Aquaculture Reform Bill

I move, That the Aquaculture Reform Bill be now read a second time. The Aquaculture Reform Bill amends the Resource Management Act 1991 and the Fisheries Acts of 1983 and 1996 to secure a sustainable future for New Zealand’s aquaculture industry. It defines aquaculture’s place in the marine environment, and addresses shortcomings in poorly integrated coastal planning, aquaculture, and fisheries management regimes. The bill balances economic development, environmental sustainability, and community concern.

A significant aspect of the bill is that it resolves the unfinished business of the 1992 fisheries settlement. The bill provides for full and final settlement of post-1992 iwi claims to commercial aquaculture in the coastal marine area. The bill deals with the spatial aspects that were left unfinished by the fisheries settlement.

The bill as reported back now includes a number of important changes. I thank the Primary Production Committee for its suggestions; I believe that those will improve the bill.

It is recognised that the existing dual regime under the Resource Management Act and the Fisheries Act could not cope with the overload of marine-farming applications. It also led to higher processing costs, delays, and poor environmental results. The bill addresses those issues and lifts the uncertainty that has hung over the aquaculture industry since the 1980s. It has taken a lot of work and consultation. Much of the bill’s form is a direct result of considerable consultation with industry and local government.

Let us be clear about what this bill means for the aquaculture industry. The bill makes the Resource Management Act the main legislation for managing aquaculture. That will enable councils to effectively manage aquaculture, and encourage the aquaculture industry to develop in a sustainable way. Under the reforms, new aquaculture will take place in aquaculture management areas, which regional councils will implement through their coastal plans or which can be initiated by a private plan change. Aquaculture management areas will be created by the plan change process. Affected parties and the public will have a say over where aquaculture should be allowed to take place. Industry can initiate a facilitated private plan change, and if successful will have preferential allocation of space. All marine farms with existing coastal permits to occupy space will be deemed to be aquaculture management areas unless those areas are identified in the plan or proposed plan as being unsuitable for aquaculture. Existing farms under a Resource Management Act regime will continue for the life of their coastal permits.

The bill contains transitional provisions to move the existing marine-farming authorisations granted under the Fisheries Act or Marine Farming Act into the new regime. Marine Farming Act farms will have Resource Management Act consents for 20 years, with one right of extension at the end of that period, provided that the farm remains in an aquaculture management area. Marine farmers will no longer require a marine-farming permit under the Fisheries Act 1983. Their activity will be managed through the coastal permit under the Resource Management Act. Marine farmers will be recognised for the work they undertake in developing plan changes. We also want to provide greater certainty for existing marine farmers on the renewal of a consent. When a marine farm resource consent expires, if the farm is still within an aquaculture management area and the operation remains similar, the incumbent’s application will be considered first. Where the existing farmer is using the space properly, we want to provide that he or she continues to do so.

Certainty brings benefits both to the industry and to the community. However, we do not believe that rights in perpetuity are appropriate for what is, after all, public space. The bill seeks to balance competing interests, providing protections for fishing under the quota management system with an undue adverse effects test. The select committee has recommended provision of an opportunity for court review of any decisions made under that test, and in the interests of transparency and, ultimately, fairness I agree that that is an important addition.

Part 5 addresses Māori interests in marine farming. It provides iwi with, where possible, an allocation of an area equivalent to 20 percent of the total marine-farming space allocated since 1992, and with 20 percent of any new marine-farming space. This proposal is a full and final settlement of Māori claims to commercial marine-farming space post - September 1992. That represents a sound basis for Māori and the marine-farming sector to move forward. The select committee has recommended that iwi are allocated areas that are more manageable, with fewer isolated blocks. That allocation model better fits with the planning process for developing and allocating aquaculture management areas. Initially, marine-farming space allocated to Māori will be provided to Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd to hold for direct allocation to iwi—those same iwi that are entitled to receive an allocation of inshore fisheries quota under the 1992 deed of settlement. Te Ohu Kai Moana Trustee Ltd will hold those settlement assets separately from the assets it holds in trust under the Maori Fisheries Act.

