{"id":356651,"date":"2026-03-31T10:18:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:18:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356651\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T10:18:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:18:12","slug":"shane-jones-reminds-national-act-of-fisheries-bill-commitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/356651\/","title":{"rendered":"Shane Jones reminds National, ACT of fisheries bill commitment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shane<\/p>\n

\nThe legislation has passed its first reading.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone\n<\/p>\n

New Zealand First minister Shane Jones has used the first reading of his fisheries legislation to remind his government partners that the proposed changes are a coalition commitment.<\/p>\n

Jones was last week forced to back down from the most contentious element of the proposed law change after National and ACT effectively threatened to pull their support.<\/p>\n

That clause would have removed most minimum size limits<\/a> for commercial fishers.<\/p>\n

The legislation passed its first reading on Tuesday afternoon with the support of all three coalition parties and will now be considered by select committee.<\/p>\n

Speaking in the debate, Jones declared it an “overdue but joyous day” for New Zealand fishers, delivering a “substantial set of improvements”.<\/p>\n

He said he had listened “a great deal” to those concerned about the future of fisheries and would continue to do so through the select committee process.<\/p>\n

But Jones followed up with a warning: “Let me remind everyone in this House: this is a coalition agreement.”<\/p>\n

The National-NZ First coalition agreement includes a commitment to “remove regulations that impede the productivity and enormous potential of the seafood sector”.<\/p>\n

In a separate statement, Green co-leader Chl\u00f6e Swarbrick said the coalition’s law change would push fish stocks closer to wipe-out.<\/p>\n

“New Zealanders pushed back hard last week, and the minister was forced to abandon the removal of minimum fish size requirements for commercial operators, but the government needs to gut the whole damn Bill.<\/p>\n

“National, ACT and NZ First are choosing to screw over our oceans and recreational fishers to help the industry make a quick, unsustainable buck.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legislation has passed its first reading. Photo: RNZ \/ Samuel Rillstone New Zealand First minister Shane Jones…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-356651","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356651","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=356651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}