Fisheries Amendment Bill

I rise on behalf of the National Party to speak in support of the Fisheries Amendment Bill, though that support does come with some caveats.

National supports legislation that enhances and protects New Zealand’s marine environment. Indeed, we do have a long track record on passing legislation—during our last term in Government—to enhance and protect marine environments, and we do what we can to encourage better fishing practices that enable our seafood sector to thrive sustainably. As I have spoken about so many times in this House previously, this country does rely on our primary industries, and, of course, our fishing industry plays a very large role in that. But we do—like everyone, I would I would hazard a guess—believe that fish dumping and illegal activity that is far too easily occurring under the current system must change in order to prevent lost future economic opportunity. I was actually lucky enough, very recently, to attend a trip to Fiji with the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee, where a large part of our trip was focused on the illegal and unregulated and unreported fishing activity up in that region, in the northern part of the Pacific, where they estimate almost a billion US dollars of fish is taken out of those fisheries per year. So we will, as a party, support what we can to come down hard on activity like that.

As I said in my opening statement, we do, though, have some reservations about this bill, following its select committee stage, and that’s where I’d like to refer the House to the National Party’s differing view, and that we are particularly concerned about the fact that the operational implications of the bill have been left very much to regulation. I know the members of the National Party—and, indeed, our colleagues in ACT—did fight long and hard during the select committee process for there to be changes made to the primary legislation as opposed to in regulation, and, unfortunately, as often is the case these days, we didn’t quite have the numbers and we were voted down. But we do want to place for the record our continuing disquiet and concern about that. We did find in select committee that there was quite some resistance whenever we sought to put those clarifications into primary legislation, though we didn’t actually get a reason as to why we were getting that resistance, which is disappointing.

We believe that the penalty regime has no consideration on the various value weightings of respective species. I know colleagues did talk a long time about pilchards compared to tuna and who should be given weight as to what was more important to be taken into account when bycatches were dumped. But we believe that when setting fines regarding the discarding of fish referred to, should be had in matters including their species and their value. If I just quote from the National Party’s minority view, it says, “We also have concerns with the landings and discards section in the bill. Currently discards back to the sea can occur within a very strict set of expectations which may have a disproportionate impact on inshore fishers, depending on how pragmatic or otherwise officials are when setting the regulations.” And, of course, that comes down to the crux of our concern with this; it really is down to the officials of the day, as opposed to something being set in black and white and legislation. So it really is quite arbitrary. So we as a party will be watching the subsequent development of those regulations closely. We really do want to see a good balance struck between the ongoing improvement of fishing practice, but ensuring a viable inshore—and, of course, deep-water—commercial fishery can continue.

So to understand this bill it’s important that we understand what it’s actually measuring. The quota management system (QMS) that this bill seeks to strengthen is a process that actually oversees hundreds and hundreds of fish species which populate our nation’s seas in and around the exclusive economic zone, but they can be divided up into sections. And this is where it does become quite complicated. This is where the frustration has arisen from, the lack of adaptability and accountability to those total allowable catch rules—hence the need for this bill to be brought before the House—and that they change and that they move all the time. So, as I understand it, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has only assessed 50 fish stocks in 2021. But to give that some context, I understand that the current stocks within the QMS is huge, with about 98 species that are divided into 642 separate stocks within that quota management area. So, to put it simply, the existing legislation is simply not equipped to accurately measure this massive amount of data in this massive area.

As I went through before, the issues that we have primarily have been with that accountability, with the status updates—there is less than 3 percent of the total fish stock that’s been assessed, meaning MPI has no up-to-date data or visibility on what is actually out there, nor indeed the environmental impacts that fishing is currently having on New Zealand’s seas and waters.

So, just to conclude, really, this is quite a procedural change. We have registered forthrightly, I think, our reservations about the bill. We will continue to monitor this. We have heard very strongly the feedback from the industry. We do encourage the industry to keep communicating with MPI in the development of those regulations. We do want to see these as fit for purpose as possible. So we do support this bill. We are concerned about the potential for its costs to outweigh benefits once changes are enacted, but we do look forward to seeing how those early interventions have an impact.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Fisheries Amendment Bill as the chair of the Primary Production Committee. Before I begin my contribution, can I please take time to thank the officials we worked with during this process and the other select committee members. We spent quite some time on this piece of legislation during sitting hours and, quite often, in recess weeks.

What this piece of legislation proposes to do is to improve and incentivise better commercial fishing practices. We’ve heard quite a lot about the removal of the pre-set decision rules. That was a decision that was made through the committee of the whole House. There has been continued concern expressed over the use of the pre-set decision rules, and it seems that the rebuilding of trust is something that is quite important and needed before we can include rules such as this. There were changes made around graduated offences and the penalties regime, and we’ve heard quite a lot about the 50 fish number, and I know that the Minister acknowledged that perhaps it seems arbitrary but there has to be a starting point somewhere. Previously, there was just simply a maximum penalty of a $250,000 fine, no matter the offence, and what this piece of legislation does is amend that somewhat to make the penalty fit for purpose, the type of offence committed, and thinking about any previous offences that may have been committed by the fisher prior. So it’s proportionate to the offence.

This also goes to improve the effectiveness of cameras on boats. As well as them currently being used for observing fishing, it now extends to the observation of fishing-related activities such as sorting, processing, and the discarding of fish.

So, again, I just thank the members of the committee. It is a split committee—each side has the same number so there is no party that has more votes than the other, so I’m unsure why the member who spoke previously mentioned that they didn’t have the numbers. It is a split committee. It is a committee that works very well, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a privilege to speak on the third reading of the Fisheries Amendment Bill. Like the previous speaker, I would like to begin by acknowledging the Primary Production Committee members who examined this bill, the staff that supported them, and the advisers—particularly acknowledging my colleague Eugenie Sage, who has been making previous contributions on this bill and who we know cares deeply about the wellbeing of our oceans.

Western science is catching up to what indigenous peoples have practised and told us for many, many generations. To quote Dr Alison Collins, who is the Chief Science Advisor at the Ministry for the Environment, she talked about how “Our seas are the meeting place of land, freshwater, and skies and thus the ultimate receiving environment, vulnerable to the cumulative pressures that result from our daily activities.”

This is what this bill is trying to address in part: to find a better balance between the extractor practices that we have been able for generations and the wellbeing of our environment. When this bill was first introduced, some of its aims were around introducing further penalties to allow for a fisheries regime with greater monitoring and thus more capture of offending—I note that the member for National talked plenty about that—changes to landing rules to require that all fish caught be landed, with some exceptions; things such as creating a new defence in cases of dumping fish in a net to allow release of protected species, such as dolphins, streamlines the process for setting and varying catch limits with new pre-set decision rules, as well as approval process for disposal of unwanted catch on land; as well as further technical changes related to monitoring.

One of the things that we took note of as the bill went through and was introduced was the sort of frame around rather than protecting our oceans and being part of the ecosystem, to create the conditions for innovation within the industry. We do think that there was a missed opportunity to take a more ecosystem-based approach when it came to how we approached this legislation.

As the process went through and we finished the select committee report and as NGOs, activists, and other people who deeply care about the wellbeing of our oceans contributed, we’re really happy to see the Government change tact in terms of the decisions around this bill.

One of the things that we were really pleased to see was the removal of provisions in the Fisheries Amendment Bill, which establish pre-set decision rules. This is important because the rules would have limited the public’s ability to comment on significant changes to commercial catch regimes and risk favouring the interests of commercial fishers over oceans’ health. The reality is, the fish which we consume rely on thriving ecosystems, not just a spreadsheet. This is why it was so important that we change these rules, which, initially, officials would have been able to use a predetermined framework to make decisions about recreational bag limits and total commercial catch limits. We’re really stoked that the Minister has changed his mind on this after pressure from the Greens, but the work still continues. For us, we remain concerned about the fact that we’re still not doing enough on preventing the bycatch of seabird, seals, dolphins, and other protected species.

One of the things that we’ll continue pushing, as I said earlier, is about taking a much more holistic approach, particularly on ecosystem management. That would actually allow us to take into account how fisheries interact with the marine ecosystem, rather than just considering species in isolation.

As I said in my opening remarks, everything is connected. As we tackle the climate crisis, we also have to confront that realities that the systems that led to the climate crisis are also leading to a biodiversity crisis, and that, in itself, actually puts the industry at risk. This is why we need to reframe from thinking of fisheries as purely from an industry lens, and actually from an ecosystem lens.

For us, it is really important that, despite our support of the bill, we acknowledge the changes that we need to continue working towards, and we’ll continue putting healthy oceans and sustainable fisheries first. Hopefully, with sustained pressure, the Government will listen and do more. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to speak on the third and final reading of the Fisheries Amendment Bill. I think it’s incumbent upon all of us, as lawmakers, to weigh up and reconcile and debate the merits and pitfalls of any piece of legislation that comes before this House to reconcile, where possible, the problems that we seek to fix, and come out with tenable solutions.

Questions could be asked whether the bill was put forward in total good faith. I know we’ve canvassed before, and it was canvassed in the committee of the whole House stage, that the Minister may have arguably pulled a swiftie with so much of the removal of the pre-set decision rules. Large parts of the legislation were encapsulated by the inclusion of the pre-set decision rules. Now, I fully accept that it was tenuous, although we had a collegial debate and dialogue in the committee stage. But that was fraught with, in and of itself, all manner of unknowns, especially when the legislation had huge parts that were caught up in the pre-set decision rules and now they’re removed. In the select committee process, everyone was engaged with the officials in good faith and that was clearly evident with the dialogue. We sat there, quite often in recess weeks, to try and iron out the kinks with this legislation, which was considered to be incredibly technical.

Frequently, it was offered by officials, however, that the bill proposes to put the squeeze on industry to innovate. And what I was always trying to ascertain by that statement is what innovation ultimately looked like. Now, if I can give an example in my small contribution today, when I posed questions at the committee stage to the Minister—what innovation looked like—I had offered a few things about what the industry was currently doing, and I gave an example about mid-water fish. In that example, I spoke to yellow-eyed mullets, and yellow-eyed mullets are often commercially fished for bait fish. But in the same pressure zone in the ocean, so are kahawai, and, inadvertently, they are caught as part of bycatch. In that instance, as the bill is proposed—and it speaks to 50 more or less fish as being bycatch—there is now a prosecutorial reality to that.

Now, when I gave that example, I spoke to what the industry has actually done to alleviate that. It had gone from a 4-inch mesh to a 5-inch mesh to a 6-inch mesh. It had gone from a square to a diamond. It had changed, over the last decade or more, the use of cork lines, lead lines, and pressure zones that these nets—especially set nets—were set on. Now, in reply to written parliamentary questions that I asked about how the industry was actually going to innovate to alleviate this potential prosecutorial reality, which is quite hefty for 50 more or less fish caught in a 24-hour period, the very things that the Minister’s officials offered back to me—and I find it a glaring omission, because they, basically, repeated the example that I gave. If I could paraphrase, “The technologies are available or under development.” Well, if you’re a coastal commercial fisherman trying to reconcile a potential prosecutorial-reality because you have inadvertently caught more than 50 fish as bycatch, to the example I have given, you can see how this is a hard thing to stomach. And they go on: “Technologies of various stages of development include new nets with different orientation, or mesh.” Well, gracious me, that’s already been happening over the decades: new technology such as precision seafood harvesting, sorting grids, coastal commercial fishermen as deep-water, blue-water fleet are already doing this sort of innovation, this sort of stuff. So I’m trying to reconcile where the Minister is trying to land with us.

We all accept that the bill is predicated on preservation and sustainability of New Zealand’s fish stocks for a shared interest in recreational, commercial, and customary. But how do you reconcile that? In this instance, when especially we are speaking to a coastal commercial reality which often has multiple fish species that are caught—inadvertently, they catch bycatch. And over the instance of the 50 yellow-eyed mullet versus kahawai: how do they alleviate that? I’m still trying to get my head around that, as is the ACT Party. Anecdotally, multiple people have spoken to me about how onerous this is going to be on the coastal commercial fishery, especially those that sell to table-fish markets here in New Zealand. Now, the comparison was often made with blue-water fleets. Well, that’s a very different reality, and, often, the officials spoke to the innovation that had happened in Nordic countries, but they offered blue-water examples. They weren’t talking about multiple species of finfish caught in a coastal reality.

Just very quickly, before I close up, I want to talk about the ramped-up fine reality and encapsulate that, if I can, with the 50 more or less fish as bycatch, which, by the way, have to be landed, brought home, and inadvertently sold to a licenced fish receiver, if you have one, for a species that’s probably cost—30c in a kilo is what you’ve made out of it, and the average snapper might be over a dollar a kilo. But the prosecutorial reality that’s attached to this is—and if I can read the departmental disclosure statement out—“The bill will maintain the current maximum penalty [of] ($250,000) for the most serious breaches of … landings and discards rules with a new graduated penalty model. Fishers [and] … discard [of] 50 or [more] … fish a day could face up to a $10,000 fine.” Well, if you’re a set-net fisherman and you’ve gone down a harbour or an estuary and you’ve set your net as your commercial licence and your quota allows you to do, and, in my example of yellow-eyed mullet with kahawai, you inadvertently catch more than 50 fish as bycatch because there’s no technology currently at your disposal to alleviate that bycatch, you’re instantly fined—well, potentially caught up in a $10,000 fine reality. It also speaks to how fishers that discard over 50 or more fish could face up to a $100,000 fine, and fishers that offend two or more times in a three-year period could receive a maximum fine of $250,000.

Now, I’m all for, as is the ACT Party, creating an environment that has tenable solutions that are practical for coastal commercial fishermen, as is blue water, that speaks to the sustainability of the fishery wherever it is found and by whoever uses it. That’s beyond argument. Where the rubber really hits the road is the coastal commercial fishermen who, more often than not, sell to a table-fish market, are asking us as officials, as lawmakers, to stop, pause, and use common sense. They have gone to great lengths to innovate their way around this difficulty.

Now, the bill also speaks to cameras on boats. No umbrage there, most in the industry support that by virtue of the cameras on boats realities—they know that there’s a science argument to be made; this will help capture data and imagery of what is being caught. It won’t speak to the technological advances they’ve already made and the difficulties they’re having in alleviating bycatch currently. Without overplaying my hand here, this bill doesn’t do that. It simply doesn’t do that. It creates a penalty regime for those that have worked exceptionally hard to alleviate bycatch where is possible, and I’ve laid out my example.

ACT fundamentally can’t support this bill. It will drive up protein that New Zealanders need. We’ve got a cost of living crisis—this will drive, quite often, ma and pa fishermen that are in the coastal fleet out of business. They’ve already got fuel issues, they’ve already got labour issues, and now this. ACT does not support this bill as framed. It simply won’t work and it will drive productivity down and incur a penalty regime that most commercial fishermen don’t deserve. We don’t support this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I would like to begin my contribution this afternoon by thanking the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries for his leadership in bringing this bill to the House. This bill amends the Fisheries Act 1996, an Act which established the quota management system and is older than I am, funnily enough. But it’s a $42 billion sector, so it is of crucial importance, which I agree with my colleagues across the House on. So it’s important that we get this right and make sure that this industry is sustainable long into the future.

I’d also like to thank submitters. Although I’m on the Primary Production Committee, I wasn’t here to hear from submitters in person, as submissions were made while I was on parental leave. On that note, I would really like to thank the officials who worked on supporting the committee on this bill, who helped to bring me up to speed on where we were at when I returned back to Parliament.

I come from an electorate which is very into fishing. We’ve got the notorious Whanganui bar, over which many fishers head out across each day. We’ve got the Pātea bar, which is even more notorious, and, of course, Snapper Rock just out of Waiinu Beach. So this bill is really important to the people in my electorate.

I just want to pick up on a few points that some members across the House have made this afternoon. So they’ve raised concerns, for example, about the importance of considering the difference in value of fish. So we heard pilchards and tuna, for example, and this is important—absolutely—but the primary legislation, so in the Act, is not the place to put these matters. They’re going to need to be changed frequently, which means we need them in the secondary legislation, because otherwise every time we’re going to have to make these updates around the value of certain fish, we’re going to have to bring it all the way back through this parliamentary process. Putting it in the regulations is absolutely the appropriate place to put it, because it allows that flexibility and that expediency in making those amendments, which gives certainty to the industry.

I’d also like to point out that some of the concerns were around what the value then means in terms of potential penalties that fishers might face. As my colleagues across the House have mentioned, we did, as a committee, extensively question officials and submitters on this point. What we heard back from officials, quite clearly, is that they follow what’s called the Voluntary Assisted Directed Enforced model of enforcement. So, that is, they go in at entry level, which is voluntarily, so working with the fisher on the ground or on the sea to make sure that they understand their obligations and that they are taking voluntary steps towards improvement. Then from voluntary, the next step up is assisted, and that’s a little bit more hands-on. Then we go to directed, and then we go to enforced. So, unlike what my colleagues might have the House or listeners at home believe, the ministry will be working with fishers long before it gets to the point where fishers are being fined or prosecuted, so I am confident that we have got the balance right here, in this bill.

This bill, as we’ve discussed, also tightens the rules around landing and disposal—that’s around what fish can be caught. It’s also going to improve the effectiveness of the roll-out of cameras on boats. So, in terms of improving the sustainability of our fishing industry, I wholeheartedly commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call—Barbara Kuriger.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I want to make a comment in my speech today about the good work of the Primary Production Committee and particularly my colleague Todd Muller, who has been working hard for oceans and fisheries on this front. I sat through quite a large amount of this select committee, and one thing that became very clear to me—you know, I’m more used to talking about Friesians, Jerseys, Herefords, and a range of cattle than I am about the different types of fish, so it was very much a “Fishing 101” in regards to me. But what became very clear was that fishers do not want to deplete their fish stocks, and why would they? Because, actually, that’s their livelihood and that’s how they earn their catch. I am a great lover of eating fish, and I want them to continue to do that for a long time to come. So that was the first part of the bill that we were actually looking in.

The last speaker spoke about how this is primary legislation, and a lot of the work that needs to be done over the next while is in the secondary legislation—and that’s the hardest thing, as a legislator, when you put a bill in place and you look at what it means and then you know that you let it go for regulations to be developed around exactly what’s going to happen here. The hardest thing is that where the regulations come in place, it is actually all designed to describe and put the numbers and the manner of what happens to the fish that these fishers do not want to catch. So it’s not something that these fishers would deliberately do in terms of catching the fish that they don’t want to catch, but, by virtue of the process that they use, that’s what happens when they go on a fishing expedition. So it’s really hard to actually, I think, pinpoint exactly how this will play out in reality.

So the bill is not perfect, and there are elements of its design that will continue to be criticised by most, if not all, stakeholders. And I guess the other point to make in all of this is that there are two distinct, discrete groups of stakeholders. One is the commercial fishers, and the other group of stakeholders is the recreational fishers who all have to live in harmony in largely the same space of the ocean. And so while some fishing waters are deeper than others, there is quite a bit of tension between both groups wanting to maintain the outcomes for their leisure and for the industry. So it’s really important to note. It’s fair to say that the bill is not perfect. There are elements of its design that will continue to be criticised, probably by both sides—if not all stakeholders.

But I think the biggest thing from National’s perspective is that we’re watching this very carefully. We were hugely disappointed that just after the second reading and just hours before the committee of the whole House stage, Minister Parker decided to introduce Supplementary Order Paper 257, which removed part of the bill that would have enabled streamlining of the process for setting the total allowable catch for a fish stock. So that was really disappointing because it was a good select committee. It was a select committee that was very good right across the parties in terms of discussion, and it was really disappointing to get to that point and have that thrown away at the committee stage.

So there’s a commitment here from National that when National’s in Government in 2023 and the transition process has begun, we will closely monitor which parts of the bill are working and which parts aren’t, and we’ll seek to improve those parts. We will be watching carefully, and I know Todd Muller has had a lot of close interaction with the industry. I’ve had some. Some good fishing goes off the coast of my electorate in Taranaki and Raglan and other places. And I think it was very clear that the last-minute changes were made here—and it was even stated by the Green Party today that they’d put pressure on the Minister to scratch these provisions and he’d folded to it. National is disappointed about that, but, having said that, we will support the bill today and continue to monitor what happens beyond its passing. Thank you.

Mālō ni. Fa‘afetai, Mr Speaker, and happy Tokelauan Language Week. It is a pleasure to take a brief call on the Fisheries Amendment Bill in its third reading. I haven’t had the privilege to speak in the last two readings, nor to sit on the select committee, but I just want to acknowledge Minister Parker and also the chair of the Primary Production Committee, Jo Luxton, the members, and the officials for their work on this important bill.

What does this bill do? It amends the Fisheries Act 1996. It helps to redesign the fisheries system and also simplifies the landing and discard rules for commercial fishers, but what I like about this bill is that it helps to incentivise the behaviour of our fishers in order to target the fish that they need and also minimise the fish wastage and also the discard of dead fish at sea. It also allows the return of catch to safeguard marine mammals and protect ray and shark species, and that’s all about protecting the ecosystem and the environment but also the health and wellbeing not only of the environment but of our whānau, who also fish as well. So—straight to the point—I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s interesting, the process that we go through in passing legislation, and, I think, in reflection of where we got to in this bill in the pre-set decision rules, it is an example of how we have a Government who is listening. I have to say that when I was at the Hawke’s Bay A&P Show on People’s Day—on People’s Day; a fabulous day at the Hawke’s Bay Show—I got to catch up with the members of LegaSea recreational fishing and they were very complimentary of this Government and how we do continue to listen.

During the submission process, we had many, many submissions on those pre-set decision rules—which, yes, would have enabled more streamlined decisions on sustainability measures, including catch limits. They have now been removed from the bill because it remains clear that there is concern over the use of those tools. It became clear with the stakeholders concerned, regarding this proposal, that we have to rebuild trust in the fisheries management system, which is needed before considering such changes.

So I find it really ironic that the National Party is deeply disappointed in this decision, because there are thousands of amateur people who go out and fish—mums and dads, and many, like the members I met at the Hawke’s Bay A&P Show—and they are pleased with where this legislation has got to, and I am pleased to be able to commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’ve spent a lot of time engaged in fisheries-related matters and got very little return. It’s easier to spend 10 minutes in such activity and land nothing, but we’ll see if we can improve on that on this occasion.

Hon Member: That was clever; very good, Mr Penk—very good.

CHRIS PENK: Thank you—thank you. There’s plenty more where that came from. I note, actually, the Minister of fisheries is David Parker, and I know that he likes fishing expeditions, because in his role as revenue Minister he’s got the IRD looking into the affairs of New Zealanders who are presumably too wealthy for his liking.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: And often just they’re sharks.

CHRIS PENK: Anyway, wearing a different—sharks indeed! Loan sharks perhaps even, Mr Woodhouse. So thinking about this actual bill that is in front of us, nevertheless, it is in the literal meaning of the word fishing, of course. I’ve not been involved in the legislative debates until this point, so I’ve taken great pleasure and interest in hearing colleagues across the House giving their views on the matter, including on behalf of their party, and you’ll have heard the views of National Party members in terms of obviously wanting to support the overarching aims of the legislation but expressing some wariness about the mechanism being created whereby a lot of regulations can come out of this primary legislation.

I know that any regulations that pass the desk of the Regulations Review Committee will be well considered under the chairmanship of the Hon Judith Collins and that fine team, but nevertheless it is incumbent upon us as legislators in this House, none the less, to make sure that we can bring to light any potential fishhooks. I’m sorry, Mr Speaker. I didn’t even mean that one. It’s just quite hard to avoid.

