[4] New Zealand's wild fisheries captured 441,000 tonnes and earned over NZ$1 billion in exports in the fishing year 2006/07.

[7] Starting in the 1960s, the offshore waters, outside the then 12 nautical mile territorial sea, were exploited by Japanese, Taiwanese, South Korean, and Soviet trawlers.

Trawling crews from other nations taught New Zealanders how to fish deep waters and in return got a share of the catch.

Mel Courtney, MP for Nelson and convenor of the Opposition fisheries' sub-committee on production and marketing, in asserting "the policy is falling apart", expressed the view of many.

Deep-water trawling is highly mechanised and massive capital investment is normally required to operate modern factory trawlers.

At the same time, the collapse of northern fisheries resulted in an unmet need in the world market for quality whitefish.

[12] More than 90 percent of New Zealand's seafloor (Territorial Sea and Exclusive Economic Zone) has never been touched by trawlers.

[4] The high seas are those areas of ocean not covered by any country's Exclusive Economic Zone.

These obligations come from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the 1995 Straddling Fish Stocks Agreement.

[14] The Treaty of Waitangi signed in 1840 guaranteed Māori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, "undisturbed possession" of the fisheries until they chose to dispose of them to the Crown.

Breaches of the Treaty were claimed over many years by Māori and included the introduction of the Quota Management System (QMS) in 1986.