Winston Peters says the decision to back down on controversial fishing rule changes was only made today. 

The Government's proposal would've allowed commercial fishers to catch undersized fish - including snapper. 

Prime Minister Chris Luxon says he spoke to Fisheries Minister Shane Jones this morning, and he agreed to dump the change. 

But Peters says the decision was made hours before Luxon met with Jones. 

"In the end, we made a decision and said - no, let's dump the darned thing, go with what people are thinking and see if we can sort it out. To tell you the truth, we'd been talking about it for days and we confirmed it very early this morning."

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