A day out fishing at Lake Taupo is now a bureaucratic nightmare for holidaymakers and locals because of the Department of Conservation (DOC)'s new online fishing licence system, the Labour Party says.
Lake Taupo Photo: 123rf
The party's conservation spokesperson, Ruth Dyson, said the system had crashed several times and she has had reports from holidaymakers of waits of 25 minutes for a 24-hour licence.
Ruth Dyson Photo: LABOUR PARTY
She said some places on the eastern side of the lake did not have any broadband internet access.
Ms Dyson said DOC should have phased in the new version alongside the simple paper-based system to allow time to ensure it worked properly.
She said the danger was people would go fishing without a licence, undermining stock management of the lake.
"We don't have enough people to monitor whether people are abiding by the regulations as it is, let alone providing a pretty strong incentive for people to just walk away from the regulatory regime.
"This is putting our fishing stock at risk as well by really pushing people into bad practice."