benefit his \u201cmates\u201d in the commercial sector<\/a> \u2013 a claim Jones has denied.<\/p>\nIn a post on X announcing the reversal, Peters said: \u201cWe believe in democracy, and the most important part of democracy is listening to the people.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Luxon said he, too, had concerns about the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a recreational fisher, I share Kiwis\u2019 concerns on the impacts to juvenile fish stocks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Luxon described his conversation with Jones about the matter as \u201cconstructive\u201d and said it was important the \u201cmost egregious\u201d part of the bill was removed. <\/p>\n
He said the plan to scrap size limits hadn\u2019t been made clear, resulting in serious concerns from recreational fishers. <\/p>\n
Luxon urged the public to have their say on other controversial aspects of the bill to \u201cmake it even better\u201d. <\/p>\n
Act leader David Seymour called it a \u201cgreat day\u201d for small snapper and recreational fishing.<\/p>\n
He said the details about scrapping size limits were \u201chidden\u201d in legislation and, once he learned of it, he made his concerns known.<\/p>\n
![\"Legasea's]()
Legasea’s Sam Woolford is urging lawmakers to kill the bill.<\/p>\n
Woolford said the suggestion that the Government had listened to New Zealanders wasn\u2019t true. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe have not been heard at all,\u201d he told the Herald. <\/p>\n
He noted the U-turn on size limits was only one part of a much larger issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is that this is not a concession and this is not democracy at work. Twelve months ago, 25,000 New Zealanders put in submissions opposing the bill. This was ignored.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hooper likened the legislation to an \u201cocean exploitation bill\u201d and said it should be rejected in its entirety.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the Prime Minister and coalition partners have done is remove one aspect of this bonfire of a bill,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Labour]()
Labour says the Government’s U-turn on the Fisheries Amendment Bill is embarrassing. Photo \/ Darren Shields<\/p>\n
Labour\u2019s fisheries spokeswoman, Rachel Boyack, said Labour would oppose the bill in its entirety, and the removal of size limits should never have made it into legislation in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an embarrassing backdown from the Government,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Boyack said it showed the Government was out of step with the public when it comes to fisheries reform.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still think the bill is not good, and we will continue to oppose it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Other controversial changes in the bill include plans to block the public from obtaining footage of fish dumping under the Official Information Act.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also proposed that quota owners would have the right to carry forward an increased amount of uncaught catch into another fishing year; there would be more flexibility to dump unwanted catch at sea, and the ability for fisheries decisions to be challenged in court would be reduced.<\/p>\n
The Environmental Law Initiative has several legal cases against Jones regarding fisheries management.<\/p>\n
The group\u2019s director of research and legal, Dr Matt Hall, said the strict limitations on the ability to seek a judicial review of decisions were one of his key concerns.<\/p>\n
He said not allowing the public to access footage, along with huge penalties against those who leak such videos, will create a \u201ctransparency black hole\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll up, these are major changes to the Fisheries Act, which would have an alarming impact on New Zealand\u2019s ability to sustainably manage its fisheries,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Michael Morrah<\/a> is a senior investigative reporter\/team leader at the Herald. He won News Journalist of the Year at the 2025 Voyager Media Awards and has twice been named reporter of the year at the NZ Television Awards. He has been a broadcast journalist for 20 years and joined the Herald\u2019s video team in July 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThis is reacting to public pressure and scrapping one aspect of it does not make this bill acceptable.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[184458,8172,16574,5770,13504,4527,23966,4760,54249,71,30954,2176,48232,20513,111,43,139,5006,69,21941,16860,112823,5659,7228,102,80],"class_list":["post-346703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-backdown","tag-backlash","tag-bill","tag-core","tag-critics","tag-doesnt","tag-enough","tag-firsts","tag-fisheries","tag-from","tag-greenpeace","tag-jones","tag-labelling","tag-legislation","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-not","tag-nz","tag-opponents","tag-reform","tag-rotten","tag-say","tag-shane","tag-with","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346703"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346703\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/338055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}