Fine must not be a pyrrhic victory

The $1.08 million fine imposed on the rapacious Hawke’s Bay Seafoods on Monday was described as massive, but was less than half the amount the resourcesapping five-year prosecution cost the Ministry for Primary Industries. The ministry should be applauded for the diligence and fortitude of its commitment. And for winning.

This, says Fisheries Minister Stuart Nash, sent a powerful message to any commercial operators who flouted the law. That would be good. However, the question springs unbidden to mind: would such high costs deter others from undertaking such expensive and complex investigations?

The assurance from ministry manager of fishing compliance Steve Ham that it was ‘‘absolutely satisfied’’ with this outcome is welcome in itself. However, it would do no harm for a strong public message to be received by the ministry, as well as emitting from it, that this was absolutely a fight that needed to happen, and prevail, even in times when government agencies are under real pressure not to waste money.

This was not waste. Regrettable though it is that the company was pinged for so much less than the $2.3m it took to investigate and prosecute people putting greed and profits before our fisheries welfare, it is emphatically for the greater good that such cases – rare as they may be – are chased down. Not simply in the name of punishment and example to others, because this was assailing a bluenose fishery that has been in decline.

For its part, Seafood New Zealand has welcomed the prosecution’s success, insisting that illegal behaviour will not be tolerated within the industry. Good to hear. But not, in itself, sufficient to invite any serene expectation that the sentence will lead to real change in the fishing industry.

This case has shown, alarmingly, the extent to which the jargonistically dubbed ‘‘vertical integration’’ of related fishery businesses has set up a system that has been reliant more on trust than on sense. In this case, separate companies – but all within the Hawke’s Bay Seafoods group, and involving the same directors and shareholders – were sellers, and permit holders, and licensed fish receivers. And doing a not-so-diligent job of keeping one another (aka themselves) honest.

We should acknowledge that the formation of the ministry, bringing various agencies together, has significantly improved the capacity for external cross-checking. This proved beneficial when MPI staff noticed the number of bluenose landed by boats fishing around the Chatham Islands was increasing.

It turned out that the companies were exporting more than they were reportedly catching. The MPI staff naturally took the view that, short of any loaves-and-fishes miracles, something was up.

The simple answer was they found big fat lies and plenty of them. The far-from-simple reality was that it took raids involving 100 officers, scrutiny of 22,000 documents, and reportedly New Zealand’s longest trial hitting 140 working days, before guilty pleas were abruptly lodged to 130 charges of misreporting or making false statements.

It would be negligent not to harbour a level of mistrust against this industry, at least to the extent of resourcing intelligent scrutiny. Not cheap, but the cost of indolence would be far greater.

This was not waste. Regrettable though [the prosecution costs were] ... it is emphatically for the greater good that such cases – rare as they may be – are chased down.