Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4)

I just remind members that, as the Minister’s amendment clearly signals, the Government intends to vote against clause 65. The debate is just on the commencement, so members cannot speak about anything else. The Government has signalled that it wants to vote against the clause, so I suggest that members may prefer to move on to the clauses they can debate.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. The Minister’s amendment proposes to remove clause 65, so I assume, on that basis, we can talk about the rationale for it being in the legislation at the select committee stage, and the reasons it is now being removed.

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): That is correct.

My point is the very fact that clause 65 is in the bill in the first place. It is symptomatic of the point I made earlier that the Primary Production Committee was given this legislation with an indecent amount of time to do the work. With the assistance of the ministry officials, we presented it back to the House on time, as instructed by the Minister, but—surprise, surprise—when he finally gets to present it to the Committee of the whole House we find he wants to take out a clause that we in the select committee had not been told was unnecessary or contradictory.

💬 Brian Connell: Incompetence.

Brian Connell suggests it is incompetence. The Minister should take a call and explain the rationale, because at this stage it appears to me that there has been absolute incompetence on the part of the Minister. The legislation has gone right through the select committee process, and has sat on the Order Paper for weeks, because the Minister forgot to include it in the urgency motion when the House took urgency in the last sitting block. Now, here we are, with a matter of days to pass it so that it can receive the royal assent as quickly as possible in order to meet the 1 October deadline, and we find that clause 65, when we re-read it, appears to contradict clause 1A, “Commencement”, which we have just debated. Because it appears to contradict that clause, the Minister has an instant answer, which is that we will just take it out altogether. How sloppy is that?

This is legislation that has been presented to the House. It is not a big bill. I know that the member is a new Minister, but he should have been able to get this right. He should have been able to get an 11-page bill together. He has known about this scampi issue for a long time. Did he not watch the Assignment programme in October 2002? He has had months and months to get the legislation right. He gave it to the Primary Production Committee, hurrying the committee along so that it could not do its job, then we get the bill back into the House, and, lo and behold, there is a mistake in it.

So he has proposed an amendment—I had trouble finding it, I must admit, but it has finally been pointed out to me—that states: “Clause 65 To omit this clause.” It is time for an explanation. The Minister should stand straightaway, accept his responsibilities as the Minister of Fisheries, and explain this. Then we can move on, because there are other important parts to discuss. We are not even at the gutsy part yet. We have not even reached the part where all the controversy is. Harry Duynhoven is rushing to get there. He wants to take a call.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Wasn’t this about having two commencement clauses?

Harry Duynhoven is right. We have two commencement clauses. I reckon that member would have made a wonderful Minister of Fisheries.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Why are you waffling on?

Because I want to know why the legislation was not right in the first place.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Oh boy, as if this is the biggest mistake ever made! Let’s get on with it.

It is not the biggest mistake; it is just another one. It is symptomatic of the problem that this particular species has had since the late 1980s.

Harry Duynhoven should have been the Minister.

I reckon Mr Duynhoven should be the Minister. Here we are asking questions, and David Benson-Pope is just sitting there dumbstruck. He is not sure how to answer them.

💬 Hon David Benson-Pope: I’ll take a call.

I reckon that is the best offer we have had all day. I am happy to yield to the Minister so that he can explain why clause 65 is being omitted. Again, I take the opportunity to say that if the answer is not satisfactory, I am sure members on this side of the Chamber will ask a lot more questions.

I am delighted to help the member, who is clearly having a senior moment or two. The need to remove clause 65 has arisen because of the wording of the split-out motion adopted by the Primary Production Committee, which he seems to have forgotten he chairs. It was the inclusion of the new clause 1A in the select committee’s motion that led to the duplication that this removal corrects.

I want to speak on clause 65 because it worries me that when legislation comes back to the House that has been through the select committee process, taken a huge amount of time, attracted a huge amount of public interest, been quite controversial—there have been all sorts of television programmes and documentaries about it and all sorts of newspaper publicity—and had a huge number of submissions—

There’s been a lawsuit.

There has been a suggestion of lawsuits, I understand. On top of all of that, I get really worried when the Minister of Fisheries comes to this Committee and tells us that there is a bit in the bill we do not need or want. I have to ask how we got into that dilemma. Why had his advisers not pointed it out to him? I am the first to acknowledge that this Minister does not know everything. He is a relatively new Minister. Prior to his getting this portfolio he was a Government whip. As a whip, fish is not something that one deals with a lot.

💬 Hon Harry Duynhoven: Usually comes with chips.

Yes, fish and chips on a late night is about as close as one gets. I accept that the Minister has a big learning curve. He actually needs to take advice from his officials.

💬 Shane Ardern: That’s what he did.

That is the very point, and that is the important point about this issue. I have noted, on the way through, the issues of concern that have been expressed in the public domain by the media and by the committee members—their worries about the advice they have been getting. Indeed, part of the inquiry around this issue was whether the advice that the committee was getting was good advice. When the bill was reported back, our caucus was told that things seemed to be starting to come right, that they were starting to get there. Then I come down to the Chamber and, lo and behold, I find that the third clause in the bill, clause 65, is a mistake. Indeed, the advice I am getting now is that we have to vote the clause down.

Leave it in.

