Anti-purse seining petition to be presented to Cooks parliament
Opponents of purse seining in the Cook Islands hope a 3,000 plus signature petition will help persuade the government to place further restrictions on the fishing method.
Transcript
Opponents of purse seining in the Cook Islands hope a 3,000 plus signature petition will help persuade the government to place further restrictions on the fishing method.
Te Ipukarea Society technical director Kelvin Passfield says the group has taken the petition across the islands and the process has gone well.
However Mr Passfield told Koro Vaka'uta there were some challenges.
KELVIN PASSFIELD: Aitutaki was, yeah, it would have to be the most disappointing island. The island council didn't want us to put the petitions out to the different shops and other outlets around the island. And they wanted us to go over there and have public meetings to discuss why we wanted a ban on purse seining, and they wanted the Ministry of Marine Resources to do the same. Now legally, we could have still put them out, but we thought well keep the island council happy, we don't want to get on the wrong side of anyone. We just didn't really have the resources to fly over there and do those public consultations.
KORO VAKA'UTA: Do you think they felt it was a sensitive issue or that they just wanted everyone to be fully informed?
KP: They wanted people to be fully informed, but I also think perhaps they take a little bit for granted as far as the rights of the people. The people sort of had the right to sign the petition if they wanted to, I mean we weren't forcing it down anyone's throat, we just wanted to have them around the different locations and then they could choose whether to sign it or not but they just never had that opportunity.
KV: There was the challenges in Aitutaki, but across the board elsewhere you had some great support?
KP: We had excellent results from most of the other islands. We're still waiting on the last petitions to come in from Atiu and Manihiki, which is the prime minister's island. They were a little bit slow getting started up there. But in the end we did get 50 percent of the voting population from Manihiki also signed the petition so I think that was a pretty good result considering.
KV: How many signatures do you think you will be collecting by the end of it?
KP: It will be between 3000 and 3500, we've still got a few more to reign in from around Rarotonga and as I said the one from Atiu still has to come back.
KV: And that's about what you were hoping for?
KP: We thought we would try and get 3000. Since then, I looked up how many people voted in the last election and it was about 7153 I think. That sort of gave us a new goal. We thought if we could get to 50 percent of the voting population we've nearly got there. And certainly if we were allowed to circulate it in Aitutaki we would have got 400 to 500 signatures very easily.
KV: With the numbers you're looking at, 3000 to 3500, are you confident that's strong enough to make some sort of modification?
KP: We would hope so, we would hope if more than 50 percent of the voting population can be bothered putting their name to a signature, you would think that the government of the day would pay attention. They're the same people that put them in power. And in a lot of cases if the support is even as the ruling Cook Islands Party has come out and signed the petition against it, you would hope that they would pay some attention and there would be some modification.
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