Searchers took nearly three hours to find them.
Mr Black was responding to criticism from an anonymous Queenstown boat operator, who said the response to the kayakers' Mayday cellphone call at 9.53pm on Monday was too slow and the pair could have been saved if they had been reached within 30 minutes.
"To be honest, the majority of operators are getting sick to death of people dying like flies in the Southern Lakes waters," the man, who wanted to remain anonymous, said.
He said he was afraid of being identified because he risked being "over-policed" and could become unpopular with other operators.
Defending the time lag, Mr Black said "it was a dark night and a rough lake and we had to cover the whole of the centre arm - we can only do so much".
Under maritime law, commercial operators are obliged to help in search and rescue operations and the man said operators willingly participated.
Mr Black said the rescue effort began at 10.05pm. The pair's bodies were found by helicopter floating 50m near their backpack at 12.50am.
The man said many Kawarau Jet drivers lived near the Frankton Marina and could have reached Hidden Island within 15 minutes of the search starting.
"It's absolutely tragic. Yes, they made a couple of blues, but they did communicate and [the rescue team] just took forever to recover them."
He compared the tragedy to a September 2008 incident in which a Chinese woman died after a Kawarau Jet boat carrying 22 passengers flipped.
"The response time then was appalling," he said.
Yesterday's operation involved Queenstown police, the Queenstown Coastguard boat, a Southern Lakes helicopter and three commercial operators' vessels - a Real Journeys boat, a Paraflight boat and a Queenstown water taxi.