I do not think we will leave it in, because this National Party always tries to make things right. We will support voting it down. But this issue is very serious. The people of this country have a right to expect this Parliament to put through legislation that is accurate. When we end up with legislation that has two commencement dates—a new one in clause 1A, which states: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.”, and the one in the very next clause, clause 65, which states: “on the day on which this Act receives the Royal assent.”—what are the public to think? They know there has been huge controversy around this bill. They have been told time and time again that there are a whole lot of issues that the officials are not sure about. Indeed, later on we will be debating the fact that suddenly there are some boundary changes, I understand. Again, we will expect quite a lot of advice from the Minister and from the officials—or I assume we will. I certainly want that advice. Again, it makes one wonder what sort of advice we will be getting. We in Parliament have to make decisions based on that advice, because not every one of us is totally au fait with the fishing industry, not every one of us knows about scampi, not every one of us knows about the Chatham Rise and the fishing that happens out there. How am I, a member of Parliament from Northland who is sitting here listening to this debate, to believe—

💬 Lindsay Tisch: Do you enjoy fishing?

I do enjoy fishing in the Bay of Islands. It is the best fishing place. But how am I to be absolutely certain that the advice we are getting is correct?

I ask this question of the Committee: why should we be surprised that the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4) has two commencement dates? It has been a comedy. Well, it has not really been a comedy; it has been a chapter of errors right through. Here we are in August 2004, in the Committee of the whole House, at 5.45 p.m., still picking up on the errors of this Minister and the ministry. I ask again: why should we be surprised? I make this observation: if Gilbert and Sullivan were alive today and sitting in the gallery, they would have the makings of a brilliant comic opera. We are still playing it out on the floor of this Chamber in 2004, a year or so after the bill was introduced, and we have two commencement dates.

I ask a further question: which date is the right commencement date? Clause 1A states: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.”, and clause 65 states: “This Part and Schedule 2 come into force on the day on which this Act receives the Royal assent.” So, potentially, we have the Act coming into force 1 day early or 1 day late. I would like to ask the Minister how he determined which of the two clauses—clause 1A or clause 65—to omit.

💬 Shane Ardern: Or the Minister.

That is a good point. Did he toss a coin? Did he draw a short straw? How did he determine which clause was the appropriate one to omit? Why is there a discrepancy? Why does one clause have the words “the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent”, and the other “on the day on which this Act receives the Royal assent”? Some might suggest that this is a rather trifling matter, but it indicates to me very clearly that the required amount of thought has not gone into even the most simple of tasks of getting the day right. It is perfectly appropriate to stand in this Chamber and ask the ministry what day it is. Does the ministry know what day it is? Does the Minister know that this is—

💬 Ian Ewen-Street: What day is it?

It is Tuesday. I had to announce that to the “Minister of Lord High Everything Else” over there, the Minister of Arts, Culture and Heritage. I guess she had a hand in this bill, too. One would almost have to think so. However, as I said earlier, this really is a serious matter. It has caused huge angst. Here we have just a symptom of the inefficiencies and the ineffectiveness of a new Minister. Everybody is giving him a little leeway because of the fact that he is a new Minister, but he has yet to put his seal of approval, his stamp, on the ministry.

It is with some bemusement that we stand here just prior to the dinner break debating the question of whether the bill should have two commencement dates. Of course there should be only one. But the question for the Minister is: which is the right one? I yield the floor to the Minister and expect a reply to my good question.

Members may recall the television programme Yes, Minister. In Britain that programme was a comedy. In Australia it was a tragedy. But in New Zealand, I am afraid, it was a documentary. One of the reasons I oppose the commencement date being this year is that there are so many errors that have been carried out over so long a period that I am certain the ministry has not got it right. I will give another example. What day is the commencement date? That is a very good question. Why do we have two commencement dates in the bill? It is pretty simple stuff.

Another example of “What day is it?” was on 17 June, when the ministry officials, in response to a written request from the Primary Production Committee on how the allocations would change with boundary changes to the quota management areas, came back with a form that was largely blank. We refused to accept it. Within an hour they came back, and said: “Oh yes, we remember now. We do have some figures there.” Then, another couple of hours later, they came back and said: “Oh, sorry—oops, those figures are wrong. These are the new figures.” Which figures do we actually believe? Is it the last ones? If it is the last figures, then they do not add up. I tell the Minister to take my word for it. He should look at them. What day is the commencement day? Is it the day of the royal assent or the day after the royal assent?

I think it is appropriate for the Minister to get up and take a call. I am really concerned about the advice he is getting, and the fact that he is taking it at face value.

My understanding is that clause 65 was from the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3), which included the highly migratory species, the mussel spat, and, at that time, scampi—hence, clause 65 in a bill with only seven or eight clauses. When scampi was part of that greater bill, clause 65 contained the commencement date for when the part that dealt with scampi would come into force, which was “on the day on which the Act receives the Royal assent”. We split the bill, and this present bill deals specifically, and only, with scampi. Hence, there is a new commencement clause—clause 1A, which states: “This Act comes into force on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.”

In other words, the first clause, clause 1A, is correct for the purposes of this bill. Clause 65 is the old commencement clause in the part of the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) that dealt with scampi. That is my understanding of the Minister’s explanation. Could the Minister confirm that is the case. If it is, I assume that the National Party will vote against clause 65, just as the Government has proposed. Could the Minister confirm that is the case.

I move, That the question be now put.

As I explained before, the Minister’s amendment signals the Government’s intention to vote against this clause being agreed to.

Clause 65 not agreed to.

Clause 66 Interpretation