Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4)

In speaking to this third reading debate, I can advise the House that the ACT party will be supporting this bill, which brings scampi on to the quota management system. It is with some concern that we have come to that position, and I would like to share with the House our reasoning for it.

We have had a very untidy situation with regard to scampi allocation and the management of it, and moving it on to quota. We fervently believe in property rights. Indeed, that is why, back in 1986, the individual transferable quota system was legislated—to bring fisheries on to a quota management system whereby there was a clear property right that was transferable. We moved away from the administrative allocation model based on permitting and all the problems associated with that—the politicisation, and the lobbying that goes with it. We had had decades of that, and that has been the experience of countries all around the world that base fisheries management on administrative allocations and permitting. So, in principle, the individual transferable quota system is very good, and I believe that the big picture is that it has worked very well in this country, relative to other jurisdictions.

The problem is that it took too long to bring scampi on to the quota management system. I well recall that when I was the Minister of Fisheries, scampi was a new fishery. It was in a discovery mode. I always envisaged that, within a very short space of time—perhaps 1 or 2 years at most—it would be brought on to the quota management system. In fact, a decade or more ticked by, and we have seen—and, indeed, the reports on this fishery have shown—the failures of the administrative allocation model.

All the inequities and arguments around the margins are a function of this Government’s trying to do this sort of thing through Government departments and administrative allocation, rather than giving a clear property right. ACT feels there have been gross injustices, and, with the effluxion of time, those injustices have been greatly exacerbated, as they always are. There is always a debate in fisheries allocation as to whether it should be done on open tender or on catch history, and, if it is done on catch history, what years should be selected as the base. There are always those at the margin, those who are disadvantaged, those who had a broken leg in the year that was retrospectively chosen to be the catch history reference point, so gross injustices occur. But I think it would be fair to say, in respect of scampi, that there was gross mismanagement—though no corruption, as alleged by Mr Peters. A major investigation showed no corruption, but, rather, incompetence and mismanagement. I do not want to overstate that, because I know the enormous difficulty associated with trying, year after year, to run a permitting system. There are regional variations, inconsistent policies, and personnel changes. That is one of the inherent difficulties of doing an administrative allocation with a property right, such as the right to harvest.

Here we are finally bringing scampi into the quota management system, and ACT supports that. We argued at the Committee stage for the introduction of a mechanism that could, within the legislation, address some of the injustices inherent in the system. We regret that they really have not been provided for in an adequate way.

Mr Carter made some interesting comments. He referred to the allegations of corruption made by the Rt Hon Winston Peters in this House way back in April 2002. But did he produce any evidence?

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Yes, I did.

Not a jot. He was going to bring voluminous evidence, as at the wine-box inquiry. This was to be the “fish box”—it was to have been bigger than the wine box. Did we see anything? No. Mr Carter rightly chaired a select committee. Parliament did the responsible thing and set up a select committee inquiry under the Hon David Carter’s chairmanship.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. A member is required to remain somewhat within the debate. I took the evidence to the select committee. I have tabled it twice today—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): We will continue.

The promised fish box did not contain even a spotty. There was nothing in it, absolutely nothing. Not even one scampi or shrimp was in that great fish box of voluminous evidence that was to be brought to the select committee inquiry. The New Zealand First spokesperson on fisheries, Mr Woolerton, was that party’s representative on the committee.

💬 Edwin Perry: Good man!

Well, he is a quiet man. I understand that he is the president of the party also. He is very quiet in that role, too. All of a sudden Mr Peters put himself on that committee because he wanted the opportunity to present that fish box of evidence. But did he do that? Not a bit of it. What did he first concentrate on? I am informed that his first efforts went into narrowing the terms of reference. He argued to get them as minimal as possible.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. This is not the report back from the select committee, the second reading debate, or the Committee stage of the bill; it is the third reading. The member is required to give a third reading speech, and he is inviting us to spend 10 minutes listening to his ignorance about the issues.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I thank the member for raising that, but Mr Shirley is dealing with the exact same issues that he did in his speech.

