up by Sanford’s. You can bet your boots that other tribes will all be making similar deals for their harvested quota. This will include a code of prac-
tice for whoever catches the fish and that will include cameras and smaller boats catching their fish with Maori crews. This is likely to bring the Maori MP’s on board because the Maori MPs need the Maori people to vote for them. Labour must keep all the Maori seats away from the new Maori party if they hope to form a Government without NZFirst. Every single commercial fishing boat fishing for export in the Hauraki Gulf area must be banned to fish outside 12 nautical miles. It appears that NZ First is holding Jacinda to ransom over the fishing. Jones has already strongly indicated that he doesn’t want cameras pre election. This is a complete reversal of NZ First policy a betrayal of NZ First voters. Many kiwis voted for NZ First based on their extremely good fishing policy but all that has changed now that it has been revealed that NZF took
DoC’s cowardly cover-ups exposed DoC’s cowardly cover-ups exposed Judge Greg Hollister-Jones dismissed a charge of common assault brought by the New Zealand Police against Graeme Sturgeon of Coromandel in the Thames District Court recently. In the judge’s mind he appeared to decide that Sturgeon’s actions from the moment the door was opened and that he was assaulted by the DoC thug were made in self-defence. The aggressive attitude and demeanor of the DoC thug was such that Richard Lane, in forcibly opening Sturgeon’s car door, in a surprise move, without identifying himself, appeared to tip
SEE INSIDE Page 5 -
Environmental challenges facing NZ
Page 7 -
The future of our fishery
Page 10 - Green Party hypocritical on 1080 use Page 11-
DoC’s Disgraceful Conduct
Page 12 - Southern Bluefin doomed for extinction Page 15 - Coro Seafood Festival
the balance in the Judges findings. Sturgeon and two companions had been alerted to a clandestine DoC 1080 poison loading operation in Whitianga. The Court established that Sturgeon was dragged out of his car by a DoC thug posing as a security guard. The DoC thug did not have a current Certificate of Approval from the Security Licencing Authority and was untrained in ‘crowd control’. He worked as a spray contractor for the Waikato Regional Council. On 19th October Sturgeon had submitted a complaint of assault to NZ Police. A month later, 15th November, Sturgeon was summoned by the Thames District Court on charge of assault. His initial complaint and supporting witness statements were completely ignored by the NZ Police and also subject to an Independent Police Complaints Authority investigation. DoC had only supplied a short extract of the CCTV footage to NZ Police, and a demand from Sturgeon’s lawyer, Barrister Greg Bradford, to view the full footage delayed the hearing. Judge Hollister-Jones said that the CCTV footage made available to the court was very helpful. The footage showed Sturgeon trying to close his car door and the door being wrenched open for a second time by the DoC employed thug Lane. View the video footage and judge for yourself and read the witness statement online at http://www. fishingoutdoors.org/hunting-information/hunting-articles/122-1080articles/3020-doc%E2%80%99scowardly-cover-ups-exposed. html and on https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=s635djymTTM
It is clear that perjury has been committed and it is interesting that the Police did not clarify or question that Lane had a security licence. Basic investigation questions! Lane stated to the court that he was told by DoC staff “to expect trouble from protestors” and appeared to have a paranoid mind set believing that Sturgeon posed a threat. Under cross- examination a number of Lane’s statements were disproved. The Department of Conservation had stored 23,700 kgs of 1080 poison baits in the Liquor King building from June 2017 through to October 17th when the baits were loaded in preparation for the drop over the Kaimamara Valley, which is the source of Whitianga’s town water supply. Official Information requests showed that DoC did not inform local authorities about this bulk storage, including the local fire chief. If there was a fire, toxic hydrogen fluoride gas would be released, with serious even lethal health effects, and the town would have to be evacuated. Tsunami evacuation rehearsals have shown that Whitianga has potentially bottlenecked escape routes. There appears to be several very serious inconsistencies with statements by the Police and DoC. 1. Why did the Head of DoC 1080 Operations for Coromandel, Steve Bolton stand by witnessing the events and do nothing? Did he deliberately set his dogs on Sturgeon then stand by and watch the assault doing nothing? Is this not the mark of a coward? Bolton apparently saw the whole thing, looking down at Sturgeon as he picked himself off the ground, and when Sturgeon said “You bas-
tard Steve Bolton” (knowing who Steve Bolton was from old Forest Service days), Bolton turned around and ran back inside the DoC office. 2. It takes over six months to have a security license renewed and a company certificate renewed and yet Richard Lane who beat up a pensioner in Whitianga on behalf of DoC managed to have his processed almost overnight, even though he had not completed the necessary training for the qualification to have been issued by the Department of (In) Justice. This isn’t a conspiracy theory, its plain fact. 3. Additionally there is no current application to the Dept of Justice for his company VIP Security Consultants to be granted a Company Licence. 4. Senior Sergeant Bennet-King NZ Police is reported as saying: “His (Sturgeon’s) appreciation of risk to himself had to be coupled by knowledge that he was transgressing into the middle of the 1080 loading process.” What is he saying here? If you drive down a public right of way that has no barriers, and no warning signs, then you can expect to be assaulted? That if you are near any 1080 handling operations you can expect to be assaulted? It seems to me that this man is saying that simply being present to witness what was essentially a road transport operation will put you at risk, and the implication is that this is reasonable and should be expected. What is reasonable, and should be expected is that, if a public hazard is present, then DoC should have taken logical steps to isolate the hazards. Barriers, signage and trained staff. What is NOT reasonable is that one of those barriers to harm, a security guard, should
money from the fishing industry. This will take away most of the money and power from corporate iwi and hopefully give customary a bigger say in the inshore fishery. The 60 million dollar question is who will do the monitoring. Another issue is that Doc and MPI have been kneecapped by NZ First – if they don’t toe the line NZ First are likely to jump ship and form a government with National. Everything is about sucking up to NZ First - a complete disaster. All Jacinda can do is use her charm to go up in the polls. NZ First has completely betrayed kiwis and are actually worse than National have ever been. All the worst Maori bad habits will come out when Jones replaces Peters. With Maori there are no boundaries. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/ politics/97468847/maori-fishersgetting-shafted--shane-jones
to his commission and uniform! Richard Lane’s Security Licence rushed through? – It appears more Dirty Dealings by Govt Departments! Denise Hazelton comments “The judge commented in court. His licence had lapsed. He had applied for it only in December. He does not have his security licence yet, as
in fact turn into the agent of harm. Sergeant Bennet-King’s sympathies are obvious in his comments, it looks like the judge thought so too’”....truly a discredit Story continued page 2...
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