Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4)

This is an aspect of the legislation that I support. The bill comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the royal assent. I think most members have acknowledged that it is critical that scampi be brought into the quota management system as quickly as possible. This issue has gone on for too long. I hope the Minister will assist the Committee by taking a call immediately to advise us when he expects the legislation to receive the royal assent. That is an important question that we need to know the answer to.

In answer to a question raised in the House during question time today, the Minister clearly implied that the Primary Production Committee had asked for information that the ministry had supplied to it under pressure. I accept that there was some of that, but what the Minister failed to tell the House was that the pressure imposed on the select committee was from the Minister demanding that the legislation be returned very, very quickly to the House. The committee undertook that work on the understanding that the legislation would progress through the House quickly, so that it would receive the royal assent, and so the process of allocating quota and the appeal process could then take place. We know now that that did not happen. For some reason, which I have not been able to fathom, the legislation was not progressed as we were told it would be. We are now progressing it with some haste and agreeing that it should be enacted on the day after it receives the royal assent, but we ask the Minister to tell us when he expects that it will receive the royal assent.

There is a whole raft of processes that occur once the legislation is passed. The quota is allocated, the 20 working days of the allocation process are then notified, and those fishers who disagree with the allocations as designated by the ministry have the opportunity to have their appeals heard by the Catch History Review Committee. The point I make is that the timing, between now and 1 October, is making the process almost impossible to complete.

I see that the Minister is shaking his head, and that is good. Let the Minister take the next call—and save us asking question after question all around the same issue—and tell us when we can expect the royal assent. Then we can clearly understand the process that will occur from now on, and make sure that anybody allocated quota who then disagrees with the allocation has a fair and reasonable opportunity for his or her concerns to be heard before the final quota allocation is manifested on 1 October. If the Minister will take a call to explain that to the Committee, then at this stage I will yield my turn and accept that—reserving, of course, the right to come back if I am not happy with the answer that is so given.

I am pleased to rise in response to the questions asked by Mr Carter. I can assure him that the timing of the royal assent after the third reading of this bill still enables us to meet the 1 October introduction date. Depending on how long the Committee busies itself with this stage, I am informed by Dr Cullen that the bill is scheduled for the third reading this week. That will enable the royal assent to be given later this week or early next week. In terms of the Catch History Review Committee process, that is not compromised because it can happen after 1 October, so there is no issue. Once the lodgment has happened, the hearings can take place after the introduction date without any difficulty.

I thank the members of the Primary Production Committee, and Mr Carter in particular, for their cooperation. A great deal of work has had to be done, and it has been good to address an issue that has long needed tidying up, as one would acknowledge. I am sorry that this legislation was not considered in the last sitting of Parliament; that was because of events beyond my control, but I am pleased to have it on the floor of the House now for immediate progress.

I also want to thank members for the very fulsome level of support—to have 109 votes to 9 in the first debate was pretty impressive. Although anyone listening to the debate would have found it hard to fathom whether National and ACT members did, in fact, support the bill, clearly we are progressing it, because, along with other recommendations, the select committee requested we do just that. We also took to heart the recommendations of the select committee in terms of ex gratia payments to and negotiations with some adversely affected parties.

I guess this debate will proceed apace because the fact that most of these issues took place in the 1990s, when National was in Government, is not lost on anyone. I am delighted that we are finally making such good progress on this matter.

I oppose the imposition of 1 October as the commencement date. This fishery has been fished in a competitive way for about 12 to 14 years. Although simply for ecological reasons I am the last person to say that fishing should continue in a competitive way, I feel that the Committee is being pushed into a corner by the Government to say it has to get this issue out of the way. There are no real reasons at all why this measure could not wait for another year. Yes, we need to put controls on the fishery; there are no two ways about that. We have to put catch limits on scampi, but we do not have to rush like this into making an allocation that we know, and everybody in this Committee knows, is grossly unfair. It has been shown by the courts to be illegal and unreasonable. Two inquiries have both shown there to be serial incompetence in the Ministry of Fisheries, yet members of this Committee are continuing to follow the advice of the same people in the ministry who have shown that incompetence. Why on earth do we need to push this measure through right now? It is crazy.

💬 Jill Pettis: There’s no time like the present.

A stitch in time saves nine as well, but if we make a mistake in a hurry then we have a long time to regret it.

I sincerely hope that when National Party members finally realise the mistake they are making in supporting this bill they will revisit this matter when eventually, I presume at some stage in the future, they become the Government. This is really bad legislation. There is absolutely no reason for this measure to be pushed through in a hurry, except that the Government wants to get it out of the way. We have to ask why the Government wants to get it out of the way. It is not because it is fair to the fisher people. There is a political reason here that I can only speculate upon, and I am not prepared to do that speculation publicly. However, I can see some nods from Opposition members. They agree that there is a political motive behind this bill that really needs to see the light of day. I suspect that motivation will see the light of day sometime in the next year, and maybe if we put off the commencement date until 2005 then those revelations would become public, and we would say it was lucky that we did not put scampi into the quota management system as of 2004.

I strongly oppose the idea that this bill should be put into place in such a hurry. A lot is still to be learnt about scampi, and we need to get into that over the next year.

I would like to pick up on the comment of the Minister, who, I am very pleased to say, took a call in answer to Mr Carter’s question. He, of course, thanked the Primary Production Committee and the House for what I think he took as a vote of confidence. I tell the Minister that he should take absolutely no comfort at all from the fact that the vote in the Chamber was overwhelming, with just the Green Party opposing the progress of the bill. Certainly, the members from the ACT party, and, I assume from National, are telling this Government that the overriding factor is the sustainability of the scampi fishery. If it was not for that particular facet I am sure that my party would be voting against the early passage of this bill, because a huge number of issues still surround the scampi fishery. Legal proceedings are still swirling around this Government, around the Ministry of Fisheries, and around the fishers involved in the industry—and so they should. There has been—and I continue to repeat this—a huge amount of unfairness and inappropriate behaviour by the ministry on this particular issue.

