An Opinion Piece by Rex N. Gibson
Most anglers and Game Bird Shooters are now aware of Government plans for reform in the Fish and Game governance. If not, then they should be.
I will state clearly at the start that I think that governance change is needed; big change. The current system was welded together in the late 1980s from the skeletons of numerous disparate acclimatisation societies that populated the country. Societies that flourished, ebbed and flowed across the evolving landscape, politically, culturally and geographically for a century at varying speeds and competencies. The present structure designed in 1989 gave the sector the potential of a national voice, sense of purpose and standing. So why do I now think changes are needed?
- The National Council is a croc and could never be anything else. Why? Because it has regional representatives who do precisely what their name says – represent their region. This is often against the national interest of anglers. In recent years there have been cases of regional reps being replaced because (shock horror) the rep voted in the NATIONAL interest that in some way did not advantage their region.
- The jury is out on whether the proposed new structure will improve this situation. The new national council will be composed of the regional chairs. How long will they stay as chairs if they vote in a way that does not advance the selfish wishes of their region?
- There have been several reviews/audits of F&G governance. All have pointed to similar sets of problems. All have, to date, been shelved by government. Successive governments have faced three tricky obstacles; the conflict of interests arising from the involvement from DOC, the vocal luddites who oppose anything from government because they have never met a “good” politician, and lobby groups with competing interests in water use. This proposal at least removes the mill-stone of DOC staffs’ preoccupied with “natives”. Having our own Act separate from DOC is thus a real win.
- The current system is a democratic disaster. It is one of the most famous gerrymandered systems in New Zealand. The Minister even refers to this in his hope that the emphasis will move south. It is gerrymandered in that all twelve regions have an equal vote on National Council. Regions with as few as 2,000 licence holder have the same vote as those with 20,000. Imagine if parliamentarians were elected that way. NIWA’s recent independent survey showed that 72% (+/-) of all licences are sold in the South Island and the same percentage of angling occurs there. Taupo is administered by DOC and its numbers are separate from F&G.
- Although providing over 70% of F&G’s income and over 70% of the angling days, the Southern regions receive only around 40% of the funding. If Eastern (based in Rotorua) is included then the six most popular regions constitute around 80% of F&G’s income. The other six regions are thus passengers.
- If a business had twelve branches and five were never financially sustainable then amalgamations or closures would be on the table. I believe the biggest failure in the Minister’s proposal is his unwillingness to tackle that inefficiency.
- The duplication of resources in regions is appalling. Each region has become a fiefdom. The managers are largely the barons here. Their position is cemented by the regular turnover of councillors and the concentration of accumulated knowledge in them. Knowledge of both the resource and the intricacies of F&G’s administration. As the Latin maxim goes “Scientia Potestas Est”. (Knowledge is power). The power thus shifts away from the elected councillors.
- There are five regions, four in the North Island, that only survive because of they have been allowed to become corporate beneficiaries of the South Island anglers. Based on the latest figures at least two of the regions pay their managers close to or more than their region’s licence income. In addition these regions also support an office HQ, vehicles, field staff and the regular trips of their representative to national meetings.
- The regions compete with each other to accumulate reserves. They must have overstated their needs to have done this; or underspent. The net result is that money that should have gone into improving angling and shooting has gone into improving the profits of banks.
- Sadly F&G has inherited a culture from some parts of the Acclimatisation Societies suggesting that councillors should be micromanaging the managers. There are still too many councillors and potential councillors who do not understand the difference between governance and management. This is perpetuated by the current system that allows for 144 councillors. That is more than we have Members of Parliament. Considering that only a few thousand licence holders generally vote in F&G elections this is a joke. At least the Minister is looking at that.
- We have up to 144 councillors for around 70 staff. That would not occur in any other organisation.
- Both Managers and councillors need fixed-term limitations. The sport’s governance needs regular rejuvenation; and not because people leave through frustration with the system, but to broaden the basis of the current “old men’s club”. Councillors have never been representative of the angling/shooting public and maybe never should be. F&G needs competent governors who can deliver what licence holders want.
- Manager’s salaries currently seem to bear no clear relationship to the individual’s responsibilities or relativities. A national salary scale is well overdue but I see nothing in the proposals so far the sort out the anomalies there. The same applies for standards of best practice in governance and management. Their professional standards should be linked to those in the Public Service and modern entities generally. The Minister’s paper seems to accepts that.