I can certainly understand the member’s discomfort on this issue. I think it is evident to all. Having narrowed the terms of reference, we still did not see the fish box of voluminous evidence. It simply was not presented.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Mr Shirley was not a member of the committee—[Interruption] The member was never there. He is never at any committee. He is not even sitting down while I am making a point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I think these are debating matters.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I am trying to make a point of order, Mr Speaker, so I ask that you request Mr Shirley to sit down. Thank you very much. As quickly as possible—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I am trying to decide whether there is a point of order.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: My point of order is that no member of the select committee will allege that I narrowed down its terms of reference. It was never in my powers and it was never in my authority. The member is talking absolute drivel that has no part in a third reading debate. [Interruption].

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): There is a point of order under way. There will be no cross-chat. That was not a point of order; it is a debating matter.

I have just been corrected—

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I seek your advice. As a member who sat on that committee, I say that it would appear that Mr Shirley may be transgressing into issues that were deliberated on and are therefore confidential to that committee. I just ask you to be mindful of that.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I think even Mr Cosgrove knows that it is all out in the open now.

I am grateful to Mr Heatley, who did sit on that committee and play a very active role on it, because he has just corrected me. It was not a fish box of voluminous evidence at all; it was a brown paper bag, I am told. Anyway, having made all those allegations—

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Now the very objection that Mr Shirley raised in respect of a matter he said was sub judice, he has gone to the heart of, and it is the reason why I am suing him for millions. So Mr Shirley should tell the jury, and not come here and tell lies.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): That also is not a point of order.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I certainly did not refer to any court case, but the member just has, and I draw your attention to Standing Order 111—as I did earlier—which specifically states that a member may not refer to a matter that is before a court. I drew it to your attention earlier. We have just seen an absolute breach of that Standing Order, and I certainly made no reference to any action in any court.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): The member may raise that, but it is for me to decide whether those issues can be raised or discussed. I am quite happy that they were discussed or raised in the way they were. I see no danger whatsoever of those words prejudicing the trial, or whatever is under way.

That is quite right, I did not serve on that select committee; the ACT member Gerry Eckhoff did. However, unlike the New Zealand First Party, ACT members liaise closely with each other. We caucus and tell each other what is happening at select committees. We know what the others are doing, particularly on key issues, and numerous parties have referred me to the fact Mr Peters put a lot of effort into narrowing the terms of reference of that select committee. It focused his mind. He was almost obsessed with narrowing the terms of reference. Then we learnt that he had engaged one Ross Meurant, who is a former member of Parliament and a former colleague of Mr Peters. He actually engaged him and paid for him out of the Parliamentary Service’s taxpayers’ money, to have him as an adviser and consultant in his office here in Parliament.

💬 Rt Hon Winston Peters: Sorry, you’re wrong there!

I checked on that. What we also found was that at the same time Mr Meurant was in the employ and commission of Simunovich Fisheries. Now, there is nothing wrong with that in itself, but it does start to raise various questions, does it not? We know that various other things have been alleged, such as when Mr Meurant’s former partner, Yvonne Dossetter, made all sorts of allegations about brown paper bags. I am not sure whether she was referring to the voluminous evidence in the brown paper bags—or perhaps something else was in the brown paper bags. Whatever was in those bags, perhaps Mr Peters is in the best position to know. Perhaps he knows what was in the brown paper bags. Was it this missing voluminous evidence that has never been brought to the House and never been before the select committee? It is an extraordinary saga, and the House wants an answer.

The key thing is that, finally, scampi is moving into the quota management system. It is appropriate that it does so, and the ACT party will be supporting that.

That speech probably goes some distance to explaining why politicians have the public confidence rating they have—somewhere down below that of used-car salesmen. Having talked about the importance of this valuable fishery coming into the quota management system, to then use one’s speech time for petty point-scoring and a number of inaccurate recollections about a committee one never attended, seems to me to be extraordinary. Certainly, I have no recollection of some of the events Mr Shirley alluded to in his speech, and I think it is unfortunate for members to waste the House’s time with personal point-scoring. It is obvious that an election is on the horizon.

