The New Zealand Sport Fishing Council is calling on political parties to consider a new approach to setting policy.
The council had consulted with its members over what they wanted in terms of fisheries stewardship, spokesman Scott Macindoe said, resulting in five major policy requirements:
To establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into fisheries management and the Quota Management System; to amend the Fisheries Act 1996 to include an allocation principle; the removal of industrial fishing methods such as trawling, seining and dredging from the inshore zone; to establish a separate, well-resourced Ministry of Fisheries; and amending Section 13 of the Fisheries Act to deliver a minimum biomass target of 50 per cent, in line with international best practice.
Mr Macindoe said New Zealand's fisheries were owned by the public of New Zealand, yet all too often that was forgotten in the rush to commer-cialisation.
"These fish belong to all New Zealanders, and attempts to change public access to fish amounts to privatisation," he said.