Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill

Again, I will be making some attempt to improve this bill. As I have said, the Government seems hell-bent on ramming it through this Parliament, and ignoring the plight of marine farmers throughout the country—Māori and non-Māori alike. I have two amendments to suggest for the title. The first amendment is that the title of “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act” be deleted and the words “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Further Extension) Amendment Act” be inserted. I do that, simply because this extension, although the first extension to the initial moratorium—

💬 Hon David Carter: A once-only!

—which was a once-only, apparently, at the time, is actually one of many moratoriums that have been put on the aquaculture industry over the last 5 to 10 years. The thought that this is the only extension, or one of only two moratoriums, is false. There have been a number of moratoriums. It is time the handbrakes were taken off the aquaculture industry and that those businesses were allowed to get on with the job.

The other amendment I will be tabling is a change from the title of the “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act”, to the “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium—Seabed and Foreshore) Amendment Act”, because we all know in this Parliament—and we are under no illusions—that this is all to do with the fact that the Government has been unable to resolve the seabed and foreshore issues quickly and properly. The Government has controversy in its ranks. It has controversy in the provinces, in the cities, and throughout New Zealand on this issue, mainly because it has never stuck to its guns on any single policy. It keeps doing U-turns. I have counted five U-turns. I sleep at nights, and there could have been some U-turns in the dead of night. But I have counted five U-turns so far during waking hours. No wonder there has been controversy! No one knows where the Government is going next, and no one knows where it is heading, or why. This bill should be called the Resource Management Aquaculture Moratorium (Seabed and Foreshore) Amendment Bill.

I say that the Government should get on with making public the aquaculture reforms so that regional councils are not flying in the dark when trying to develop aquaculture management areas. Although the Government says that the intention of this delay is to enable more clarity around the foreshore and seabed issue, and I have alluded to that, it is not the only intention. The reality is that regional councils also need more time to establish aquaculture management areas, and to date only four regions have made any progress or come close at all. We have no confidence on this side of the Chamber that an additional time frame of 9 months will be sufficient to resolve the foreshore and seabed issue and enact the aquaculture reform legislation, which actually has not seen the light of day yet, and we have no confidence that 9 months will help regional councils plan for aquaculture management areas.

It is somewhat of a joke to restrict this title to just the aquaculture moratorium extension. There is a lot more to it than that. There is a lot more that has been swept under the carpet, and there is a lot more to come to light. What are the reforms for the aquaculture industry? What is the Government tossing Māori? What bone is the Government throwing Māori so they will accept its seabed and foreshore policy? Is it 10, 20, 30 or 40 percent of aquaculture management areas to Māori? All these questions have to be resolved. Nine months is certainly not long enough to enact the reform legislation if the Ministry of Fisheries is not sharing information with regional councils throughout this country. We unashamedly oppose this bill; we always have, and we continue to do so.

I rise during the title debate to support the two excellent amendments that have been moved by my colleague Phil Heatley. But I want the Committee to also note that whilst the new Minister, David Benson-Pope, has not answered one question throughout this debate—

💬 Hon Dr Michael Cullen: He’s a quick learner!

Well, the Deputy Prime Minister has now arrived and says that David Benson-Pope is a quick learner. If he thinks it is the purpose of us standing here during the Committee stage to ask questions of a Minister unable to answer the questions and refusing to answer the questions, then I suggest that the Deputy Prime Minister needs to look at the Standing Orders and figure out for himself the purpose of the Committee stage of the whole House. We have got used to the fact that more recently, as we debate the Committee stage of bills, Labour Ministers do not answer questions. That is far from satisfactory, even though the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Cullen, obviously thinks it is a very satisfactory state of affairs.

The point I was going to make before he interrupted was that whilst we note that the new Minister of Fisheries has not taken a call, the other thing that the Committee ought to note is that not one Māori Labour member of Parliament has taken a call. Not one Māori Labour member of Parliament has taken a call supporting this legislation, which probably means that the suggestions we have been making are not tidy with this legislation because it is associated with the seabed and foreshore issue—and we all know that the Prime Minister herself does not have a policy, because she keeps coming into the Chamber at question time and gives us a different answer every day to the questions—

💬 Phil Heatley: She’s got five policies!

Phil Heatley tells me there are five policies. I want the Committee to note that not one Labour member of Parliament has bothered to take a call and express any support at all for the Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill. There has not been one call from any of them. It is all very well for people like Mr Tamihere to roar like a lion when he is outside Wellington, but he should come into Parliament, particularly under the nose of Helen Clark, the Prime Minister, and make in this Chamber the sorts of statements he makes outside Wellington.

💬 Jill Pettis: What’s this got to do with the title?