To see scampi finally going into the quota management system is something that brings a great deal of relief to any members of this Parliament or of previous Parliaments who have engaged with the ministry or the industry over this valuable fishery. The quota system is, we all accept, an effective management tool when looking at issues of the sustainability and management of a fishery.

Probably the most important thing I would like to say at this stage is that the industry itself has an extraordinary notion about having an absolute right to own, and be paid for, every fish in the ocean. When the industry starts from the principle that it owns the fish, it will always be very, very difficult to come up with a fair and just allocation model. In consequence of that, when the quota management system was introduced to replace permitting as a preferred management model, it was understood that there would be some unfairness. As Mr Shirley pointed out, there will always be the fisher who stopped fishing just before the catch history years, the fisher who was unwell over those years, and the fisher whose wife was sick so took a year off to spend time with his children. There will always be those cases with that management model.

Having said that, I consider that there is, perhaps, in this scampi industry a greater number of examples of unfairness, mismanagement, and inconsistency than in any other fishery. I think that in the course of the inquiry into this scampi fishery, when allegations were flying quicker than fishhooks about every player in the industry, it became very clear that a number of people had suffered irreparable damage as a result of the failure of successive ministries to manage the fishery well and fairly.

Some comment has been made today about the decision resulting from the inquiry to allocate some reparation to those fishers who we considered had suffered irreparable damage. I notice that Mr Peters is claiming full credit for that, and is certainly advising the industry that he was solely responsible for it. That is one of the things about Parliament, is it not? There is never much room on the moral high ground; it is always very overcrowded.

I commend all members of the Primary Production Committee. They worked quite hard to come up with some way of identifying those fishers who, at the hands of the ministry, had been deprived of what they should and would have had. We could not give them quota; we would have had to change the Act in order to do that. But in the case of Mr Goodship and a handful of others, we were able to ensure that the years they spent fishing—or going into the ministry and filing permits that never got processed—were not entirely wasted.

With regard to the fishing company that we suggested had been treated unfairly but that had received no financial reparation, I say that the reason for that, on the part of some members of the committee, was not the ownership or management structure of the company but the fact that it is a very big and successful fishing company and shows absolutely no scars from its engagement in the scampi industry. It has gone on to become a very wealthy and successful company, whereas others of the smaller fishers never had the opportunity to get on their boats and go out to catch scampi.

It is with great pleasure, therefore, that we see scampi going into the quota management system. The fishery industry is a litigious one. There will always be allegations of unfairness flying around when something worth millions of dollars is given away for nothing. People will always perceive that as being unfair. But as a New Zealander who believes that the fish in the ocean belong to New Zealanders and not to people who have been out there fishing, I say that I have some confidence, as a result of the passing of this legislation, that we will see greater fairness in the industry, and that we can entrust to the ministry some responsibility for the sustainability of what is a very valuable resource to New Zealanders.

I came to the House to speak on the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4), but I am a little shell-shocked. In fact, I was not in the country when most of the discussions and controversy around the scampi fishery took place, so I find myself at somewhat of a disadvantage. I might have to confine myself to speaking about the bill—which will be quite a novel experience for members, given the contributions I have heard today. The exception, of course, is Janet Mackey. I thought she gave good counsel to the House, which was that we should concentrate on the matters in hand.

I also have to declare that I was not a member of the Primary Production Committee, so I find myself very much at a disadvantage. But as my whips indicated that I should request the call, I will attempt to do my best.

I note that the bill legislates scampi—which, as I have now learnt, is Norwegian lobster—into the quota management system by 1 October 2004. National supports this legislation. Notwithstanding some of the allegations that have been made, we have supported the bill right from the outset—through the first and the second readings, and through the Committee stage, in which I did take an active part. I wonder now, having listened to the discussion that I see has raged for over 2 years, why we have had to rush this bill through the House at the last moment. Barely 9 sitting days ago the House was in urgency, yet it was not included in the urgency motion.