It is clear that aquaculture was deliberately left out of the 1992 fisheries settlement by the then Government, and that it has remained the unfinished business of that agreement. This bill has emerged from considerable consultation with industry and stakeholders. Feedback we have received to date from industry has been hugely positive, especially in recent days, with both the Marine Farming Association and the New Zealand Aquaculture Council saying they look forward to the lifting of the moratorium. This bill supports, clarifies, and defines aquaculture’s place in the marine environment, and provides for the sustainable growth of the aquaculture industry in New Zealand. I am delighted to commend it to the House.

This legislation extends the Treaty of Waitangi grievance industry for generations to come. National will, of course, oppose the Aquaculture Reform Bill, and it will do so principally on that basis. The legislation, without principle and without negotiation, gives Māori 20 percent of aquaculture space.

💬 Hon Annette King: What did you do with the Fisheries Bill?

I will tell the member about the Fisheries Bill, if she gives me a minute.

Not only does the Aquaculture Reform Bill give Māori 20 percent but, over the next 10 years, the Government is instructing councils to gift to Māori up to 40 percent of all aquaculture space about to be created. The important point is that when Māori submitters came before the Primary Production Committee, the whole lot of them said that the bill will not settle any grievance. Not one Māori submitter said to us that this was settlement. All of them said that there has been no negotiation, but here the Labour Government is trying to settle what it sees as a grievance simply by gifting to Māori, without discussion or negotiation. Those submitters left us in no doubt at all that the bill will provide no full and final settlement.

Why give Māori 20 percent or 40 percent? That is the important question I ask the Minister. The answer the Labour members gave us at the select committee was that this bill was unfinished business associated with the 1992 deed of settlement. We took the opportunity of asking the officials to give the select committee any proof that the business was unfinished and had been deliberately left to one side during the 1992 negotiation, as the Minister has just claimed.

💬 Phil Heatley: Was there any proof?

We asked for the proof, and it finally came back from the officials that there was no written record, at all, as to whether the business was unfinished. But help was on the way. Māori submitters told us they had the proof and would table it. We waited days and days and days for the proof.

💬 Phil Heatley: Did it come?

It never came—from any Māori submitter. Help was finally on the way. The Hon Dover Samuels stuck his hand up and said that in 1992 he had been one of the negotiators, which was news to the select committee, and he then promised to table documentary evidence that the aquaculture industry had had the claims associated with the 1992 settlement put to one side. To date, we are still waiting for the Hon Dover Samuels to table any evidence, at all.

I take the opportunity of reading one paragraph from the 1992 deed of settlement signed between the Crown and Māori. Paragraph 5.1 states: “Māori agree that this Settlement Deed, and the settlement it evidences, shall satisfy all claims, current and future, in respect of, and shall discharge and extinguish, all commercial fishing rights and interests of Māori, whether in respect of sea, coastal or inland fisheries (including any commercial aspect of traditional fishing rights and interests), whether arising by statute, common law (including customary law and aboriginal title), the Treaty of Waitangi, or otherwise, and whether or not such rights or interests have been the subject of recommendation or adjudication by the Courts or the Waitangi Tribunal.” That is absolute, clear evidence that everybody who signed that document in 1992 accepted that it was full and final.

I took the opportunity of talking to two former National Party colleagues, Sir Douglas Graham and the Hon Doug Kidd. Both those Ministers, who were intimately involved in the discussion, say that there was no unfinished business associated with aquaculture. That is their clear memory of those discussions. Yet the Labour Government comes along and, without principle or any justification at all—apart from trying to curry favour with Māori associated with the seabed and foreshore—is gifting to Māori up to 40 percent of aquaculture. I say to the Minister that generations to come will still be debating the Treaty of Waitangi and the grievances associated with it, and this legislation does nothing to help.

I turn my comments to the bill itself. In 10 or 11 years in this House, I do not recall a bill coming before a select committee that was as incompetently prepared as this one from the new Minister of Fisheries the Hon David Benson-Pope. It was so incompetent that it simply would not work. Let us consider the first major issue the committee had to grapple with, and that was the issue of security of tenure for existing marine farmers. It was as if the Minister had never bothered to get in a boat and go and have a look at some of these things, because he would then know that in the case of some of the salmon farms, millions of dollars are invested. The bill as it originally appeared before the committee meant that come the end of farmers’ permits to occupy the space, they had no rights of first refusal unless their council agreed to it.