Phil Heatley has moved an excellent amendment that the words “seabed and foreshore” need to be included in the title. I know that we have to explain things two or three times to get through to Jill Pettis, but we all know that the reason this moratorium extension legislation is being further extended is that Helen Clark and Dr Michael Cullen cannot get the seabed and foreshore policy tidy within the caucus. Jill Pettis knows that. She knows that the caucus they had today went on long after 1 o’clock because they were debating this difficult issue that the Government has struck. That is why the words “seabed and foreshore” certainly need to be included in the title.

But the first amendment that Mr Heatley moved is also one worthy of consideration by the Committee today; the word “further” needs to be included in the title of the bill. The “Resource Management (Aquaculture Further Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill” is a very sensible suggestion from Mr Heatley, because anybody picking up this legislation will think this is a new measure that the Government has come up with because it has no answers for aquaculture. Mr Benson-Pope says that the Government has not got the answers so it imposes a moratorium. But the title ought to point out to people—and certainly the industry is well aware of it—that this is a further extension to an earlier moratorium we opposed 2 years ago. At that time the then, now fired, Minister of Fisheries, Pete Hodgson, guaranteed to the House that we would not be back debating this sort of legislation. He guaranteed he would have the answers. Now to be fair to Pete Hodgson, that was prior to the seabed and foreshore issue rearing its head and Helen Clark having difficulty with the Māori caucus.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Just before I call the next member, and this is no reflection on the members who have spoken, there has been a change in the Standing Orders regarding the particular debate that we are on now. For clarification, I shall let members know. The Standing Orders Committee considers that when debating the preliminary clauses at the end, members should have some latitude to summarise, and make concluding remarks about, the issues they have raised during the Committee’s consideration of the bill. So it is not quite as tight as it used to be. It allows members a little bit of latitude, but they need to stick to the Standing Order.

I wonder what level of intellectual debate we can have in this House and in this country in 2004 when a member of the party on my right can say: “What bone are you throwing Māori?”. The member for Whangarei—Northland—of all places, with a 35 to 40 percent Māori population, should never ever descend to that level, here or elsewhere, in serious debate on those matters. I tell that member that I personally find it offensive.

The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson): Can the member sit down. I just say to the member on my left that interjections of back-bench members on each other are totally out of order. I am asking members to recognise that the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings have been crafted from well over 100 years of parliamentary democracy in this country. If members interject on members while they are in very close proximity, it muffles the microphone. I would urge members to use restraint and to offer courtesy to other members. What goes around comes around.

I have aired the matter sufficiently and I look to the member to think intensely about what he said. We have come to the end of the debate with regard to the title issues. I merely want to say very quickly to the Minister that the issues we have raised, and our reluctant agreement to this extension, are absolute. As has already been stated by the previous speaker, moratoriums have been in existence in the industry since 1992. Some regional moratoriums are still in existence. So this moratorium for a further extension nationally is not unusual. However, the Aquaculture Council and other bodies came to the select committee and said absolutely that this matter should have come to an end.

In particular, they had regard to the fact that the Minister’s Government said in 2000, with regard to the title, that the greatest possible benefit could be obtained from the coastal space, and should be so, “without undermining the rights of existing fishers, or allowing undue adverse impacts on the aquatic environment.” We will reach that desirable state in the future only if the Minister turns his mind absolutely, first of all, to the initial issues that I have already outlined on behalf of New Zealand First—that is, the need to have a firm understanding of the sustainability of the fisheries resource and the impacts on fishing, not just on marine farming but other fishing impacts as well.

That leads on to the need for development of the appropriate methodologies and mechanisms of which we heard precious little out in the wider world, particularly at regional council level, with special regard to space and tendering.

Last of all, until we have that, the intrusive impact of what marine farming might mean upon the everyday harbour dweller and coastal dweller is not known. It ought to be known. There are multiple levels of certainty that need to be given to the industry. Therefore, 1 January 2005 is the absolute date. If that is the end of the moratorium, a far-sighted regional council such as the Northland Regional Council, which has gone ahead and done its work, aided by the thinking of the Minister and his ministry, will then lead to the next stage that, in itself, will be of some length—namely, the variations and changes in the regional coastal plan, where we would, in our case, and in the case of other regional councils, have to legally define the areas. Then, in accordance with the framework of the Government, how should that space be allocated in a regional sense, and, last of all, how could their uses be monitored? So there is a vast area of work for the industry and for councils to work to, in a not altogether understanding environment, in regard to ratepayers, and particularly those who have baches and houses on the coast. However, there is a task to be done if this industry is to be maximised, and potential for income and long-term employment is to be gained. With that, we support the title clause. We support the speedy work of the bill, with an absolute certainty of 31 December 2004.

