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Labour’s Maori affairs spoksesperson says Primary Indusries Minister Nathan Guy has botched the issue of reducing the snapper catch, and he needs to quit.
Mr Guy has axed a plan to reduce the catch limit for snapper to three a day, and has made a smaller cut from nine to seven and raised the minimum size from 27 to 30 centimetres.
Mr Jones says the public response to the original plan made it politically untenable.
He says the focus by the recreational fishing lobby on the illegal dumping of fish by commercial fishers also forced the minister’s hand.
"The challenge is really can we stop the wastage coming off some of our commercial boats and I think this notion of making them carry cameras, essentially surveillance gear on every trawler, is going to not only be expensive but I think it is going to change behaviour," Mr Jones says
He says the minister also needs to consider making charter boats account for their catch, which would allow more accurate estimates of the size of the recreational catch.
Copyright © 2013, UMA Broadcasting Ltd
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