Fish & Game Elections

NZ's Fish and Game system is unique globally. Some say it is quite an enlightened system. Here's how it works.

New Zealand is broken into 12 Geographic F&G regions, being:

• Northland
• Auckland Waikato
• Eastern
• Hawkes Bay
• Taranaki
• Wellington
• Nelson/Marlborough
• West Coast
• North Canterbury
• Central South Island
• Otago
• Southland

Each region elects 12 councillors. Councillors are license holders with 'clean records' as such (go here to see details), who nominate themselves to be elected. Each region then elects a council representative, who sits on National Council.

Each region has a manager, and paid staff such as fisheries and game bird managers.

The regional council sets policy against which an operational working plan and associated budget is derived, usually by the regional manager (paid staff). The budget is then submitted to central, and funds are allocated from a contestable pool, i.e. the proceeds of all trout/salmon and game bird licenses sold. In other words, it doesn't particularly matter where a license is sold as the funds are drawn into the central contestable funding pool.

With me so far? So, looking at this from afar, you may be saying "show me the enlightened part". Essentially, that is a reference to our resources being managed by the users of the resource, i.e. hunters and fishers managing the game birds and fish species. Cool huh? Yes but.... 12 regions, 144 elected reps (who mostly never get to meet each other), 12 policy sets, 12 managers, 12 lots of regional admin, 12 different accountancy and reporting methods, then a central body, a central CEO, central admin staff... there are more heads than Medusa in reality. And then, 12 regions each seeking funds to carry out their policy driven plans from a pool that in reality only increases through pulling of the pricing lever, rather than increasing of number of licenses sold (or members recruited in other words). I can't think of a more convoluted system or business model. In fact a normal business competing against other businesses like in the real world, would not be around for long.

Anyhow, that's not the central theme here. Its election time again. The time when interested license holders nationwide elect individuals to the body that represents them. The thing is... only a small percentage of license holders opt-in to vote, and even fewer bother to cast a vote at all. When this happens the same folks tend to be elected to council term after term, a situation which is not totally conducive to producing fresh ideas and perspectives, which can be blocked by a stubborn resistance.

I can't say that I have all the answers regarding getting license holders engaged, but this is not situation unique to our sports and pass times at all - clubs and groups everywhere suffer from the apathy and attitude of  "that's ok, someone else will do it for me".

What I would encourage all license holders to do is to make themselves aware of current issues facing our sports, make themselves aware of who is standing for election, and understand where each candidate stands with regard to issues. Then, they need to ensure that they are enrolled to vote, and finally, cast their vote carefully.