This report updates the Mid-East Coast orange roughy stock assessment for 2022. The fishery, observational data from trawl surveys, acoustic surveys, and age and length composition data, and the assessment model structure and assumptions are described. The stock was estimated to be below the depletion target range but slowly rebuilding. A hypothesis of skipped spawning was used to explain a high estimated age of first spawning. The assessment was accepted for providing scientific advice.

Commercial purse seine landings of Trachurus novaezelandiae from the Bay of Plenty purse seine fishery were sampled from length and age throughout the 2019–20 and 2020–21 fishing years. Catch curve total mortality estimates derived from the resulting age distributions suggest that levels of fishing mortality were sustainable in the areas fished. Age-length and length-weight parameter estimates are also provided by this report; these should be used instead of existing estimates for this species.

This document describes the rapid update framework and applies the rapid updates for five rock lobster QMAs: CRA 1, CRA 2, CRA 3, CRA 4, and CRA 5. The rapid updates used an additional year of catch, length frequencies, sex ratios, and tag-recapture data to update the base model from the most recent full assessment or last year’s rapid update. The results provide inference about stock status in the interim years between full assessments.