Election 2026: Opportunity Party candidate Jodie Kuntzsch lobbied for bottom trawlers
The Opportunity Party is staking its political future on a crackdown on lobbying and outlawing “destructive” bottom trawling, yet one of its high-ranking candidates previously worked as a lobbyist for the fisheries industry, including lobbying for bottom trawlers.
The party says it is fully aware of the candidate’s work history.
Jodie Kuntzsch, Opportunity’s candidate for Nelson, has worked in the marine space for 20 years.
At number six on the list, Kuntzsch is guaranteed to enter Parliament if the party reaches the 5% threshold, which current polling indicates is likely.
The party, which looks set to hold the kingmaker position, has released five non-negotiable bottom-line policies it says another governing partner must agree to for its support.
They include further regulating lobbyists to combat a loss of trust in politics, and reviving ocean health through an end to bottom trawling.
Kuntzsch said her career has focused on “improving transparency and performance, whether that’s environmental, social, or climate adaptability”.
Speaking to the Herald on Friday, she said she was not involved in developing the party’s bottom-trawling policy but described it as an “important consideration as we look to building a future economy here in New Zealand”.
Kuntzsch ran a consultancy firm she founded in 2016 called Jansencampbell, which she said took contracts focused on “improving transparency and performance across the seafood industry” in New Zealand and around the world.
A 2024 interview on a Women in Seafood webpage quoted Kuntzsch as saying she “represented and advocated on behalf of the seafood industry, including serving as an industry expert in parliamentary select committee hearings and the High Court of New Zealand”.
Asked whether she considers herself to have been a lobbyist for the seafood industry, Kuntzsch told the Herald, “I will leave that to you to decide”.
“For me it doesn’t matter whether it’s defined as lobbying or not, I believe in transparency.”
Opportunity’s number two bottom-line policy is to crack down on lobbying.
“Private money, professional lobbying and centralised power has seen trust in Government slip,” the party’s website states.
One of its key policy pillars is to “bring lobbying into the daylight, so everyone can see who’s shaping decisions”, which includes establishing a public register of lobbyists.
Kuntzsch said she would be “absolutely okay” with having had her name added to a public lobbyist register for the work she did for the industry.
Records show Kuntzsch undertook contract work for Deepwater Group, now the Deepwater Council, which is an industry group made up of and representing the interests of New Zealand’s deepwater fisheries quota owners.
In 2023, Deepwater Group was amalgamated with Fisheries Inshore and Seafood New Zealand, which Kuntzch said she had also done work for.
Her other work history involves the establishment of the transparency initiative Open Seas, she said, as well as other leadership roles within organisations within the “blue economy”.
Asked whether she had ever lobbied in favour of bottom trawling, Kuntzsch said: “I can’t give you a direct yes or no answer to that one.
“Things like Open Seas, for example, hold together all the information about key stocks, including those that Marine Stewardship Council certified; those and many of those fisheries have a large bottom-trawling component to them.”
Asked again whether she had ever advocated for or lobbied Governments, investors, or regulators in favour of bottom-trawling practices, Kuntzsch said she had “supported the industry with improving performance, environmental, social, and, like I said, climate adaptability”.
“It’s not specifically about defending a particular company or method or species; my focus has been on ensuring that we have a sustainable seafood industry,” she said.
Kuntzsch conceded she did previously support sustainable bottom trawling.
“Based on the evidence that we had at that time, and perhaps there were specific fisheries where the evidence suggested that that practice was still sustainable.”
As for whether she still believes bottom trawling can be done sustainably into the future, Kuntzsch said, “it is not a binary”.
“What we have proposed is the staged phase-out of bottom trawling, recognising that there are some critically compromised habitats and environments that need more urgent action. I’m also committed to working alongside the industry in areas where bottom trawling has less impact, but there is an impact, and we’re always looking for ways that we can reduce that in order to ensure the sustainability of the environment as well as the sustainability of the stock.”
Opportunity’s position is to immediately put an end to bottom trawling in the most vulnerable inshore areas like the Hauraki Gulf/Tīkapa Moana, before phasing out the practice in stages.
It calls the practice “destructive”.
Kuntzsch said she supports the party’s current policy in full.
New Zealand First, a party vocal in its support for the fisheries industry, has spoken out against policy promises to crack down on bottom trawling.
Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong has previously described New Zealand First as “probably the party that we have the least in common with”.
Asked about claims circulating within the fisheries industry that she had previously supported NZ First, Kuntzsch said she had previously “had some involvement with them” over regional development and sustainable seafood issues.
Asked whether she had ever been a member of the party, Kuntzsch said: “Does it, does it matter to you if I was?”
Asked whether she had ever been involved in a local branch of New Zealand First beyond simply being a paid member, she said “there’s nuance to some of that” and said it was personal.
Asked whether she had ever sought candidacy for a party besides Opportunity, she would not say.
“I’ve told you what I think is in the public interest,” she said.
She suggested she had been a member of more than one political party in the past, but refused to say which parties or when, saying she had never fully aligned with a party as she does now with Opportunity.
Opportunity general manager Iain Lees Galloway told the Herald that Kuntzsch disclosed to the party that she had previously been a New Zealand First member, and Opportunity was “aware of her work history”.
Ethan Manera is a Wellington-based journalist covering Wellington issues, local politics and business in the capital. He can be emailed at ethan.manera@nzme.co.nz.