Now, there is a rush to have the bill enacted by 1 October. In my judgment, that will cause some procedural problems for those fishers who, when they receive their quota, do not agree with it and want to appeal. They will have only 20 working days to do that, and given that this is 5 August and the legislation has not yet received its royal assent, it appears that the process is procedurally unsound and unfair.

Through the Committee stage I raised those questions with the Minister, and he seemed unwilling or unable to give me any answers. I suspect that it was probably that he was unable, given his nervous twitch and his floundering around when looking for advice from his officials—who, as is their wont, left him to squiggle like a scampi out of water.

Throughout the protracted negotiation and controversy that has surrounded this legislation, there has been immense pressure applied to members of the select committee. If it were not for the outstanding chairmanship of David Carter, who was ably supported by Phil Heatley, I do not think that we would have divined a path through the legislation as well as we have. To be fair, I am also told that significant contributions were made by Janet Mackey and Clayton Cosgrove, but I did not hear any positive affirmations on behalf of New Zealand First members.

In fact, given the current circumstances, I reflect that it was strange that through the whole Committee stage New Zealand First members took not two, not one, but no calls, whatsoever. It appears to me that someone must have thought there would be cameras in the House today, though, because they have come to the House and preened and talked. They have made a lot of noise, but there has not appeared to be a lot of substance. I observed, Mr Assistant Speaker Simich, that during some of those discussions you were trying to draw the members’ attention back to the narrow subject of the debate. I think you did an outstanding job on that basis.

In reflecting on my favourite subject of this fisheries Minister, I have to say that the work of the select committee was made much harder, pretty much, by his inexperience—and, to be fair, by his limited commercial ability. Here is a man, who through no fault of his own—he is new to the job and inexperienced—is driven by his officials, who are only too willing to give him advice in order for him to try to pick up some lost ground. But again, the committee owes a great debt to Mr Carter’s experience, because he saw to their divining a path through what was otherwise a very tricky process.

One of the sticking points for National related to the boundary changes to quota management areas 3 and 4. We wanted to know what was driving that decision. I hate to harp on it again, but—I am sorry—I think it is probably the inexperience of the Minister that caused some of those problems. He really did not know why those changes were being suggested, and steadfastly refused to take a call in the Committee stage to answer my questions. I have to say that at one stage he did call out that the reason was that his officials had told him so, and that we should get off his back and accept that what he was being told was legitimate. But he was asking us to accept advice from a ministry that had been exposed by a State Services Commission inquiry as inadequate, inconsistent, ad hoc, and unprofessional. The best thing he could do by way of answer to my questions was to mumble under his breath that we should just listen to his officials.

Now, I take no great pleasure at all in exposing this Minister’s limitations, and to prove that I am not gilding the lily with regard to the Minister and his ministry’s performance, I tell members that none other than a former Prime Minister of this country, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, wrote to me, expressing his concern about the ministry. Among other things—

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: I got a letter, too.

That is amazing. He must have sorted out a couple of people who he thought would be prepared to stand up and tell the truth, because amongst other things, he said this to me—

💬 Hon David Carter: He sent that letter to everyone because he gets paid per letter.

I do not believe that for a moment. I am sure he just sorted me out—and Mr Shirley. Now, this is what he had to say: “Under the bill, scampi fishers will be allocated quota on the basis of how much they caught in the ‘quota-earning years’ beginning 1 October 1990 and ending 30 September 1992.” There is no great difficulty with that. “Since the bill was introduced, the report of the reviewers, appointed by the State Services Commission on an inquiry into the fisheries management of the scampi fishery, has been made available. The state of public affairs reported by the inquiry should be of grave concern to every MP. The State Services Commission report confirms there was mismanagement by the ministry, and there was unfair and unreasonable treatment of the fishers.”

