New Zealand’s Chief Ombudsman has labelled a proposal in the Fisheries Amendment Bill to exempt commercial fishing camera footage from release under the Official Information Act as unnecessary and excessive.
John Allen made an oral submission on the Bill before Parliament’s Primary Production Committee today.
Mr Allen says the array of measures included in the Bill including carving out fishing camera footage from the OIA aren’t justified because the law already offers protections.
“In my view, these measures risk undermining the OIA, and lowering trust and confidence in both the fishing industry and in government,” he told the Committee.
Mr Allen says the OIA provides mechanisms to withhold information when disclosure is not in the public interest.
Since the wider roll out of on-board cameras in June 2023, The Ministry for Primary Industries has provided written summaries of incidents and, in some cases, has allowed requestors to watch the footage.
The Ombudsman has only received a handful of complaints, which suggests the public is generally comfortable with MPI’s written summaries. The Ombudsman has not recommended the release of any full camera recordings in any of these cases.
“We’ve been satisfied each time that the public interest in disclosure has been met by the written summaries. However, we reserve the right to find otherwise in cases where the summary failed to reflect the gravity of the incident recorded,” Mr Allen says.
“The OIA ‘carve out’, along with other provisions in the Bill including one which imposes a penalty of up to $50,000 for leaking footage from fishing boat cameras, goes well beyond the protections given to information provided to other regulators.
“I suggest the committee recommends excluding those clauses from the Bill.”
“The Bill, as it stands, will achieve nothing more than preventing the public from assessing the worst examples of regulatory failures by the Ministry or most shocking breaches of the law by the fishing industry. This is contrary to the purpose of both the OIA and the Fisheries Act.”
Read the Chief Ombudsman’s submission to the Fisheries Amendment Bill.
