Meet the Ministrys new Chief Executive - Ministry of Fisheries

200 miles, patrolling became quite a different matter. We
employed 30 extra fishery officers straight away to go to sea
and monitor fishing. This was the precursor to the modern
fisheries observer programme. We set up the Fisheries
Communication Centre so MAF could stay in touch with the
foreign vessels that were fishing in the EEZ, 24 hours a day,
seven days a week.”
The beginning of the 1980s saw Dave working at the Beehive
as the private secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and
Fisheries Duncan MacIntyre. The hours were long with a 7am
to midnight working day not being unusual. But there was
always something interesting happening, particularly when
Deputy Prime Minister MacIntyre was acting Prime Minister
during the 1981 Springbok tour. Dave sat in on late night
meetings with the chief of police and the chairman of the
rugby union, as the tour unfolded.
He was back at MAF in 1982 and working on some of
the early methods of controlling how much fishing was
undertaken in areas that were under pressure. Dave worked
on controlling boat numbers and fishing effort in the national
rock lobster fisheries, Hauraki Gulf wet-fish, Foveaux Strait
oysters and Lake Ellesmere eels. His staff kept tabs on the
70 or 80 foreign vessels in the EEZ and the 300-odd squidjigging
vessels that arrived each year for the squid season.
In his spare time he worked on a team that was developing
the QMS.
One of Dave’s main roles in the QMS development was
leading the team that worked out fishers’ catch history that
would be used to base a fisher’s annual quota. Until then
catch history was assigned to vessels, and vessels regularly
NEW ZEaLaNd’S
EXCLUSIVE ECONOMIC ZONE (EEZ)
changed hands. So a vessel’s catch history might need to be
spread between the current owner and several past owners.
The results were always going to be open to challenge, and
as soon as catch histories were assigned, Dave got to lead
the team that managed the quota appeals process.
“We dealt with 60 to 100 appeals at a different location every
fortnight. Often we met with fishers and worked out the
discrepancies before the appeal, but if we couldn’t agree,
both sides gave evidence and let a mediator decide. It was
an incredibly intense two years, and very satisfying.”
With a new fisheries management regime in place, a new
approach was needed for fisheries enforcement, and Dave
started working on these issues as a manager, as he would
do for the rest of his fisheries career.
“In the past, we (fishery officers) had been hiding behind flax
bushes waiting for people to do something wrong and nabbing
them. That wasn’t suitable for enforcing the commercial rules
under the QMS. We moved to a system where fishers knew
their rights and obligations and were required to report back
to us.”
Poring over fishing returns to find offences requires a different
set of skills, and the compliance group was soon employing
people that could identify fraud, as well as those that could
patrol the coast.
Dave held many senior positions in compliance, including
managing the whole compliance effort under the MAF
structure, and post 1995, under the new Ministry of Fisheries
(MFish) structure.
In the past few years he has been involved in international
compliance agreements for the high seas, working on
specifications for the new Project Protector fleet, improving
aerial surveillance capabilities of the Airforce’s Orion aircraft and
the pleasant task of conducting an independent compliance
review of the Western Australian pearling industry.
Although there have been many highlights in his time with
compliance, he says overseeing Operation Pacman, where
140 fishery officers, supported by 120 police and 40 military
personnel, simultaneously swooped on paua poaching
targets all over the country, rates very highly. The operation
netted freezers full of paua, a plethora of boats and vehicles,
a goldmine of intelligence about paua poaching, and led to
dozens of prosecutions.
Dave says his decision to retire was influenced by a stroke he
suffered two years ago. To mitigate the shock of retirement,
he has agreed to complete his commitment later in the year
to the role of chairing the Compliance Committee of the
Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna. It
doesn’t look like he’s finished with fishing yet.
APRIL 2008 TheBite 15