I would like to take a relatively short call on this particular clause, the title clause. Perhaps I could ask in a rhetorical way: “What’s in a name?”. Is the title actually important? Well, I think it is very important, because people listening to the debate who have just tuned in want to understand from the title of this bill exactly what the bill encompasses. From the title, “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act 2003”, it is reasonable to assume that the extension will go from March to December, but the title does not actually and accurately reflect the reality of this bill. It does not reflect the fact that the Department of Conservation has had a huge influence over this bill, and is seeking, before anything goes ahead in terms of aquaculture, 10 percent of our waters. That is a huge part, and I do not see it reflected anywhere in the title.

The title does not reflect the absolute frustration that is felt. Many speakers in this Chamber have alluded to that already in the debate this afternoon. They have talked constantly about the opportunity cost to the industry as well as to the country, not just in dollar terms but in jobs and opportunity that seem to be going begging. I know of one employee of this establishment who is investing in Australia because that person knows, as do most of those who either listen to or are interested in this debate, that the moratorium will go well past 31 December this year. That is a racecourse certainty, in my view.

We have heard—and it is certainly not reflected in the title—the frustration of Māori over this extension. This industry is very much part of the Māori way of being, their lifestyle. The foreshore and seabed are hugely important to them, yet we have not heard from the Māori caucus on this issue. Those members have not spoken on whether they feel this bill is good or indifferent. I think of Once Were Warriors, the musical that has just been put on around the country; I think of the Māori caucus in that light. Those members are here as the voice of Māoridom in this House, yet they have not spoken on this hugely important issue for their people. I suspect that many Māori will see their representatives in this House in that light—in the context that perhaps they once were warriors but are no more, because they are not standing up for the issues. They are not standing up and speaking on this bill, or even on the title of this bill—a bill that is so important to Māoridom.

The reality is that—and I think Mr Phil Heatley is absolutely correct—the title does not reflect the truth of the matter. We should be calling the bill something like the “Foreshore and Seabed Problem Bill”. That is the truth of the matter. That is why this extension is being carried forward, after assurances from the previous Minister of Fisheries, when the moratorium was first put on for a couple of years, that it would be lifted sometime in March—I do not have the exact date. Now we have an extension right through until Christmas.

There is nothing in the title that reflects the truth of this matter. We stand and debate this question—those of us from this side of the Chamber do, anyway—and we wait in vain for the Minister to take a call and explain his particular point of view, or the Government’s point of view. It does not happen. One of the frustrations of the democratic process is when members on one side of the Chamber speak, and expect the Minister at least to represent his Government’s point of view, but it does not happen. So many times when we stand and speak we end up with that result.

The title of the bill, “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill”, actually covers the two aspects of the reason this moratorium has been extended. The whole point was that aquaculture law reform was supposed to be brought in. We had the moratorium, we were told, so that we could get aquaculture law reform. It was touted as making life easier. But the industry no longer supports the tortuous, convoluted process proposed, as the development of aquaculture management areas has become a bureaucratic nightmare. This industry has gone from 20 percent growth to zero percent growth. It is going backwards. This country will not become wealthy unless we support industries such as this. What we have now is a moratorium so that we can develop aquaculture law reform, but that has not happened.

One of the reasons it has not happened is the seabed issue. I quote Mr Hodgson, when he was the Minister of Fisheries. He said the foreshore and seabed issue had delayed the development of aquaculture reform legislation, which also would deal with the use of coastal space. He said he had alerted the marine farming industry earlier this year that an extension to the moratorium could be necessary, given the unexpected complications of the foreshore and seabed issue. Well, there did not need to be unexpected complications. They could have been sorted. The Government could have legislated, put the seabed straight into Crown ownership, and made the position absolutely clear to all New Zealanders. We would not need the moratorium that we have now. We would not need this bill tonight. We would not have seen the rugged individuals who forged the aquaculture industry becoming angry and frustrated.

I sum it up by quoting Marine Farming Association member Terry Schwass, who wrote recently in a farming magazine: “Well done, politicians and bureaucrats! You have brought a once viable and vibrant industry to a standstill.” That is what has happened. This Government can blame nobody else but itself for this industry being brought to a standstill. I will quote another person from Marlborough, the Mussel Industry Council Executive Officer, Paul Lupi: “Looming law reforms, the 2-year moratorium on aquaculture development, trouble processing permits, the rising costs in New Zealand were making it hard to do well in a softening international market.” These people have had enough. Paul Lupi is leaving. He has had enough. Terry Schwass has said: “Bye-bye, I’m off to Chile.” I do not actually think he is going, but a lot of people are. I hope he does not go, because he is one of the founders of the industry.

