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Speaker 1: The governments announced this morning in overhaul of fishing game

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Speaker 1: in z to improve management of fishing and hunting resources.

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Speaker 1: Changes include things like making license holder is eligible to

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Speaker 1: stand in fishing game elections more of them, shifting to

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Speaker 1: a national fee collection system, and requiring a national policy

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Speaker 1: around restricting court proceedings. Minister for Hunting and Fishing is

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Speaker 1: James Mega with me this morning. James, Good morning, morning, Ran.

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Speaker 1: Good to have you on the show. This all sounds

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Speaker 1: quite complicated, is it. Why do you need to do

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Speaker 1: anything to fit to fishing game.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of the reformers some technical reform, but

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Speaker 2: for a while we've seen that fishing game has had

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Speaker 2: some issues around how efficiently it operates. There's been a

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Speaker 2: bit of dysfunction between the regions and the National Council.

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Speaker 2: So pre election we campaign on modernizing and reforming fishing games.

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Speaker 2: So we're going to pull it out of the Conservation Act,

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Speaker 2: make its own standalone act and then tidy up some

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Speaker 2: of the issues around consistency across the country, standards operations

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Speaker 2: of the region, and make sure that license holders get

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Speaker 2: better value for money.

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Speaker 1: Has this got anything to do? You know, the fed

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Speaker 1: farmers in South and have the starts for fishing game

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Speaker 1: and fishing game are going and advocating for cleaner waters

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Speaker 1: and it's affecting the farmers. Has got anything to do

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Speaker 1: with that? Will it change anything to do with that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's an example of some of the consequences

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Speaker 2: of how the organization has been running over the past

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Speaker 2: few years. So one of the changes will be to

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Speaker 2: tidy out that so that the National Council actually sets

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Speaker 2: a standard advocacy policy across the country and any court

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Speaker 2: proceedings would have to go through the National Council. And

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Speaker 2: that will limit some of the advocacy functions of some

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Speaker 2: of the regions, but it also makes them consistent across

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Speaker 2: the country so that they actually focus on hunting and

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Speaker 2: fishing outcomes rather than getting involved in other areas that

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Speaker 2: actually perhaps other NGOs are better place to be involved in.

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Speaker 1: So if you're a farmer in Southend right now, you're

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Speaker 1: hearing this as ministers gagging fish and game Southend.

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Speaker 2: No, it's not gagging fishing games South because fishing game

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Speaker 2: will still have their advocacy functions in terms of being

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Speaker 2: able to go up there and promote say fishing to

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Speaker 2: young people or go out there and tell people where

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Speaker 2: they can and can't be fishing or hunting game birds.

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Speaker 2: The better way of looking at it is that we

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Speaker 2: want Fishing Game to be seen as a reputable national organization,

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Speaker 2: so they need to have a consistent approach to their

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Speaker 2: activities and we want them to be focusing on managing

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Speaker 2: the game bird populations in the sport fish populations rather

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Speaker 2: than getting involved in how muti of long lost and

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Speaker 2: cause cases.

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Speaker 1: How much cow urinees in a river. So they won't

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Speaker 1: because the problem was this went back and forth in

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Speaker 1: the environment caught in Southland, Fishing Game was heavily involved

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Speaker 1: in advocating for the health of the waterways, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: You're saying that that wouldn't that wouldn't be their role anymore.

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Speaker 2: Well, they can still advocate for the health of waterways

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Speaker 2: where it improves fisheries. But what I'm going to say

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Speaker 2: is that there should be a consistent approach across the

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Speaker 2: country where all regions are taking a similar pathway to this,

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Speaker 2: and we want it to be set at a level

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Speaker 2: where the National Council are actually directing this and so

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Speaker 2: they'll be the ones that will be able to say

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Speaker 2: where the legal proceedings go ahead or not, and the

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Speaker 2: Minister as well. We just want to make sure that

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Speaker 2: we're license holders are being forced to pay a fee

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Speaker 2: to fishing game that that sees not then being used

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Speaker 2: to restrict the license holders income war businesses for example.

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Speaker 2: We don't think that's necessarily fair. We want to make

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Speaker 2: sure that all that kind of really strong advocacy is

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Speaker 2: well thought out and is actually contributing to enhanced fisheries

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Speaker 2: and game god management.

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Speaker 1: All right, Minister, appreciate you time this morning. Having a

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Speaker 1: great day, James Mega, Minister of Hunting and Fishing. For

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Speaker 1: more from early edition with Ryan Bridge.

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Speaker 2: Listen live to news talks he'd be from five am weekdays,

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