What aquaculturalist would invest millions of dollars in an industry unless such a simple issue as security of tenure was addressed? That was the greatest issue presented to us at the select committee, and I am pleased to say that the committee members and the officials worked hard to achieve what is now in the bill as reported back today. The aquaculturist now has the right of first refusal, provided he or she has operated in a satisfactory situation, unless in the exceptional circumstance that the council needs to consider another way. The feedback I have seen from the industry is that that is a vast improvement on what was presented to the select committee. That improvement came about because of the way the committee worked. It had nothing to do with the incompetence of the Minister, the Hon David Benson-Pope.

The second point that needs to be made in this debate is the time constraint the select committee was under. We had 4 months from the time the bill was introduced in the House. Ministers have had years to prepare the legislation. The Minister’s earlier response had been to impose a further moratorium, but when he finally decided to table a bill, he gave 3 or 4 weeks for submitters to prepare submissions for the committee, and then he gave something like a month for the committee to hear submissions and a month to consider the legislation. I thank the officials for their work. Those guys worked 7 days a week to help get the Minister and his hopeless, incompetent Government out of that mess. I also pay tribute to the select committee secretariat for their work. I thank Bob Bunch, Mary Hay, and Steven Mitchell for their huge commitment in working with the committee to right the mess.

The select committee achieved a large number of changes through the legislation, and I will certainly take the opportunity of speaking to those during the laborious Committee stage we will enter into shortly. But I want to say that the most telling line of submission before the select committee concerned the way it is becoming increasingly easier for New Zealand aquaculturalists to take their expertise to other countries. Countries like South America and Australia welcome the expertise of New Zealand aquaculturalists and make it easy for them to operate in their countries, whereas this Government has been putting in place, in front of the aquaculturalist, more and more bureaucracy and more and more encumbrances to developing an industry that has huge potential for the country.

The legislation has been hugely improved. I thank the select committee members who worked with me through that process. Some of them clearly got more involved in the process than others, but at the end of the day, despite the time constraint, the 141 submissions, the 34 hours of hearings, and the 34 hours of deliberation, the bill has been reported back in substantially better form than it was before it came before the select committee.

It is with some relief, I think we would all agree, that this bill is being reported back and is going to be debated before the Christmas break. I agree with the chairperson of the Primary Production Committee that the schedule was very tight; not so much for the members of the select committee but certainly for the officials, who were sent away to get more and more information, and for the clerk and support staff of the committee, who worked round the clock and weekends to ensure we would be able to see this bill go through the remainder of its passage through the House before Christmas.

I think the bill has certainly changed in the course of its time with the select committee, but that is the reason we have select committees. A committee is given a bill, and there is then an opportunity for the industry to comment. I thank those members of the industry who provided their time as expert advisers to the committee. This bill is testimony to the effectiveness of a good select committee process. I thank the chairperson of the select committee, because he showed a real commitment to improving the legislation and to working constructively rather than politically, to ensure that we brought back better legislation to the House—legislation that certainly now has a lot of support from the industry.

There were a number of issues that the committee considered vitally important to pass, and I am sorry to hear that the National Party will not be supporting this legislation. I think its members will be in a very small minority of New Zealanders in doing so. Certainly, the industry wants to see this bill passed. Its members want to see it passed for the reason that we need to create some certainty in the industry. There was a comment about people going overseas. I was certainly impressed by what Australia is doing to encourage New Zealand aquaculturists to take their skills and their investment to Australia and to set up their businesses over there. Many of those people realise the advantage of fish farming in New Zealand, and it is important that this bill is passed so that we can create some certainty in an environment in which, as the chairman said, people are investing millions of dollars.

There was a real problem created by the need to provide 20 percent of the fishery for Māori, and that was that Māori would end up with small, 20-percent pieces of the coastline. That would have been neither economic nor practicable, and there would have been no guarantee that the areas they got would be any good for fish farming, anyway. So I welcome the changes that have been made in that area.