New Zealand has to realise that we have to change the focus back on to making New Zealand a wealthy and prosperous country. We heard Michael Cullen laughing before, but why does he not take a call? That is what I would like to know. He should take a call and explain why this industry has gone from 20 percent growth to zero percent growth. Maybe he does not care at all about this. I tell members that the people of Marlborough care, because this industry was our biggest income earner, but what do we have now? We have zero growth.

The Minister in the chair, David Benson-Pope, has not taken one call. He is the new Minister of Fisheries. The fisheries people would much rather see Phil Heatley, because they know that, at least, he has been out there and knows the industry. This Minister has not taken a single, solitary call on his first bill.

💬 Jill Pettis: Told him he has to sit down.

The chief Labour whip tells me he has been told to sit down and keep quiet. Oh well, that is par for the course from this Government. It is telling everyone to sit down, keep quiet, and do U-turns, whilst trying to change the poll results. It has not made any difference whatsoever, because people are fed up with the Government. They are sick of it. I say that politics may be the problem, but it is also the solution. We must have a new law that gets away from the two levels of consent that we see in the legislation, whereby people have to go through the Resource Management Act process, then have to get a fisheries permit. We have seen how complicated those two processes are.

I move, That the question be now put.

It says volumes about the arrogance of the Labour Government and its United Future party doormat that not one of their members has contributed a single 5-minute speech to this debate about an industry that earns hundreds of millions of dollars for New Zealand, but which they want to shut down for a further 9 months.

💬 Jill Pettis: What about the title? Mention the title!

Jill Pettis wants to interject. Why does she not give a speech? She is probably like those who are referred to in the New Zealand Herald editorial as not knowing anything about wealth creation or business in New Zealand, which has so much been brought to attention by this bill.

National’s spokesperson on fisheries, the very competent Phil Heatley, has moved some very sound amendments in respect of the title, to put into perspective just what this bill is all about. It is an anti-growth bill. It is a bill that is all about the foreshore and seabed issue—about which Dr Cullen, who is in the Chamber, has been all over the paddock during the last 9 months—and a complete lack of leadership. I would like to hear from Dr Cullen. Perhaps he would like to give a speech and tell the people of New Zealand what the Government’s policy on the foreshore and seabed is.

💬 Dr Lynda Scott: We would all like to know.

We would all like to know, because we have had five different versions. We have had so many promises of legislation being introduced. The reason it is so relevant is that this legislation is a promise that the moratorium will be extended for only 9 months, but that relies, of course, on the Prime Minister’s commitment that the bill on the foreshore and seabed will be introduced this month. Already this week we have been told that that bill will be further delayed—

💬 Phil Heatley: Is that before or after the inquiry?

My colleague Phil Heatley asks me whether that will be before or after the royal commission. Do members remember the Royal Commission on Social Policy? I think Dr Cullen was about then. It was the most expensive doorstop ever produced in the history of this Parliament. The architect of it was Dr Michael Cullen. It was an enormous failure. [Interruption] That was the Minister of Social Welfare of the time—the Minister of the royal commission. Now Dr Cullen believes he can pull the same trick again and have a royal commission on some of the treaty foreshore and seabed issues that are holding back key industries like aquaculture.

I pointed out during the Committee stage that this issue is no laughing matter. It is a $45 million a year issue for just the community of Tasman. Tasman is just a small fraction of New Zealand. This industry is worth $45 million a year for Tasman. There are losses of $150,000 per day for the district of Tasman. That is almost as much as the Minister’s salary. Mr Benson-Pope should earn it by fixing this problem and not further kicking it for touch. If we could resolve these issues rather than have further delay, then we would be far better off—not just in Tasman, but all over New Zealand. That is the sort of leadership that is so sadly lacking from this Government.

All sorts of positive amendments were put forward by Mr Heatley that would make a positive difference to this bill and provide some discipline for the Government to resolve the issue by year’s end and not further kick for touch. Perhaps Mr Heatley’s amendments should have been called the “Resource Management (Aquaculture Kick for Touch) Amendment Bill”. I know the member used that language earlier. All that this legislation means is that when one does not have a policy, the easiest thing is to have a moratorium. We saw that with the Government in respect of genetic engineering. We also saw it in respect of a whole number of areas where the issue was just too hard.

💬 Simon Power: A moratorium on school closures?

My colleague the member for Rangitikei says the Government is in trouble, so it will have a moratorium on school closures.

💬 Phil Heatley: We should have a moratorium on going to the seabed and foreshore.

That at least would be more lawful than what the Prime Minister did by trying to heavy the Māori Land Court.

I move, That the question be now put.