RICHARD PREBBLE: Is bottom trawling worth another election?

“Wong not budging on bottom lines even if it risks another election.”

That is the Herald headline.

Opportunity leader Qiulae Wong says her five demands are “very reasonable”. It is up to the other parties to agree.

Are we to have another election unless the other parties agree to phase out bottom trawling?

I have never seen a poll where bottom trawling ranks among New Zealanders’ concerns.

Trawling can cause serious environmental damage, particularly to coral and sensitive seabed habitats. But it is already regulated. Some 31 per cent of our exclusive economic zone is closed to the practice.

According to Fisheries New Zealand, just 1.7 per cent of our territorial sea and exclusive economic zone was bottom trawled in the last fishing year.

Yet trawling on or near the seabed accounts for 68 per cent of our commercial fish catch by volume.

Where is the scientific assessment demonstrating that a nationwide ban is justified?

Opportunity also claims to respect the Treaty.

Māori received substantial commercial fishing assets under the Treaty fisheries settlement. The Crown has a legal obligation to uphold that settlement.

Restrictions based on sound environmental science are justifiable.

But diminishing Māori Treaty settlement assets, not on scientific grounds but to secure a political deal, would be an outrageous breach of the Treaty.

I predict an urgent claim to the Waitangi Tribunal.

Science should determine where bottom trawling is environmentally acceptable.

Not the threat of another election.

Richard Prebble is a former Minister and ACT Party leader who writes at I've Been Thinking