Source: Radio New Zealand
Fisheries Minister Shane Jones. RNZ / Mark Papalii
Fisheries Minister Shane Jones overrode official advice a $50,000 fine for leaking footage from fishing boat cameras – five times the penalty under the Privacy Act – would be “unreasonable”.
The Ministry of Justice also warned the Minister that trying to protect the footage from reaching the public – including by imposing the fine, barring Official Information requests from accessing the footage, and limiting judicial reviews to 20 days – could breach the Bill of Rights, although the formal vetting of the legislation is yet to be done.
The changes limiting judicial review were not included in the public consultation, but will be consulted on now the bill has gone to select committee, with submissions closing on Wednesday.
Documents released under the Official Information Act show Jones requested such fines – to be levelled against people who received the footage from the Ministry for Primary Industries and shared it – be set at a maximum $50,000.
Jones was unapologetic, saying the high fine was aimed at protecting the industry.
“It’s a figure that I chose to show how dangerous it is for people to manipulate, misuse information that I fear will be exploited to taint and undermine the fishing industry,” Jones told RNZ.
“It’s about ensuring that only the state enforces rules and regulations, not green vigilantes or DIY prosecutors believing that recreational fishing is suffering because of commercial fishing. I’ve had enough of that nonsense.”
He pushed back on the concerns about human rights.
“This is a fishing industry – a legitimate part of our economy – it is now under a type of state surveillance: widespread video camera footage taken of men and women going about their daily lives on a fishing boat.
“I do not accept that that information should be made freely available to anyone other than the state or in rare circumstances, researchers or educators, so I think that it’s a violation of people’s human rights as employees in an industry that state surveillance information should be given indiscriminately to people who will weaponise it.”
The documents show Ministry of Justice officials warned the $50,000 fine would be “unreasonable, and that a maximum fine between $5000 and $10,000 would be more appropriate”, as this would align with the $10,000 fine for failures to comply with the Privacy Act.
The Office of the Ombudsman also “strongly reiterated to MPI that it does not support exempting on-board camera footage from the Official Information Act, noting that “an OIA exemption may curtail fundamental human and constitutional rights to access information without sufficient justification”.
‘Out of whack’
Green Party fisheries spokesperson Teanau Tuiono said Jones’ overall intention was to limit people’s ability to hold the government to account.
Green Party fisheries spokesperson Teanau Tuiono RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
“He’s just protecting fishing companies and their exploitation-laden profits – that seems to be more important than protecting the ocean for our future generations.
“He seems to be more worried about finding people who might leak footage of people breaking the law, rather than the actual law-breaking itself.”
Tuiono said he wanted to find out what justifications there could be for having such a high fine, acknowledging protection of privacy was important, but saying with one commercial fisher fined just $3000 for illegal trawling that the balance was wrong.
“It looks completely out of whack to me,” he said. “You can protect people’s privacy because that is an important thing, but going so far to the other side?”
It should be noted companies can be fined significantly more for breaching fishing rules, with for example Westfleet Fishing fined nearly $70,000 in 2023 for failing to weigh and report coral caught when bottom trawling.
However, that requires a lengthy court process – and Jones last year introduced much smaller on-the-spot fines for breaches by recreational and commercial fishers alike.
Still, Tuiono expected Jones would have to back down through the committee process – something Jones indicated he would be open to.
“Yes,” Jones said, “the Labour member in the select committee felt that it was an egregious figure and said that unless there was some common ground, Labour would not be voting for the bill, National at this stage are determining whether or not the bill can be improved.
“I accept that that figure is an area that select committee members want to readdress.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand