Fisheries Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Fisheries Amendment Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: I move, That the Fisheries Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

It is a great pleasure to present the Fisheries Amendment Bill in this very important third reading—the last step before these new rules become law; to which I have paid very close attention throughout its passage through the House, I might add. It will bring about some of the most significant changes to New Zealand’s fisheries management system in 30 years. The bill will strengthen and modernise the system to provide economic opportunities and ensure sustainability of fisheries resources for future generations.

I want to thank those who have helped to progress the bill to this stage—I hope that includes members opposite. This includes the submitters on the bill, including the fishing industry, and I appreciate the time and effort that the Primary Production Committee members have spent to understand the bill and the complexities of the fisheries management system—

💬 Todd Muller: Could you just step us through those?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: —as well as to hear from submitters. Ordinarily, at this point I would give a detailed account of that system, but I am denied sufficient time to do that—but I will continue to give my summary of the bill.

I want to also, finally, thank the officials who worked very hard over several years to develop the policy in this bill and who will continue to ensure its effective implementation. It is good that we have good public servants doing work on difficult policy issues like this and assisting all members of the House to achieve good legislation as a result.

The committee of the whole House removed pre-set decision rules from the bill, because it remains clear that there is concern over the use of those tools as proposed in the original bill. Those clauses would have enabled more streamlined decisions on sustainability measures, including catch limits. Submitters stressed the need to rebuild trust in the fisheries management system first.

Previous reports that Minister Parker—the Minister responsible for the bill—referred to, such as the Heron report commissioned under the previous National Government, showed that discarding and high grading was a longstanding problem in New Zealand. That is what has led to putting cameras on boats and changing rules around discarding fish. While I believe industry practice has improved and is improving, there remains a level of distrust, in part borne of the fact that outcomes from operations Hippocamp and Achilles were not made public, despite the problems shown.

We’re making progress to rebuild this trust through key changes in this bill alongside increasingly transparent processes and an approach—an open approach—to sustainability rounds. But suspicion remains amongst some people that allowing the Minister to change the total allowable catch and total allowable commercial catch based on a rule agreed by stakeholders but without a requirement to consult the public, is, from their point of view, a backwards step. It is unwise to proceed with that at this stage, and it’s not the main component of the reform package.

There was also some concern raised with the graduated offences and the penalty regime, and new rules relating to landing and disposals. Concern was the regime would be too focused on numbers, rather than value of fish. Offences would therefore not be proportionate to the consequence of offending. I acknowledge that 50 fish is somewhat arbitrary, but we had to draw the line somewhere. It’s a vast improvement to the current system, which prescribes a maximum penalty of $250,000 for any level of offence. So members will see that this is a bill that truly pursues justice.

Value is an important consideration. It’s not about whether this factor should be considered, but how. Primary legislation is not the place to put matters that will need to be changed frequently to ensure they remain effective. Ministry for Primary Industries enforcement officers will have discretion. They will, as with other prosecutors, consider all factors of the offence. This includes whether the act was intentional or accidental; the nature of the offending, including the species and quantities involved; and previous behaviour of the fisher. More specifically, the consultation on the infringement regulations is the appropriate place for value to be considered in detail.

I want to highlight some of the key features of the bill, which have been well traversed. This bill tightens rules around landing and disposal. This means that all fish that are caught whether they are quota management system (QMS) species or not must be reported. And QMS species must be landed, except if there is an exemption provided for in the regulation.

💬 Mark Cameron: What are those exemptions?

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: The tightening of—well, I would like to assist the member but time prevents me from giving a full account.

💬 Hon Member: We’ll seek an extension.

💬 Hon ANDREW LITTLE: If members wish to move an extension of speaking time, I’m sure I can consider it! The tightening of landing and disposal rules are supported by the roll-out of on-board cameras. Cameras provide more accurate information about fishing activity and better evidence for a responsive management system.

Through these changes, we are tackling the issue of discarding of unwanted fish and improving incentives for better commercial fishing practices. Fishers will be incentivised to target fish more selectively so they can maximise the value of their catch. Cameras also support measures to reduce the bycatch of birds and sea mammals. The broader use of on-board cameras has been tested with industry, who broadly support the initiative.

The bill also introduces a more graduated offences and penalties regime that can now be implemented because we have cameras on boats. A graduated regime will allow commercial fishers to be penalised more proportionally and appropriately relative to their level of offending.

Issues of discarding is a global fisheries problem. Minister Parker was recently in Iceland, where they are dealing with similar issues around illegal discarding—exposed using drones. New Zealand is not unique in trying to address these concerns. Fisheries management systems around the world are all looking for innovative ways to address similar issues.

We have a solid fisheries system and, most importantly, a balancing regime which puts us in a better position than some. There will be challenges for some in the industry, but they have shown time and time again how innovative they are. There are a range of new technologies available or being developed, including the new types of nets, alternative methods such as potting or longlining, and the use of cameras on nets which will help improve the selectivity of fishing.

The bill’s four-year implementation period will ensure that fishers have the time to adjust their operations as needed. The bill also enables us to meet the increasing demands of consumers to know where their food comes from and to utilise these technologies in a way that provides consumers in all parts of the supply chain with greater assurances that our fisheries are managed sustainably.

Last year, the Government established a vision for the ocean, which is something along the lines of ensuring the long-term health and resilience of ocean and coastal ecosystems, including the role of fisheries. To help us realise this vision, the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, along with our colleague the Hon Kiritapu Allan, who was then the Minister of Conservation, crafted a work programme that included fisheries system reform. This bill represents a significant step forward for this reform, a significant step toward realising this vision, and will support a strong and modern fisheries management system. And on that note, I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, if ever there was a legislative denouement to what has been quite a remarkable process around the Fisheries Amendment Bill, then that 10 minutes would have to take the cake, because we have just listened to a highly passionate Minister of Health, handed the job to sell the Government’s vision with respect to fisheries, and he laboured through each word as if he was trying to haul up a whale from the bottom of the ocean. It didn’t work, but it was great to see the list MP who valiantly represented the great city of New Plymouth with all its burgeoning fishing industry. I’m sure they would have loved to see that, sitting at home watching the Minister mangle an attempt to try and summarise the Government’s approach with respect to fisheries.

So let’s just unwind this process and reflect on where we find ourselves here tonight on the third reading of the Fisheries Amendment Bill. The Minister is right when he tightly referenced, on page 2, that this is a process which started many years ago. The genesis of its process was the fact that there was concern that the current Fisheries Act was not precise enough with respect to incentivising the right fishing behaviour—that when you land fish, you should ensure that you discard only the fish that is appropriate, with a relatively narrow sense of criteria, and that you should return the remainder back to land.

Now, this has been a very fraught process, because as the Government began this process of the last few years sitting with fisheries industry representatives, it became clear that there was significant distrust, significant concern, across many of the players about the behaviour of the other player. As someone who is the oceans and fisheries spokesperson for the National Party, when you actually sit and listen to the perspectives of those who are involved in this sector, the level of distrust is quite extraordinary—

💬 Hon Member: Palpable.

“Palpable” is the word, and actually it’s a good word, because you have the commercial fishers who say that this framework has been developed to unnecessarily constrain their business, that they are simply trying to make a living, and that they do not deliberately chuck over the side of their boat fish that they want to discard. The reality of when you are using a trawl net is that you will catch fish that you don’t particularly want to catch and it is a difficult process to minimise that catch.

On the other side of the equation, you have the recreational fishers, who hold the view—across many of them—that the commercial fishers themselves are the main driver of fish stock pressures in New Zealand. Then you have those who are involved in customary fishing, who feel that their long-held right to fish for kai moana is being constrained by this Act, and then you’ve got the non-governmental organisations that suggest that, actually, there should be no take in significant parts of New Zealand, and New Zealand is at its best when we watch the oceans from afar as opposed to participating in it from a fishing perspective.

All these strands of dissonance this Government has been trying to bring together into some coherence in terms of this Fisheries Amendment Bill, and it got brought to this House as a first reading, which we supported. It then got sent to the select committee, and we listened to the various perspectives, again, of those highly dissonant groups, who all saw the challenge of fisheries lying, predominantly, at the feet of other players.

We navigated through the two key components of this bill: a new discards regime, which would be tougher for the fishers of New Zealand; but the counter, or the complementary measure, if you like, was the establishment of a pre-set decision framework where, armed with evidence, armed with data, and after a significant consultation process with all stakeholders, you could agree the parameters within which you could apply fishing rules and quantities with respect to quota management. We discussed it; we agreed it. It was very difficult because the participants in the select committee who submitted to us, like I said, had pretty divergent views.

We debated it as the Primary Production Committee, and we landed a recommendation, notwithstanding a minority view on some elements by the Green Party and the same by the ACT Party and the same, of course, by us in the National Party. Overall, we supported the intention of the bill.

We had a second reading in which we talked to the detail of what sat under the Fisheries Amendment Bill, the bringing together of those two components—the discards regime and the pre-set decision rules. On the second reading, we had the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries talking about the challenge that the select committee had worked through in bringing those competing objectives together and endorsed the fact that we’d landed in a place that worked, and, four hours later in this House, he stood up and said, “I now withdraw the entire pre-set decision rules framework because we are not happy with where it has landed”.

So what has happened? How is it that after years of effort this Government decides that at the eleventh hour it is not going to hold true to the process but instead change its view and suggest that one of those stakeholders’ perspectives should trounce all the others, and now has the audacity to stand up in this House, acknowledged, read, by the Minister of Health, saying that, actually, they’ve landed something that they feel proud of as a Government. How can they possible say that they feel proud of this delivery when they have looked the commercial fishers in the face and said “We support this component; it’s a critical part of the Fisheries Amendment Bill. We’re going to see it through, we’re making amendments, and we’ve listened to your concerns.” You get right to the last hurdle and then you say, “Actually, this component we are taking off the table because some in the other parts of the fishery industry have decided that we shouldn’t proceed with it.”

In particular, I look across to somebody who I respect—Rino Tirikatene—and he’s going to talk shortly, no doubt, in his position as an undersecretary in this context. I’d be interested for him to tell us what his Māori stakeholders, and particularly those involved in Māori fishing, thought of the fact that at the eleventh hour, the pre-set decision rules got pulled, because the night before it happened, I was at the 30th anniversary of the Sealord deal, and table after table were endorsing that bill. Table after table were saying it was heading in the right direction.

So what about the iwi fishing interests who absolutely supported that balance of objectives between discards on the one hand and the pre-set decision rules on the other? We will get silence tonight. We will get told, “Oh look, on balance, we decided that we couldn’t proceed with that chunk of the bill”. That is not good enough. It doesn’t have the appropriate integrity that a process would demand, and it has added to the distrust.

Now we pass a bill here tonight that sets up a new framework for fisheries management, and the entire commercial, inshore, and deep-sea fisheries participants look at this Government and where they have landed with this bill with scorn and—apart from that—with immense distrust because they were told to participate in a process, that their views would be considered, that they would be balanced with the recreational fishers, that they would be balanced with the NGOs, and that they would be balanced with the Māori custodial interests. But when push came to shove, the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, for some reason, at two minutes to midnight on this process said, “Actually, we don’t provide that balance, and the trust that you have invested in this process and in us as being a dispassionate, evidence-based, competent Government is smashed.”

Yes, this bill will pass, and the component of it in terms of discards makes sense. So, of course, because that component makes sense, we will support it reluctantly, but, my goodness, what a disgrace that the other component got removed, and that disgrace sits on your side of the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m very much delighted to speak at the third reading of the Fisheries Amendment Bill. This bill is a win for New Zealand, and I know Mr Muller spent about nine minutes of his 10-minute speech talking about a pre-set decision rule which isn’t even in this bill. It’s not at this bill at the third reading. I know they did a lot of work at the Primary Production Committee going through all the various aspects in it, but that’s not in the bill. It was taken out of the bill, as the Minister David Parker has said. Yes, there was a lot of policy work that has gone on over many years, over many Ministers, all the way back to Minister Guy. So there has been a lot of work, a lot of policy work, but at the end of the day, there are so many other good aspects in this bill. In regards to the pre-set decision rule, as Minister Parker has mentioned, and has also been reiterated by Minister Little in his speech, it is time to rebuild trust, and, at the moment, the pre-set decision rule just wasn’t really a priority to ensure that we can rebuild that trust among the sectors.

It’s not to say that it won’t be revisited in future, but I think we need to concentrate on the really positive provisions of this bill, because there are so many good things—so much so that I do want to acknowledge the other side for their support. There are so many good things. We are streamlining, we are tightening the rules around discards, we are supporting the roll-out of cameras on boats—all of this good work is about ensuring that we can incentivise good behaviour and good practice from the commercial sector. I’m seeing that happen to this day. As I go around the countryside, there are wonderful innovations taking place in catch methods, precision harvesting, trapping, and equipment and gear that’s being developed, which is all about ensuring that we not only have better returns to our fishers but that we can look after our fisheries as well.

This bill is all about modernising our fisheries management system. It is well over 30 years old, and there are provisions that definitely needed updating, particularly around the penalties. We are now implementing a graduated system, and it will be well consulted with the industry, and implemented through regulations like a demerit point system, whereby with all of these assurances that we have in place, and the drive for better practices, we can actually ensure that we have a more balanced approach to the penalties regime as well. So there are a host of really, really good, positive measures, which have the broad support of this House—from the National Party especially—and I do welcome that.

I do want to commend Minister Parker and his work, and also the officials at Fisheries New Zealand, and all the work of the select committee that they have done on this bill. This is a good bill. It is a win for New Zealand. It is a win for our fisheries, our oceans ecosystems, and I commend it to the House.

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Goodnight, ladies and gentlemen.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m