- A plus is the emphasis on better reporting, transparency and communication – especially back to licence holders on objectives and performance. As a former councillor I am also pleased to see a push for simpler meeting procedures.
- A real negative is the section about advocacy. By removing that role from F&G all the Minister will do is to arm groups like The Council for Recreational Associations for NZ (CORANZ) and The Federation of Freshwater Anglers (NZFFA) with a greater licence to step into these shoes. The NZFFA had, when I last checked, a data base of around eighty angling clubs that were affiliated. They have a huge potential to take over this chore from F&G. They may also be more hard hitting in this role than F&G.
I see the current system as a jumble of outdated ideas, bureaucracies and procedures. It has harboured some of what I considered to be conflicts of interests among councillors in the last decade. Diligence is needed however to see that we don’t jump from the frying pan into the fire in the drafting of the new Act.
Overall I give the proposals a “B”. James Meager is the first Minister with the energy to tackle the endemic problems outlined in the past reviews and audits. To get an “A” however the Minister is going to have to convince anglers and shooters that:
- This is not just a government “takeover”, or a step towards privatisation,
- That it will significantly improve angling and shooting for licence holders, and
- The new structure will make F&G councils directly accountable to licence holders rather than government.
- The new structure includes mechanisms that make regions work more efficiently together. To “hope” that they will is not enough.
Footnote: Rex Gibson is a former North canterbury Fish and Game councillor and ecologist
What a revealing article! Thank you Rex Gibson. I would like to add the democratic structure of Fish and Game is a strong point. If the Department of Conservation ran it, there would not be the same democracy. Besides my experience of DOC is that it is poorly run and seems to get its vote allocation from governments to spread ecosystem poisons over the wilderness.
Yes I agree. The article highlights some real parochial elements. As to the value of democracy, the average angling duck shooter licence holder is adrift with apathy. I understand that of those eligible to vote invariably only one third can be bothered to do so. If you are going to have democracy the public must make it work by voting.
A excellent summing up by a recent Councilor and fellow NZFFA executive member
Thank you Rex.
Many of the NZFFA executive members have served as past Fish and Game Councilors including myself.
Work circumstances dictated my departure at the end of 2007, but over the year I spent on the West Coast Regional Council I felt we were never allowed to have an impact at a local level.[I had been made aware of good governance through having completed an MBA in 2002]
We have yet to fully see what Meager has planned as his Bill is yet to be released.
The information we have been fed is setting off alarm bells.
Those who say or do nothing now will have plenty to say when everything turns to custard.
Thank you Rex. It certainly sounds as though Fish & Game administration needs some changes. Whether James Meager is strong enough to keep DoC’s empire building cult reined in remains to be seen. We need to meet and write to him explaining why the obvious changes are necessary. Hunting on most public lands is now virtually non existent because of DoC’s slavish obsession about pests and helicopter poisoning. They refuse to accept modern science because it will cost them jobs. They constantly spin fairy tales about fragile forests and biodiversity loss which are believed by gullible politicians and woke Greens. Fishing too is only a shadow of its former self thanks to irrigation, the over use of nitrate fertilisers, insecticides, herbicides like Roundup, etc. The continued rape and pillage of New Zealand’s soils to repay the loans of Corporate farmers and foresters amalgamating family farms has to stop. I’ll be emailing James Meager. Let’s make sure he has the right information to counter the deceit of DoC, MPI, the Crown Research Institutes, Universities etc who want their tax funded gravy trains to last forever.
Rex might have given Meager a provisional “B” for his summary of the problems with F&G, however the final grade will depend on whether Meager’s charm offensive is in the interests of anglers or his own ambition.
Anglers desperately need an effective independent body to advocate for the habitat of trout and salmon. This will not be DOC, and in Canterbury at least, it has not been F&G.
Without the option to fight in the Environment or High Court F&G are not worth supporting.
You can bet that DOC will do nothing. They are charged by law to protect native fish and native aquatic invertebrates but have done nothing to advocate for the habitat of the same, i.e. keeping rivers and streams flowing and water uncontaminated with pollution, nitrates etc.,.
Why isn’t Meager and his cronies in cabinet and the AWOL Conservation Minister Potaka, giving DOC a searching scrutiny?
Lets hope that Minister Meager gets to read this. The author is right the NZFFA would make a hell of an enemy if F&G lose their right to take issues to court. I can see supporters of the sports of hunting and fishing crowd-funding, etc., to tackle government in the future. Shane Jones won’t be the last Trump imitation who needs challenging; and then there is the serpent himself in our Garden of Eden – Seymour!!!!!