But, nevertheless, we do have to—

Hon Dr David Clark: Plumbing new depths.

CHRIS PENK: —make sure that we’re not—I beg your pardon?

Hon Dr David Clark: Plumbing new depths.

CHRIS PENK: Plumbing new depths, even, according to the Hon David Clark. I love it, thank you.

Hon Dr David Clark: It was a real sinker, that one!

CHRIS PENK: Yes, indeed. We’re going to move on.

Hon Michael Woodhouse: On a scale of one to 10—

CHRIS PENK: Haha! You’ve got to say “scale”. I’m not going to do fish puns just for the halibut, but anyway—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps you’re using the wrong bait here, Mr Penk.

CHRIS PENK: Ha, ha! Very good, Mr Speaker.

Hon Dr David Clark: Sole destroying!

CHRIS PENK: Sole destroying—ha, ha!

Hon Michael Woodhouse: Now he’s floundering.

CHRIS PENK: Oh dear—floundering! I’m just repeating these at this point so that they get into Hansard. We don’t want to miss any of these—don’t want any of these to be the one that got away!

Anyway, on to the bill, because it is a serious matter. One of the things I do look for, and having an initial glance at this, is the distinction if there was one between shellfish and what we might ordinarily call “fish”—fish proper, for want of a better phrase. As I say, I’m not an expert in the area. But all jokes aside, it is a very serious topic, of course, for New Zealand, and I’ll come back to that distinction between shellfish and other fish shortly.

But just to put the debate in context, of course at the risk of stating the obvious, New Zealand is a maritime nation. We are, according to one characterisation, a very large nation of which most of our territory is water. So looking at a map or a chart, there’s more blue than green, which is how we like this Parliament as well, of course, on this side of the House, too. But certainly in terms of the ecological reality, it is hugely significant from an environmental perspective and, of course, from a commercial perspective as well.

I understand from no less an authority than the legislative statement, actually, that there is some $4.2 billion worth of revenue, or total economic activity, I should say, including $1.35 billion of export revenue in any given year, associated with fishing and presumably fishing-related activities and sales and support activities and so on. According to my maths, about a third is export dollars from that economic activity. So that’s to be taken very seriously by any country, particularly at the volumes we’re talking now for New Zealand. So it is really important in a commercial sense. Tourist activity is popular as well. Remember tourists? We used to have those but, at least theoretically, that’s an activity that any such people who may grace our shores again would enjoy as well and add to our reputation and the experience of those who would come here and spend some money on our shores.

Thinking about the importance of the legislation, and particularly its aim to spell out as clearly as possible which fish stocks are able to be kept, or must be landed, indeed, versus those that are able to be discarded—of course, in any given scenario, that’s important to provide some certainty for those who are out there on the water, knowing how they’re to regard their catch. But, of course, having rules in place and providing that certainty drives the behaviour as well. The behaviour in question would be—and, again, I don’t profess to be an expert, but the types of nets or lines or other paraphernalia and, of course, also the depths at which they’re fishing, the areas in which they would fish and so on. So having a set of guidelines, and they use the word loosely—we’re mostly talking about primary legislation, again with that regulations element—the clearer we can make the matters for those who are engaged in this important activity, the better it will be for them, but also for the environment, because then there won’t be inadvertent catch of creatures that they’re not able to catch.

I do note, actually, and I should point this out for the sake of fairness, that while we in the National Party are saying, quite rightly, that there’s extensive provision for regulations to be made, the bill as it now is, which is the amendment to the Act, does actually set out, to some extent, exemptions that can be made as they relate to existing regulations. So it’s a bit of a hybrid, I suppose, in terms of the way that the whole regime operates.