I do not want to read out all this letter, but the other pertinent point is this: “The injustice that was the subject of the report to the State Services Commissioner has also been dealt with by the courts, which found that the actions of the ministry have been unlawful, but so far there has been no disposition to re-examine the basis upon which the quota will be allocated. When it comes to injustice”—and this is the important part—“it is the putting right that counts.”

So we are getting conflicting opinions. For example, the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research has been saying there is no justifiable reason why we should change the quota management areas off the Southland coast, or words to that effect. It stated: “Moving boundaries will in fact be arbitrary.”

I will allow that new information can come to hand. Thankfully, through the outstanding efforts of Phil Heatley, new information was enticed out of that tight-lipped Minister. The tragedy of it all is that had he made that advice available earlier, we would not have had to sit through a protracted select committee stage. Again, I suppose it goes back to inexperience or a lack of capability.

I conclude by saying that had it not been for that tight-lipped Minister, the select committee process would not have been protracted. We did not take any pleasure in having to drag the process out until we got the answers we all required.

I suspect, after that less than lucid contribution, that all members of the Primary Production Committee—including the chair, Mr David Carter, I suspect, but I will not put him on the spot to make a public admission—are thankful that Mr Connell never set foot in that committee at all. I thank the Lord above that he was not a member of that committee. If he had been he would know that we are not rushing this bill through the House with undue haste. If Mr Connell could read past the large title and the large print of the bill he would know that the reason the bill has to be enacted by 1 October is simply that it is being gazetted for scampi to go into the quota management system by that due date.

So instead of these sorts of crocodile tears and puffery to try to pad out a speech, as Mr Connell does, I suggest that he talk to Mr Carter. I agree with one thing that Mr Connell said: I believe that Mr Carter did make a very sound contribution as chair. I suggest that Mr Connell takes a lesson from a senior colleague and has a wee chat before he stands up and makes a complete fool—I could use another word, but that word will do—of himself.

Before I get into the bill I will also say to Mr Shirley that one thing about this committee—and I said it last week—is that it is a non-partisan committee where there is a high degree of cooperation between Opposition and Government parties, and between cross-bench parties. There was a high degree of cooperation over this whole report, to the point that we were unanimous as a committee in every way except one small way, which I will come to in a moment. I acknowledge the contribution made by Mr Eckhoff. However, unlike Mr Eckhoff, Mr Shirley—and one can always rely on the ACT party to do this—took an opportunity to roll around in the muck like some sort of animal, and to play politics with this issue. I will give him the same advice that I gave Mr Connell—and perhaps he may want to talk to his colleague Mr Eckhoff—

💬 Brian Connell: I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. It is very unlike me to time this member’s speeches, although they do drag on, but he is 3 minutes on and has not mentioned the bill yet.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich): I shall judge relevance. I thank the member for raising that.

I think I have mentioned the bill. I tell Mr Shirley again that this very non-partisan and very important inquiry should not be trivialised. The truth about the inquiry, as it pertained to the bill, was that there were a number of sideshows. Again, I congratulate members on both sides who managed to navigate through those sideshows and through the muck to get on with the business.

I endorse the bill bringing scampi into the quota management system. If we look at how it links with the scampi report, there are some very heavy-duty correlations. As has been mentioned, these events happened over 10 years ago, and I endorse Mr Carter’s point when he said that we should not play politics with this issue, because it happened over a number of administrations. The question of the lack of, or level of, ministerial oversight by whoever was the Minister at the time in all those administrations does arise in respect of how the issues of mismanagement and incompetence were dealt with. The then Ministers, officials, and others were questioned over 10 years ago and they were pretty balanced in their view. However, the thing the committee did struggle with was that if the then Ministers, sitting in the chair over 10 years ago, received representations and letters, one would have thought that they would perhaps have taken a greater interest in the issue. I recall questioning the officials on that. At one point—and I am sure that the transcript will verify this—they said they had not gone to the then Ministers often, because it was all a bit technical. Historically, I do not think that was acceptable from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Any politician who keeps getting representations on issues knows that there is a problem. When politicians are told the problem is fixed and they still keep getting representations, then obviously the fixtures have not stuck.