I acknowledge that there are, perhaps, still some concerns in the industry, and I think there are still some concerns among select committee members, over a number of issues. I acknowledge the concern that has been expressed over the private sector paying for treaty settlements. I think that that does create a precedent. However, I would probably challenge people to find any other way in which to deal with that issue. Unlike the National Party, the Government believes that it as a matter of good faith, and in the spirit of the fisheries settlement, Māori are entitled to 20 percent of that fishery. We can take that down to the letter of the law, we can ask for proof, and we can do whatever we want, but, in the spirit of that settlement, I believe that it is absolutely appropriate that Māori are ensured 20 percent of the fishery. I acknowledge those submitters who have expressed concern over the private sector effectively paying for that settlement by applying for 100 percent and receiving 80 percent of the application. However, I also say it is perhaps a moot point, given that an application is not ownership. I do not think anyone can put in an application for a fisheries permit with any certainty that that application will be granted, so we are hardly taking away from people something that they already own. But I do acknowledge the costs associated with the preparation for putting in an application.

The other concern that I think may require the attention of this House sometime in the future—and it will be up to local government to ensure that it does not—is the ability of some smaller local authorities to manage their role in the fishery. That is certainly the case with coastal plans and with some of the skills and expertise that will be required. I know that smaller councils, like my own, came to the select committee and acknowledged that it was really beyond them. They did not have a lot of intention of doing anything, actually, and that concerned me because this legislation will rely very much on the expertise and management ability of local authorities to do their job, and to do it well. I do not think we came out of the select committee process with any confidence that the smaller councils would manage that well.

I welcome this bill coming back to the House. It is a year since we passed the extension to the moratorium. At that time there was a lot of political chest-beating and huffing and puffing over the Government’s inability to come back with legislation to manage this very complex fishery. I congratulate the Minister of Fisheries and his staff, and I congratulate the officials, who have come back to Parliament with legislation that I believe is an excellent beginning to the management of this fishery. I fully expect that in the future we may need to trim the bill or deal with certain issues that arise, but the industry certainly welcomes this bill and so does the Government.

New Zealand First will support this bill, and in doing so I want to thank the chairman of the Primary Production Committee, David Carter, my fellow members of the committee—although it is sometimes doubtful whether I should do that—and, of course, the officials, without whom we would be completely lost.

New Zealand First believes that while the moratorium has been on the aquaculture industry we have been losing hard-won markets in overseas countries—markets that have been lost to other countries, namely Australia, South American countries, and such like. So it is great that this bill is before us and shows a pathway ahead. I want to mention some of the issues that were somewhat contentious in the bill and give people our views on those issues.

Firstly, this bill is about allocating space. It is about allocating space on the commons or in public areas. It does not concern anyone that our ACT colleagues could say there should be a lease in perpetuity, which is what they say in their minority report. The bill does not say there can be ownership by fee simple because it does not concern land; it is on the foreshore and seabed where this activity takes place. This is, in short, private gain on public space, so it needs to be cared for and needs prescriptive legislation around it of a special kind, and this legislation does that.

When we are talking about 20 percent of new space for Māori, it is simply misleading to talk about 40 percent of space for Māori. Whatever happens in the new space, whether 40 percent of that is allocated to Māori, at the end of the day—and people should be quite clear about this—Māori will receive 20 percent of space. Never mind where all these things came from—the Government of the day has decided that 20 percent will be allocated to Māori. It has said that upfront, and that will happen.

It is interesting, though, to consider where that 20 percent figure came from. That figure came as a precedent from the previous National Government when it passed the Fisheries Bill. That bill, I might tell members—and my colleagues will speak more about this later—was passed not through a select committee but through this House in a great hurry—a hurry that makes this look like a walk in the park. So let us not forget that.

In actual fact, what will happen with this new space—bearing in mind that many of the aquaculture management areas that this bill sets up have not been defined; some have, but many have not—is that some of the costs of application will come off the present players in the industry, but the space will not. So it is facetious to be talking about space coming off other people. In actual fact, in most cases, extra water space will be allocated. Nobody will know whether that is the case or whether it is not, and I am sure the councils that are charged with the responsibility of administering this bill will not be saying so. But in actual everyday terms, more space will be allocated, and that is where the 20 percent for Māori will come from. So there will be minimal cost to the present players and, dare I say it, minimal cost to the country.