I have a question that maybe the Minister or some members of this Committee may be able to help me with. It is this: when the royal assent is given and this bill becomes law, what impact will that have on the ability of the scampi litigants, if that is the right word, to actually forward their cases? It seems to me that the ministry may take the attitude, in dealing with fishers on this issue, that once the legislation becomes an Act it is no longer a matter for debate, and the ministry could well take a more intransigent attitude than it is perhaps taking at the moment towards those with a genuine grievance. So, as I said earlier, I think this bill is a matter that the Government can take no comfort from, in terms of the extent of the vote in favour of it.

Is 1 October the appropriate commencement date? Well, any date, I guess, could be described as appropriate, but as far as the ACT party is concerned, the sooner the quota management system comes into being for all fish and fish stocks that are under threat, the better it will be. Quite clearly that is the way to progress the industry. The world recognises that New Zealand is leading the charge on that particular issue. The sustainability of any feral fishery is under threat throughout the world, and the quota management system is certainly the way to further that particular issue.

It is not easy, quite frankly, for me to stand here and vote with the Government on this issue. But we do so not out of seeking to support the Government, but out of seeking to support the sustainability of the fishery.

I and the National Party are certainly not voting to support this Government. The reason we are voting for this particular clause is that we are concerned for the sustainability of the scampi fishery. My understanding is that at the moment, because scampi is not in the quota management system, fishers have a certain amount of catch that they can fish for in New Zealand waters. The difficulty is that they are racing against each other to get that catch on board. Consequently, they are bringing up a lot of juvenile fish. They are competing against each other out on the water—

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): Is the member speaking to the commencement?

Absolutely. There is a lot of tension out on the water because fishers are competing against each other, and there is a concern for the fishery. That is why the National Party believes that scampi should come into the quota management system on 1 October this year. Hence the requirement of the commencement date whereby: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.”

I was intrigued by the Green member—

💬 Janet Mackey: Why?

I tell Janet Mackey I was intrigued by the Green member Ian Ewen-Street, who left the Primary Production Committee because of by-catch. He suggested that it would be a better idea to have scampi come into the quota management system in 2005, and therefore to pass this legislation at a later date, a year from now, I assume. Yet his minority view is there in the select committee report on the bill. Do members know what he really says about scampi coming into the quota management system next year—in 2005—thereby putting the commencement date a year out? He states this: “The Green Party opposes this legislation. The Green Party is fundamentally opposed to scampi fishing …”. In other words, the member does not want scampi fishing to occur next year, at all! So his proposal to this Committee that we put it off for 1 year is simply a stalking horse to put off commercial fishing in New Zealand forever. In other words, the only New Zealander who can collect by-catch in the scampi fishery is Ian Ewen-Street at the select committee. The National Party exposes that to members.

We do support the commencement date. The National Party certainly does want scampi to come into the quota management system as soon as possible. I recall saying to the Minister last week during the second reading debate that, in terms of this particular issue—the issue of when scampi should come into the quota management system, when the bill should be passed, and what the commencement date should be—that as long as we resolved the boundary issues, National would support this bill. I am not going to resile from that, at all. We support this commencement date—that this part and schedule 2 come into force on the day on which this Act receives the royal assent. I know that David Carter has been a strong supporter of scampi coming into the quota management system as soon as possible, because of the sustainability issues. Janet Mackey has also been a supporter of that. I know that that has been the argument that has twisted Gerrard Eckhoff’s arm, because he has had a principled approach to this matter. Certainly Doug Woolerton and other members on the select committee have thought the same as that. We are concerned for the scampi fishery and the scampi fishers. We are not concerned, as Mr Ewen-Street seems to be, to hurt the fishing industry further, or to right some perceived wrong and at the same time create another wrong—to right one injustice by causing another injustice. Mr Ewen Street ought to consider that point. We support this part.

I will take a short call on the commencement date of this legislation. I say “well done” to David Carter. He set a cunning trap for the Minister, got him on his feet, and flushed out the real agenda, which is that the Minister wants this legislation in force by 1 October. I ask the Minister what the urgency is now. Good on David Carter, because we got the true agenda out.

The Minister is covering up for an inefficient ministry. This House was in urgency 4 weeks ago, and this legislation was not taken up under that urgency motion. The reason it was not taken up was that the Minister could not get all his ducks in a row because of his incompetent ministry. Now we are being put in the position where we are being rushed.

I say to Mr Ian Ewen-Street that I have some sympathy with part of his argument. It is the argument that some of those fishers that do not like their quota will now be forced into a position whereby they will not have enough time to go through an appeal process. That will put them at a very significant disadvantage, and will create the suspicion that the whole process is not sufficiently rigorous.

I believe that rushing this legislation through now with undue haste is simply not fair and will damage the reputation of the fishery even further. Mr Benson-Pope can look down as much as he likes, but he knows that this legislation should not be rushed through with this type of undue haste.

💬 Hon David Benson-Pope: The select committee asked us to.

I have just listened to one of the members of the Primary Production Committee who said he did not agree with that, and now the Minister is saying the select committee asked him to. He is hiding the incompetence of his own ministry and is now blaming members of the select committee. That is a cheap shot. Why does he not just get his own backyard in order and stop penalising the people who make their livelihood out of this fishing industry?

I agree that we need to manage the scampi fishery in a sustainable way. We do agree with that component of the bill, but the Minister should have come clean in the first place. Thankfully, David Carter has exposed him.