Winston Peters warns bottom-trawling review could cost jobs
NZ First leader Winston Peters said the National Party didn’t understand the importance of the commercial fishing industry but said he was nonetheless open to examining the party’s review of bottom trawling.
“We know far more about the fishing industry than National Party does,” Peters said.
On Saturday, National leader Christopher Luxon announced an oceans policy that would strengthen protection for the Hauraki Gulf and review bottom trawling. The Opportunity Party has said immediately banning inshore bottom trawling and phasing out the practice elsewhere is a bottom line.
Speaking to the Herald at a public meeting in Invercargill, Peters said of National’s policy: “I don’t think they quite understand the magnitude of the industry and what that means for the cost of fishing on the market. That’ll go sky-high as a consequence.
“All of a sudden, the working people of this country who would have access to what you might call affordable fish will not be able to afford fish at all”.
He described the policy as “desperate”, though he said he would look at the details.
“We’d like to know a whole lot more about what that means by that and what the cost of it is going to be and what the employment loss is going to be and what the cost-of-living rise will be.
“No ifs, no buts, no maybes. We’ll examine this question, see what it means for the market, see what it means for employment, but we’re not putting thousands of people out of work just to satisfy a what you might call a clutch pearling green outfit,” Peters said, before correcting himself to describe the policy as “green pearl clutching”.