Without a major reduction in commercial catch limits any reduction in recreational bags is a waste of time.
The biggest reason bugger all snapper are caught in HB by shore fisherman is due to the large commercial fleet that we all see. As Rex said the further north you go in HB the greater the chance you have of catching your limit of snapper, funny how that coincides with distance from trawling fleet bases.
I fish BOP fairly regularly and the snapper fishing can be outstanding and they actually have a lower limit than us in HB with a emmensely larger snapper biomass than us.
During the time when the Rena disaster produced an exclusion zone for all commercial fisherman from the shoreline to 22km offshore, this was probably the major reason behind the BOP surfcasters having a bumper season in both size and numbers of fish.