Scampi fishers saved from themselves, says crown

MPs who recommended compensation for those who missed out on a share of the scampi fishery were unduly generous and did not realise the fishers would have lost money if they had been given permits, the High Court at Wellington was told yesterday.

United Fisheries and Trevor Goodship and his company Pranfield Holdings say they were unfairly shut out of the scampi industry 16 years ago and since then have suffered millions in lost earnings.

They accuse government officials of negligence, misfeasance and breaching their statutory duties in dealing with the situation.

Bill Wilson, QC, summed up the case for the defence before Justice Alan MacKenzie, saying the plaintiffs had no basis for their claims, nor for the compensation sought.

Mr Wilson said the evidence showed that if the plaintiffs had been allowed to fish they had the wrong equipment and would not have caught enough scampi to make a profit.

"It was to the financial advantage of both Pranfield and United that they did not enter the scampi fishery in 1990," Mr Wilson said.

The court case follows a parliamentary select committee inquiry into allegations of corruption and incompetence in the allocation of the scampi fishery.

When the inquiry convened, most of the claims of corruption melted away, but MPs did eventually find a number of fishers were treated unfairly and recommended compensation be paid.

However, the companies claim the Ministry of Fisheries dealt with them in bad faith by misleading them about the amount of compensation approved by the committee.

Mr Wilson argued yesterday that the offer by the Government on the recommendation of the select committee was "unduly generous".

The ministry had also been too kind to the fishers.

Mr Wilson said officials who made the original decisions about the permits were recognised as world class in their fields.

"The relevant employees of the ministry were at all material times motivated by only one consideration, their concern for the scampi fishery," Mr Wilson said.

The plaintiffs had proven to be unreliable witnesses who attacked the integrity of officials with no evidence to back their claims.

The long-running case began in 1990, when permits to catch scampi were denied.

Later, a moratorium was placed on permits which meant the fishers had no catch record for scampi when quota was eventually divvied up.

Mr Wilson said it was true there were regional differences in the way permits were allocated to reflect variations between fisheries.

Where the system caused problems the ministry had moved to address this and was then criticised for sorting out undesirable variations.

"The ministry cannot win."

The decisions on exemptions to the moratorium had been made in good faith and there was no basis in law for review, Mr Wilson argued.

The battle over the fishery began after Auckland fishing company Simunovich was allocated the lion's share of the scampi quota.

The dispute has resulted in numerous court cases and two high-profile inquiries, one of which found no evidence of corruption in the allocation, but recommended six fishers receive almost $3 million due to incompetent or unfair treatment.

So far two unnamed fishers have received $500,000 and $400,000 compensation payouts from the Government which has said it would not be bound by the inquiry's figures.

- NZPA