Shane Jones wants a law written just for fish farming, and officials told salmon company bosses on Monday that New Zealand’s salmon harvest could grow thirty-fold if the rules were right.
The Oceans and Fisheries Minister called chief executives from Sealord, New Zealand King Salmon, Akaroa Salmon and other companies, along with iwi representatives, investors and officials, to a meeting at the Ministry for Primary Industries headquarters in Wellington on 21 September. The Herald’s Julia Gabel reported that the ministry told the room salmon production could rise from about 15,000 tonnes a year to 450,000 tonnes.
Jones told reporters outside the meeting that the industry needed a “one-stop shop” statute. “The initial focus is how do you create a regime for offshore ocean farming. There is no regime as such,” he said.
He was blunt about why investors are holding back. “No one is going to spend their money unless they’re confident that they’re going to secure the necessary statutory consents, which in itself is impacted by social licence,” he told RNZ.
RNZ reported that a stand-alone aquaculture law is not yet official government policy. But slides shown at the meeting pointed to growth well beyond the Government’s existing target of $3 billion a year in aquaculture revenue by 2035, a goal first set out in the Aquaculture Development Plan released in March 2025.
The timing is not accidental. The Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill, which replace the Resource Management Act, are due for their final readings in Parliament this week. In August Jones announced changes to those bills so that fish farms more than three nautical miles offshore will no longer have to consider outstanding natural landscapes or areas of high natural character when seeking consent, and so ministers can allocate ocean space to farmers before a consent is granted.
The industry is small next to the rest of the primary sector. Ministry director-general Ray Smith told the meeting that New Zealand exports about $64 billion of primary produce a year, but aquaculture brings in around $750 million, less than 1.2 percent of it. Smith said the country was surrounded by water, “but we barely use it,” RNZ reported.
The ministry’s case rests partly on weight-loss drugs. Chris Kerr, its director of strategy, insights and evidence, said the world would have two billion more people to feed over the next 25 years, and pointed to GLP-1 medicines such as Ozempic and Wegovy. “Even in the developed world, the advent of GLP-1 drugs means there will be a surge in demand for that premium protein, nutrient-dense food,” he said.
Kerr listed what a new regulatory system would need, including a dedicated aquaculture law, national standards, spatial planning, development zones, allocation and licensing rules, and compliance monitoring. “This is about building an industry, not administering or regulating the system,” he said.
Open ocean farming is still in its infancy here. RNZ listed a handful of projects, New Zealand King Salmon’s Blue Endeavour farm, Ngāi Tahu’s Hananui salmon farm off Stewart Island, and the Whakatōhea mussel farm off Ōpōtiki. Hananui became the first aquaculture project approved through the fast-track process last month and is expected to produce about 14,400 tonnes of salmon a year, AgNavigator reported.
Company bosses welcomed the ambition but warned about how it is sold to the public. Akaroa Salmon chief executive Stewart Hawthorn said New Zealand should stay at the top end of the market. “We’re not trying to be McDonald’s, we’re trying to be a high quality food that’s good for people and good for the planet,” he told the meeting.
Hawthorn also said the Government needed to make consistent, centralised decisions with every department working together, and acknowledged the problems the industry had faced with the Department of Conservation, RNZ reported.
Jones agreed that cheap bulk production was not the goal. He said the public would not tolerate a model built on mass volumes, and that any expansion “needs to be driven by a belief that we can situate our final products into the upper band of affordability.”
Sealord chief executive Doug Paulin said his company was interested in farming salmon in New Zealand, as it already does in Tasmania, but lacked the certainty to commit capital. “It will not be hundreds of millions of dollars for what we are talking about, it will be billions,” he said. He argued that support across Parliament, including from the minor parties, mattered because law changes after an election would scare off overseas money.
That is the political catch. Salmon farming has its critics, and in 2025 the industry faced scrutiny over high summer deaths of farmed fish after a complaint from the animal advocacy group Safe. With the general election approaching and the law still only a proposal, its fate will rest with whoever forms the next government. Readers weighing the parties on the economy and the environment can use our voting tool to see which party matches their views.
Industry leaders at the meeting also talked about moving beyond king salmon. Whakatōhea Mussels chief executive Peter Vitasovich suggested kingfish and ocean trout in warmer northern waters, and New Zealand King Salmon’s Carl Carrington asked whether the 450,000 tonne figure assumed other salmon species. Smith said it potentially could.
Should New Zealand build a big ocean fish farming industry, or does the risk to the marine environment outweigh the jobs and exports? Tell us what you think in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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