F&G governance is suffering from a narrative that proposes two solutions: Do you have appointees with ‘professional governance’ skills or do you rely on, at best, 30% of licence holders to vote on the basis of a 250 word puff piece from prospective councillors during the election period?
A quick summation of the status quo is needed before I continue:
Angler apathy is pernicious to the extent in the 2024 elections only 6 our of 12 regions required any vote as the number of candidate councillors did not exceed the number of available council positions.
F&G’s ex CEO Martin Taylor, knowing West Coast F&G had never had enough prospective candidate councillors to warrant any election, used this situation to implant himself on the West Coast council a few years ago, completely above board, albeit perhaps cynically for someone who lived in Wellington.
Prospective councillors can also game the system by choosing to ‘represent’ a ward in a region that they are confident no other councillor will choose thus assuring their selection as the sole candidate
F&G Councillor positions are volunteer posts – does it matter if there are 10 or 100? Surely the more the merrier when diversity of views and experience can be gained at no cost to the licence payer.
The corollary to the above, however, is a lack of any assessment criteria (other than breaches of F&G rules such as being caught fishing without a licence) means that councillors may be ineffective and inappopriate – square pegs in round holes.
As for the National Council, does it really matter if those on this board are elected by regional councils or directly by licence holders if they all come from the same unqualified pool of candidates?
Iwi appointees are already in place in all South Island regions, albeit only from Ngai Tahu, even for regions outside of their rohe, such as Nelson, so that’s nothing new. Whether extending iwi appointments would improve things would surely rely on those individual’s abilities and capability rather than believing iwi are a homegenous group which, by default, have more profound skills to proffer.
So, F&G undoubtedly needs a reboot after 40 years of the same structure. The inexorable tensions between the National Council’s role and the regional roles need sorting and fiefdom’s need shaking down.
Sports Fish & Game Management Plans and Annual Operational Reports provide plenty of transparency on where licence payers’ money goes. All council minutes are published on-line and the OIA process is there for anyone who wishes to delve deeper – transparency is not the issue.
F&G can, without needing to change any legislation, put in place a more rigorous councillor appointment process,:
– choosing people with knowledge.
– choosing those who have no conflict of interests over S26 of the Conservation Act (such as maintaining and enhancing habitat).
– choosing dynamic do-ers over we-should-ers and wafflers.
– choosing those who have a track record of action over words.
– choosing candidates who have good communications and are familiar with operational and financial processes.
Unfortunately, delay and inertia has trumped Fish & Game and Meager will do it to F&G before F&G can do it to itself.
Well I would not give any government eyeing taking over the democratic structure of Fish and Game a B mark. More like a D or E – or perhaps lower. I have observed governments for quite a few years and I have witnessed a number of so-named “reforms’. I think of health, education, especially electricity, and other areas and other fruitless reforms.
So yes Fish and Game can do much better but what gives government the gall to think it can “reform” Fish and Game too?
I suspect not without good reason based on experience of observing poor government “reforms” there is an ulterior motive at play here.
Methinks Government’s repugnant Fast Track Act is linked to this i.e. to remove or at least gag, any opposition to mining on public lands in national and forest parks, irrigation for corporate dairying operationsand the like.
I agree with the previous comment by K Seager.
Governments have blundered and bungled. Why does Minister Meager think he has the divine right to charter the future of Fish and Game to suit his own ends? Or is it the agenda of fellow ministers Jones and Bishop going hell-bent to exploit our environment. When I say “our” I mean the public’s.
I voted National in 2023. It is looking more and more like I will not repeat that in 2026 – said as an avid duck shooter and a sometimes trout and salmon angler.
Fish and Game is a statutory authority, managing a public resource and spending stakeholder (license) money. The Minister absolutely has the authority to intervene. It is literally his job. This idea that Fish and Game has some right to operate without oversight is simply not the way the world works. Fish and Game are accountable to the NZ public.
Fish and Game’s problem is that their performance hasn’t been anywhere close to acceptable. The stoush with Federated Farmers was ill-considered, pointless, damaged the brand and highlighted how dysfunctional Fish and Game actually are. But it only bought things to a head. The key issues were identified in the scathing Clark and Mills review back in 2021. Fish and Game have had plenty of time to fix their issues internally. When they couldn’t, it was inevitable that the government was eventually going to run out of patience and make necessary changes for them.
