Australian fishing guides are crowding out locals, says the New Zealand Professional Guides Association, and a new license is needed.<\/p>\n
Association president Dean Bell told Checkpoint Australian guides were coming to stay for about three to four months in the summer, and operate through a social license with New Zealand recreational anglers.<\/p>\n
He said it was a “numbers game” and New Zealand’s resources were finite.<\/p>\n
“There’s a limited number of fishable rivers and in that a limited number of trout. These trout are only catchable for certain periods and they’ll stop feeding.”<\/p>\n
That’s led the association to call for an “effective guides license” and a serious look at capping the number of guides in the country.<\/p>\n
“We would make it that you would have to pay tax in New Zealand to start with, the Australian guides coming in through a tax arrangement do not have to pay any GST or tax in New Zealand.”<\/p>\n
Bell said Minister for Hunting and Fishing James Meager has said the closer economic relations agreement with Australia means the guides can work in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
“Currently he’s correct on that but that’s also not reciprocated for New Zealanders wanting to go and guide in Australia,” Bell said.<\/p>\n
He said regulations for fishing in Australia varied state by state which made it difficult in some regions for New Zealanders to “just rock up” and start guiding.<\/p>\n
In a statement to Checkpoint, Meager said he was not considering a guide’s license because not enough evidence had been given to show one was needed.<\/p>\n
He encouraged interested parties to develop the case, including Fish and Game, though said he was yet to see any material for it.<\/p>\n
Meager also said New Zealand and Australia have a long-standing trade agreement and that means citizens of both countries can work as nationals in either one.<\/p>\n
That means any potential licensing regime would mean Australian guides would still be able to work in New Zealand under the same terms as their New Zealand counterparts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian fishing guides are crowding out locals, says the New Zealand Professional Guides Association, and a new license…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-617226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617226","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=617226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}