It is time we had a bill like this, because when a new industry comes to New Zealand—an industry that brings in hundreds of millions of dollars—it is something we want to encourage, but where and how it happens is very, very important. There has been significant angst and significant argument over the original setting-up of aquaculture in this country, and this bill, although not faultless, will go a very long way towards fixing all of that. Security of tenure, as I have mentioned before, was a problem. As the chairman of the select committee has said to the House, that has been largely fixed up in this bill by giving present players in the industry first right of refusal—or right of first refusal, which I am told is a different thing, but I will not bother to try to work that out.

💬 Phil Heatley: The Green member will explain.

R DOUG WOOLERTON: Thank you. New Zealand First is in favour of this bill. We will support the amendments, and we will support the bill becoming law as quickly as possible.

I suspect that the marine farming industry will breathe something of a sigh of relief that, at long last, the industry can start to proceed. But I also suspect that when they listen to this debate over the next few hours, or however long it takes, and recognise the huge problems that they will face in the future, they will see this bill as something of a dual-edged sword.

I note that the chairman of the New Zealand Aquaculture Council, Callum McCallum, wants to say a big thankyou to the Government, its officials, and everybody involved in this legislation. I cannot help but wonder how long he will be thanking the Government for, because his press release states that he has the Minister’s “direct assurances” that the complexities of this 214-page bill will be applied by the Government in a practical, supportive way that respects investment commitments to date. What on earth does that mean? It will not be the Government’s role, once this bill is passed, to do anything at all; it will be up to the regional councils to decide what will happen with the aquaculture industry in the future. I have not the slightest doubt that this 214-page bill will become an albatross around the neck of the industry.

In this second reading debate I can perhaps do no worse than refer to the ACT minority report. This is the summation of the way my party feels about this bill. We recognise that this industry has the potential to be one of New Zealand’s greatest export earners, given our massive coastlines and our creative, innovative people within the industry. But this Government appears to have decided to restrict, control and confine the industry, in the name of goodness knows what. Timorous attitudes will get this industry nowhere. The ACT party believes that this reform bill will hinder the development of this important industry and prevent it from achieving its fullest potential.

Security of tenure—Mr Woolerton has already spoken about this—has to be the biggest single issue I was faced with during my time on the Primary Production Committee. Regretfully, I was not there for all the meetings, but I constantly advocated that there should be a lease in perpetuity. The reason for that is very simple. I have seen what happens to short-term leases in industries based on land, for example. If one gives a short-term lease, one will get a short-term solution, and one will get long-term problems from that form of tenure. Security of tenure is vital because this industry requires multimillions of dollars for investment both now and in the future. Nobody will invest in this industry—well, nowhere near their potential—with the short-term approach the Government has taken.

A submitter from, I think, Blenheim said that five people from the industry have already gone to Australia because they will not put up with what this bill dishes out to them. They said that in Australia there are about four pages of regulations and requirements. In New Zealand, by comparison, there are about 400 pages, I suspect—it is huge—and the industry does not even know what the regional councils will dish up to it in the future. The industry has been given 20 years’ security by this bill. The 20-year period is nothing but a blink of an eye in terms of establishing oneself, one’s industry, one’s offshore infrastructure, one’s business associations, and one’s markets overseas. Twenty years is a meaningless period of time. In fact, in many instances it takes generations to establish industries.

That is why I and the ACT party unrepentantly advised that this industry should have a lease in perpetuity—a perpetual right of renewal, subject to some predetermined environmental considerations. We do it for land. Why can we not do it for the ocean? We have to. I suspect that in the future there will be amendments that actually recognise this point, as was the case many years ago when we had short-term pastoral leases. The farmers of those days said that if they were not going to get their leases back they would become an extractive industry. They could not care less. Then it all changed, of course, and became hugely sustainable once that clause was removed—once the industry had a lease in perpetuity.

