So they clear the quarantine without a health sign off ?

Its done by spread sheet,.

If you have to many deaths they have to get sign off from wellington, Vets can't make any decisions.

They come any look at fish on release, but unsure what they look at. you could have white spot and they would not have a clue.

So what is going to be different other than a small percentage rise in overall fees?

what small percentage in price rises? its 10/15% on fresh water and over 30% for marine fish.

Doubling of a Business expense is not small.

The smaller the importer the bigger the price rise, plus the hobby is in recession and will be for a long time, so big importers will be importing less. so less imports means bigger price increase as you have less fish to spread the cost.

MPI costs are around 30% of importers cost, that is a lot for any business.

we pay 30% of something that adds no value.

Why is fresh water increase only half of marine increase. 15% or 30% is not doubling fees---that would be 100%

Because marine fish are not imported in large numbers so you cant spread the cost.

the retail cost is increasing by 10/15%. cost to importers in increasing by over 100%.

So for example you import 100 marine fish, and the cost is $2000.

Import 2000 freshwater fish and the cost is $2000.

so the freshwater end cost is less as more fish are imported.

I am just trying to get the correct facts because if the federation makes a submission and says the fees have all gone up by whatever percent and they actually have not then the submission is going to be ignored. The information provided to us does not show that the fees will go up by that much so I am looking for where you get your figures from.

so what figures do you have? that you can share

We have the biosecurity (costs) regulations 2010 schedule and the proposed new charges, which I am sure you also have.

From what i understand this will affect all importers and retailers so there should be many submissions submitted on this from the industry.

I don't believe the industry is in recession, there may be competition with more players in the marketplace but where LFS are being proactive in servicing their client base there is growth.

That is baseless, you tend to forget that many importers have closed, so any new importers are just taking the place of the ones that have closed. the net gain in importers in ZERO. Less shops are selling marines and many shops have closed.

We have the biosecurity (costs) regulations 2010 schedule and the proposed new charges, which I am sure you also have.

If thats the case then you can see that Vets fees have increased by 105% and travel cost has increased by 350% depending on location.

annual permit fees have increased by 100%.

annual audit fees have increased by 100%

it all adds up as it has to be added to the fish price. plus importers will needs to also increase there out going costs as power prices always go up, air fares go up, rents go up etc, so the MPI fees is not very helpful.

Whilst airfares /power goes up, at least you get a service, what value of service to we get with MPI?? nothing, as it adds no value,

i would say 30% of monthly expenses is a lot to pay for checking fish.

I think calling it a recession is not taking into account that now a lot of people buy equipment from overseas retailers at a much cheaper rate than what is available locally. With livestock a lot of places have stopped selling marine as the quality has not been the best and now there are a few good stores which do have great quality control who will also ship which means people now have a choice when it comes to where they buy their livestock from. It may not be good for businesses but it is good for hobbyists.

Oh ok, put that in your submission.

Your figures do not seem to be the same as ours.

Like what? can you be more specific??

Are NZMAS putting in a submission?

I doubt it, its only a web forum like facebook.

It is an incorporated society is it not

Unsure, but likely like most fish sites not much happening on them. society has lost motivation to do anything. its a dead horse.

How is your submission coming along Reef?

Anyone making a Submission, might want to cover the below summary.

Travel

Current we get charged based on distance from MPI office,

So for example currently the charge is $88 per return trip.

So for a shipment it is $166 plus gst a month, as you have two visits for marine fish.

Under proposed fee it will be time/mileage, as they class the vets are professional vets.

So new monthly fee will be $186/hr plus. 77c per km.

So travel for example could be 3hr x $186, ( based on 25km x 4, return trip)

$558 plus $77 so monthly fee is $635plus gst.

Increase over 350%

Fish checking fee

so say currently is 8 hours a month.

so 8 x $88, /hr = $704 plus gst,

proposed will be 105% increase. so $1443 per month.

so total cost for example will be

$1443

$635

total $2078 a month just for MPI.

All this for no added value/service.

Fees will vary depending on QT size and location.

This does not include any shipments outside normal hours.

Issue is fish are checked by vets, so mpi has to pay higher wages. many years ago fish checked by standard border staff, why the need for vets?? not many other country use vets.

Issue also is that the hobby will never grow as we can't import more fish due to restricted list, we can't add more fish to the allowable list, if we could get approval from erma, biosecurity can take 5 years to add fish to allowable list,

so basically the hobby is trapped, it cant grow and is bogged down with compliance and long 3/4 week QT.

other issue to look at.

why 3 week qt and 4 week qt?? no other country has this long.

Why do vets need to check fish? big expense.

Compliance has caused time it takes to check fish by vets, this is due to biosecurity requirements, needs to be looked at taking costs into account.

Its a monopoly we cant't go anywhere else.

I believe tax payers should pay for some of it, as the requirements are set by biosecurity. whilst it costs, some money is recovered anyway by GST, creating jobs for bio security staff who pay tax.

Tourist don't pay any Biosecurity fees currently, so some cost should be passed on so that tax payers are not funding Tourist by 100%.

Industry is in recession, how will these extreme price increases help

Annual Quarantine permit fee is to increase by 100% from $144 to $288. i believe this is ridiculous, as it takes very little time to renew a permit, plus this adds more administration for bio security staff/MPI , so if they are to increase the permit fee then it could be done every two years , so this will reduce administration and costs.

I suppose the bigger importers are able to spread the extra costs over their freshwater and marine shipments and lighten the per fish load

Yes, for freshwater, but for marines it will be not be able to be spread by many fish.

Most marine importers don't import many fish/corals.

given 99% of marine importers are small the price increase to marine fish will be substantial.