I also say, just to correct the record, that it is true that the committee was unanimous—and I acknowledge New Zealand First—on its recommendation to compensate. Where the committee was not unanimous, and where New Zealand First did support the Government, was in respect of naming a dollar amount for compensation. I acknowledge the National Party’s point that we were split on that. I think it was the only issue we were split on. However, I tell Mr Heatley, who made a pretty silly comment about members throwing their fingers in the air and picking dollar figures, that I acknowledge that there was some analysis done to arrive at the figures. The objective was to try to provide some safeguards and give submitters some level of comfort as they negotiated with the ministry officials. Some submitters had been there a decade ago as this happened, and some submitters acknowledged that they did not have confidence in some officials. I think the committee supported the naming of dollar amounts to try to lift that level of comfort.

It is critical that we get scampi into the quota management system through this bill. Had the fishery continued on in the sort of haphazard way it was operating, where fishers were just catching ad infinitum, we had scientific evidence that suggested that the fishery would be under threat.

There are some big issues that will be dealt with through this bill. As has been mentioned by members, the biggest issue is that of unfairness. I told Mr Ewen-Street last week that I did not accept his view that somehow this Parliament or the committee has continued to perpetrate, or somehow compound, an injustice. The committee deals with—as Parliament does, being the highest court in the land—evidence placed before it. That evidence did not substantiate allegations of corruption, either with the ministry or players within the industry. It did not substantiate that. As I said in my previous speech, I am sure that it would be accurate to say that members had various gut feelings about particular issues. Unfortunately, even though we may agree with gut feelings, decisions cannot be made based on gut feelings; they have to be made based on the evidence that is put forward to the committee. So no allegations were substantiated in respect of corruption. But it is an absolute truth that we did establish gross mismanagement, gross incompetence, and obstruction on the part of the then Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as the scampi fishery was administered. What flowed from that was that certain fishers were advantaged and certain fishers were not. I hope that what comes out of this report is some correction to that.

I also say that because those unfairnesses and that mismanagement were identified, it led to erosion in the confidence the industry showed in the then ministry. If anything is to come out of this inquiry, I hope that not only those fishers who were impacted on get some help, but, secondly, that we can somehow build back the integrity and the confidence in the ministry. I quote from the report on the inquiry into the administration and management of the scampi fishery, which states: “We”—that is, the select committee—“consider that there are real lessons in all this for any government agency that is responsible for the management of a valuable public resource. If a government agency acts in a way that is found to be unfair or unlawful and does not redress the situation transparently and substantively, then the honesty and integrity of the organisation is called into question.” I hope that what flows from that report, and, of course, the bill, is that we can now right some wrongs and some unfairnesses, and also start to build back the integrity and credibility of that ministry. After all, the Government did agree to this inquiry, and rightly so. The then Minister, Pete Hodgson, and the committee members did endorse the inquiry. The Opposition parties and Government worked together in the hope that we could clean up a decade of mess.

I think that this matter goes beyond politics. As I recall some of the submitters to the committee and some of the officials, to be tactful, it saddens me to say that they were less than helpful at times. I think other committee members would share that view. But I now say, as I did in my previous speech, that it is time to build back. I acknowledge Mr Carter’s point about litigation in respect of players. I say to the industry that now is the time to get out of the court and back in the boat, to start to fish, and to continue to invest in and develop the fishery industry.

To conclude, I say to the ministry that now is the time to ensure it builds back the credibility that has been lost through some years of mismanagement. I endorse the bill.

The debate on the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4) has at times been quite lively and comment has been made that a number of members have not spoken in a way that is relevant to the issue before the House. We know that debate should be relevant to the motion before the House, and the motion is that this bill be read a third time. In my view all speeches made by members have in some way been relevant to the motion before the House, albeit in some cases the connection was rather tenuous. I thank all members for their contribution.