But I saw, for example, in relation to the schedule—I’m talking about existing regulations to do with many different types of fish: blue cod catches the eye at the start, blue moki, butterfish, and so on—it goes through those settings in very specific detail; how catches and stocks and species are to be treated in each individual case. So it’s quite interesting how it all fits together. I did notice within those regulations that scallops are mentioned, so there is a shellfish element, at least in part. And the reason that I’m interested in that is actually from a local perspective.

For the Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate, which is very coastal, representing a wedge of that thin body of land that is the North Island of New Zealand, in the upper part of that—obviously lots of coastal area, obviously lots of good fisheries not only within shallow waters and in deeper waters but, of course, on the rocks as well—this is quite a controversial and a serious point in those parts, and, no doubt, other coastal areas in New Zealand and elsewhere that people are interested in these matters from an environmental point of view. And that’s to say that when the regulations allow a certain number of a particular kind of shellfish to be gathered per day, the limit is expressed per person. So if you have a large gathering, family or some other group, each with access to that number of shellfish to be gathered and it’s per person basis, then, over a relatively short period of time, a single group can really clear out an area in a way that’s surely very damaging to those ecosystems, recognising the reliance of other creatures in turn on those shellfish, as well as the importance of the shellfish themselves.

From an ecological point of view, but obviously recognising that there is a lifestyle implication for those who live near the water—there may even be an economic implication at an individual household level for people who rely on gathering shellfish and other types of fish for their sustenance and to put food on the table. And good luck to them, I say, if they want to do that activity. It’s pretty hard work, I would have thought, but there are people amongst us for whom this is an important activity and therefore it should be important to us all. And certainly, as I say, from an environmental perspective, that certainly makes sense.

I think the select committee, it seems to me from the outside, did a good job of trying to grapple with understanding how this bill fits into the ecosystem from a parliamentary sense or a statute book perspective of how it all ties in. So the shellfish and the other fish, obviously, complement each other to some extent. And, of course, recreational and commercial types of fishing is another distinction we can draw; noting, of course, that if there’s too much commercial activity, then that will impinge on the ability, some might say the right indeed, of New Zealanders to engage in recreational fishing activity.

So I think that’s probably enough for me on the subject. I mean, after 10 minutes, whether I’ve landed anything or not, you can be the judge of, but, in any case, like my other colleagues in the National Party, I do emphasise that we support the intent of the bill. We will watch carefully to see how its particular provisions are put forward by way of regulation and, of course, how those are enforced and applied and so forth. We commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is my pleasure to rise and take a final call on the Fisheries Amendment Bill. I think, as my colleague Anna Lorck reflected, getting to this point shows there’s been a lot of complexity, and ongoing changes right up to the last minute reflect the fact that this Government is prepared to tackle some really, really wicked problems. As Barbara Kuriger pointed out, it can be really difficult when you have multiple stakeholders who have different priorities.

I want to acknowledge some of my local fishers, inshore fishers, including Keith Mawson from Egmont Seafoods, who was one of those people who constantly came and talked to us and really helped us to grapple with the issues.

Hon Member: Oh, “grapple”!

ANGELA ROBERTS: Oh, I didn’t notice that.

The inshore fishers have a shared vision with us in this House about the desire for transparency, accurate information-gathering, and improved fisheries and environmental outcomes, and this is where some of the changes are really going to help with that. We are so data-poor in our ability to be really responsive in a really accurate and useful way to the fluctuations and the changes that happen out there on the ocean. It’s going to be really helped by things such as cameras, and that is why the inshore fishers are really supportive of the opportunity that cameras will really enable.

It’s great to hear that everybody in this House is going to continue to monitor. It isn’t just the data that is going to be really important but what has been acknowledged with the most recent changes is that we need to rebuild relationships. We cannot make changes and have a really great fishery and ecosystem and ocean without everybody being involved in the decision making. So it is going to be great to have everybody on board to make sure that the changes are useful and really help to protect our fishery. We want our fishery sector to survive and we want our biodiversity to be restored. Just one final quote as an artist, we always had to go back to the musicians, and we want to make sure that in the future we have not just the biodiversity but fishers who want to be there in the future. As Split Enz said, “That’s the life for me, living on the sea.” With that, I commend the bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.