Thread: fish and game elections

Originally Posted by gsp follower

ngamatea was owned by the same outfit that owned the station i was on.
wonder where his pheasant seed stock/current stock comes from??
now who else guides/hunts on ngamatea for deer umummumm

I'm calling wide there GSPF. I think there is two different things that need identifying there.

Some (all?) councils run a conflict register that you can identify any "potential" conflicts.You might include beneficial relationships (e.g salesman for goods distributor), occupation (e.g fishing guide), acquaintance (e.g friend of most of the before mentioned) or "other" considerations being a stand holder in a F&G wetland. This to help a good manager manage any potential conflicts of interest in the decision making process where one party or another may benefit from some form of valuable consideration. Basically if you don't want to disclose these things then perhaps public office isn't the place for you?

Actual conflict of interest in making a decision. For example imagine I sell guns and ammunition and a motion is presented looking to ban magazine extensions. I like selling gun parts and ammunition so my natural inclination is to defeat the motion if possible. This is a conflict and should be discussed and minuted. A council might decide I can present a case to continue using mag extensions but remove my ability to vote on the subject or have me take no part.

Not talked about but equally or more important is staff conflicts. Imagine hypothetically the CEO has legal friends that are struggling in the global financial slow down so invents a couple legal issue's to spend a substantial but undisclosed amount of license holder money without authorisation or due cause. There is nothing to identify or prevent this. Or perhaps the CEO could own a sporting goods shop and allow industry to lobby for favourable changes that could result in personal benefit. Steel shot the most obvious.

There is problems all over F&G which stem from the top. There is certainly problems with COI but the situation you mentioned isn't one of them in my view.