{"id":606933,"date":"2026-09-21T07:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T07:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/606933\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T07:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T07:54:10","slug":"minister-shane-jones-wants-bespoke-aquaculture-legislation-to-boost-sector-amid-anxiety-over-land-farming-limits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/606933\/","title":{"rendered":"Minister Shane Jones wants bespoke aquaculture legislation to boost sector amid \u2018anxiety\u2019 over land farming limits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back inside the meeting room, industry bosses were optimistic but wary about the ambitious and aspirational forecast provided by MPI that their sector could potentially increase salmon production from around 15,000 tonnes per year to 450,000. <\/p>\n

In 2024, Jones extended existing coastal permits for marine farms by 20 years, a move he told the meeting was \u201can extraordinarily unusual thing for a government to do\u201d but would ultimately help increase investor certainty<\/a> in the sector. <\/p>\n

Akaroa King Salmon chief executive Stuart Hawthorn said the ambition was great and if it could be delivered on, it would lead to economic benefits beyond producing more food. He warned that care was needed to ensure the quality of New Zealand\u2019s salmon, and the public perception of the sector, was not tainted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to make sure we are at the high end of the [global] market. We are not trying to be McDonald\u2019s; we are trying to be a high-quality food that is good for people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hawthorn said to Jones that he might like the \u201crough and tumble\u201d over such issues but \u201cI would rather avoid that in my sector\u201d, stressing that maintaining public support and being conscious of how such growth was framed to the media was critical. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe want the public to see aquaculture for what it is: a fantastic protein that is good for people\u2019s health, that\u2019s good for the planet and that\u2019s good for our economy,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBecause if we get that right, this is a massive opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salmon farming in New Zealand is contentious for some people. In 2025, the sector attracted scrutiny over higher-than-expected summer mortality rates<\/a> of salmon, after a complaint by animal advocacy group Safe that raised concerns over the wellbeing of the fish. <\/p>\n

Jones said the public would not tolerate \u201cgrowing mass production\u201d of fish farming that emulated \u201cwhat the Vietnamese are doing with … tilapia fish\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re told that our salmon already captures a premium. Then if we expand the production, it needs to be driven by a belief that we can situate our final products into the upper band of affordability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carl Carrington, chief executive of New Zealand King Salmon, questioned whether achieving 450,000 tonnes in annual production would include introducing other species of salmon for farming in New Zealand. Currently, only king salmon is farmed in New Zealand. MPI chief executive Ray Smith said it potentially could.<\/p>\n

\"MinisterMinister for Oceans and Fisheries Shane Jones during a previous 2025 stand-up on the Wellington waterfront, where he released a consultation document on what he called \u201cthe most significant reforms\u201d to New Zealand\u2019s fisheries in decades. Photo \/ Mark Mitchell<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that is going to require centralised, consistent decision-making that is timely and all for government departments to be on the same agenda,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cRight now, one department will be pushing for growth \u2013 MPI \u2013 another one department will be actively trying to stop it \u2013 and I\u2019ll call out DoC. I think all of us in the aquaculture industry has had our problems with DoC.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin said the corporate was interested in salmon farming in New Zealand, as it carried out in Tasmania, but there \u201cstill is not enough certainty for us to progress that from a capital perspective in New Zealand\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you give enough certainty to that supply chain in order to convince people to spend billions of dollars? It will not be hundreds of millions of dollars for what we are talking about, it will be billions. I think if we can do that, then we will attract investment,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Broad political support, including from minor parties, was critical because \u201cflip-flopping\u201d on legislative decisions would only spook overseas investors, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat kind of uncertainty is, I think, the biggest [issue] \u2013 whenever regulations change, and governments make changes in that supply chain, investment disappears,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it happens in the infancy of trying to start your industry up … you\u2019d almost do your dash, and people just go to other parts of the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

Julia Gabel is a Wellington-based political reporter. She joined the Herald in 2020 and has most recently focused on data journalism. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back inside the meeting room, industry bosses were optimistic but wary about the ambitious and aspirational forecast provided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[298958,15408,534,3404,93034,146362,11231,17940,298959,14934,17240,2964,648,2176,19720,20513,53946,2374,1132,6722,28874,1304,111,43,139,69,1523,6046,6177,8417,16784,9621,12975,5843,7228,1961,61,6859,33442,14638,102,379,80],"class_list":["post-606933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-30fold","tag-almost","tag-amid","tag-anxiety","tag-aquaculture","tag-bespoke","tag-boost","tag-bosses","tag-closeddoor","tag-farming","tag-grow","tag-half","tag-industries","tag-jones","tag-land","tag-legislation","tag-limits","tag-meeting","tag-million","tag-minister","tag-ministry","tag-morning","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-over","tag-potential","tag-primary","tag-production","tag-room","tag-salmon","tag-sector","tag-senior","tag-shane","tag-this","tag-to","tag-told","tag-tonnes","tag-wants","tag-with","tag-year","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606933","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=606933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/606933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=606933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=606933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=606933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}