What Rex N Gibson said above is correct. Things are not OK with Fish and Game and change is inevitable. The best thing for Fish and Game now is to work with the minister, get this right and avoid the need for more intervention down the track.
What background does Meager have to take over the essential role of F&G; its statutory duty to advocate for the habitat of salmon and trout?
I would argue this ambitious junior Minister with no apparent connection to our sport is more likely to do a hatchet job for his economic libertarian colleagues. For as long as acclimatization societies have existed, they have been viewed as an obstruction to development – irrigation or hydro electric power schemes. This is because the latter destroy recreational fisheries.
MJL is correct. No organisation or body should be unaccountable. Pity is that government isn’t more accountable back to the public. The last two governments i.e. Ardern’s and now Luxon’s have lacked accountability.
But MJL is not quite correct. Fifteen years or so ago, Fish and Game itself commissioned audits (e.g. Price Waterhouse, Institute of Directors) which identified some areas of “dysfunction”. So Fish and Game voluntarily was prepared to be accountable.
So where are the checks and balances on governments? Only at election time, and we all know how hollow election promises are.
So what gives government the right to interfere by taking over and whittling down Fish and Game’s democratic structure by putting two government appointees (DOC?) on each Fish and Game regional council, as Minister Meager has proposed?
Just as the underlying big problem of apathy by voters is with general elections where one million or more New Zealanders cannot be bothered voting, so it is with Fish and Game regional council elections where voting turnout has been as low as one third of those eligible to vote.
Greek guru Plato summed it up when he said “the price of apathy is to be ruled by evil men.” “Evil” is a bit strong, although I’ve known of a few cases of individuals getting on fish and game councils for greed-based personal agenda reasons, e.g. commercialisation of fish and or game such as pheasant preserves. Let’s say mediocre or evil?
But then the average licence-holder allows that to happen by apathy and not voting.
Similarly with general elections. Apathy and we get selfish, self serving government. So perhaps Minister James Meager needs to take a step backward and realise that government has a lot wrong more than fisgh and game?
What’s that saying about stones and glasshouses?
As an example is he pushing for a review of the Department of Conservation, which has an appalling record protecting birds (think kea as an example) when DOC’s own actions with ecosystem poisons is disrupting the ecosystems and causing rat plagues?
DOC is conspicuous by its absence in advocating for clean, fully flowiunbg rivers as habitat for native fish. In Hawkes Bay it indulged in suspect land swapping in order to let a big irrigation scheme go ahead.
Yet by law Fish and Game are directly obligated to the Minister of Conservation, in other words DOC?
By the way, who is the Minister of Conservation? Anyone seen him?
So Minister Meager, please get your own house in order.
Unfortunately, operating poorly because Government Department X is perceived to operate poorly is not a very strong argument for doing nothing. If everything was allowed to function to the lowest possible standard nothing would get done. You have to try to get things right. You wouldn’t expect things to be left so that the Southland events could happen again. The biggest issue, and the thing Fish and Game couldn’t fix on their own, seems to be the regions doing whatever they want, even if their actions are completely at odds with the goals of the organisation or community expectations. If they fix these types of long standing flaws identified by successive previous reviews, Fish and Game will probably be better off.
I hope the changes don’t hinder Fish and Game operations and especially their legitimate advocacy functions. Peter Trolove is absolutely correct that most of the time they play a valuable advocacy function acting in all our interests. But Fish and Game can’t advocate if they don’t exist. Getting the organisation on the stable, sustainable footing is necessary to ensure their long term survival.
I don’t think that this is necessarily an us vs them confrontation. I would be amazed if Fish and Game at a national level were not intimately involved in this process and helping to shape their own future. They understand the issues and the risks so I am guessing they are mostly accepting of the change as necessary and inevitable. Some of the regions will no doubt be reluctant to lose a little bit of their autonomy but that might lead to some renewal as the old guard that can’t adapt eventually leave.
One final note is the ministerial appointments to the board. If you are a company appointing a board you aim for a range of necessary skills and experience. Fish and Game get whoever is elected. You get people who are passionate about fishing and/or hunting but, as the reviews point out, you don’t get diversity or necessarily the skills you need (law, corporate governance, finance, resource management). For various reasons you also get over representation by a certain demographic. So how do you address that? We know directly appointing board members works. We also know that the best people with extensive professional experience are not likely to work for free. Fish and Game is a $13M per annum business. I think they could benefit from some professional input and they should make the necessary investment to get the right people in that they need.