KEY POINTS:
The Government wants to change fishing laws because it is losing too many legal challenges to its decisions.
Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said yesterday officials were drafting law changes to enable him to act more cautiously when he made decisions on issues such as quota amounts and allowable catch limits.
The present Fisheries Act was too ambiguous, and didn't allow a cautious approach to be taken, he said.
Mr Anderton said the Government was losing three out of every four challenges it received in this area.
Courts effectively demanded absolute scientific proof of what would happen if quota or catch limits weren't reduced, and that was difficult to give.
"Our knowledge of species, and essentially ecosystem behaviour, is often incomplete," he said.
"My intention is to amend the act so decision-makers are required, in circumstances where information is uncertain or limited, to act cautiously so as to ensure sustainability," he said.
The announcement caught the fishing industry by surprise, and people spoken to by the Herald yesterday said they needed time to digest what it would mean.
New Zealand Seafood Industry Council chief executive Owen Symmans said the decision had "come out of the blue".
"There has been no consultation with the industry."
Mr Symmans said it was impossible to comment until he had seen details of the changes.
Mr Anderton also said he would not be defending a recent High Court challenge to his decision to reduce the catch limit in a North Island orange roughly fishery from 1470 tonnes to 840 tonnes.
The case highlighted the law's ambiguity, he said, and the decision not to defend it was made "in the interests of certainty and avoiding a long legal battle"
One of the fishers involved in the challenge, Milan Barbarich, said he would comment on the issue today.
Mr Anderton said a bill was being drafted following the Cabinet's decision on Monday to back the move, and that the changes were consistent with what was going on overseas.
He hoped the changes would be in law before the start of the fishing year on October 1.