Mr Carter has already alluded to the issues surrounding the allocation to Māori. The 1992 Waitangi fisheries settlement was stated to be full and final. What is it about the words “full and final” that the Minister of Fisheries does not really understand? That is clear and absolute, and there has been no presentation of fact or document to prove otherwise. The select committee did ask for that information to be presented. It was not presented. What was presented, and what I received, was advice from Crown Law on this issue. Now, I thought that it would be a pretty fair way of determining the veracity or otherwise of the Minister’s claim that 20 percent of the space should go to Māori under the 1992 Treaty of Waitangi fisheries settlement. The advice we received from Crown Law consisted of three blank pages, where its opinion was withheld. Why? What possible justification can the Minister or Crown Law have for withholding that perfectly valid information? It is totally and utterly inappropriate for an office of the Government—the Crown Law Office—to withhold valuable information if that information would have assisted our select committee in getting this bill right. That, surely, is the purpose of the bill. It is to establish, at this early stage of the industry, the ground rules, so that the industry can progress in a sensible and reasoned fashion. But that will not happen for another very important reason, and that is because of the powers that this bill gives to the Department of Conservation.

The bill essentially gives the Department of Conservation the power of veto. Why I say it is so terribly important to remove the department out of this whole process is that it has already stated that its intended policy is to ensure that 10 percent of the coastline goes into marine parks. So along comes the fishing industry, the mussel farmers, or whoever it might be, and the department will say: “Oh, this looks like a nice spot for one of our marine reserves. Permission declined.” It will not be the Ministry of Fisheries that runs this industry; it will be the Department of Conservation. Its tentacles have stretched right throughout industry in this country, and certainly throughout primary-based industry. I note John Tamihere is nodding in agreement with me, and I am delighted to see that. I am sure that next year—if or when he is back—he will be reining in that department. However, it is totally and utterly inappropriate to give a Government department like the Department of Conservation the power of veto. It has a power of advocacy, which is also quite wrong, and I can only lament that the future of this industry will be tied inevitably with the Department of Conservation.

The Greens support this bill. Until now the marine farming industry in this country has been a very successful one. Most people do not know it, but in Marlborough alone the aquaculture industry earns more for the province than the famous wine industry does. It is an industry that has been characterised by a boom-and-bust mentality in applications for water space, but also by delays in the clash between the Resource Management Act and the Fisheries Act, and it has been characterised by moratoria.

This legislation was designed to get around that. It was designed to create aquaculture management areas, where people could apply for marine space within the aquaculture management area, and they could not apply in the exclusion zones outside the aquaculture management area. It took officials something like 3 years to write the bill. As others have said, about 4 weeks were given for submissions, and then the Primary Production Committee had about a month to hear submissions and another month to consider. The timescale was not good. However, although we perhaps have not made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, I think we have done an extremely good job in changing what was unworkable legislation into something that is very workable. It is a credit to all the people who have worked so long and hard to get it to where it is today. I would like to pay particular credit to the officials—a couple of whom are here today—plus our select committee officials, and all the members of the select committee, led by David Carter, the chair.

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry to interrupt the member, but members should not be standing up and talking in the Chamber. Please be seated.

I think they were standing to applaud, were they not?

I think that the main problem before this legislation came into being was the clash of cultures between the essentially community-based Resource Management Act and the essentially centrally based legislation of the Fisheries Act, and the different cultures of the groups that administered those two different Acts. This bill is trying to put the control of aquaculture into the hands of the community; in other words, through the regional councils under the auspices of the Resource Management Act. The Ministry of Fisheries will still have input at a very early stage. So rather than somebody going to the council, getting a resource consent, and then sometimes waiting for years to get a fisheries permit, it is all done in one step under this bill.

The aquaculture management areas are designed so there are areas in our sheltered waterways that are suitable for marine farming and for which people can apply for space, and the exclusion zones are all those areas other than the aquaculture management areas, where people cannot apply for space. Having said that, it is possible for people to apply for space in the exclusion zones by initiating a plan change with the local council. That is a much higher hurdle than the resource consent as it is at the moment.

As others have mentioned, one of the main issues of contention in the bill as it was originally tabled was security of tenure. The bill provided that when an existing marine farmer had a lease that expired, that space would go to tender. In other words, it would go to the highest bidder. One does not have to be a rocket scientist to work out that it would not have taken very long for tendered space to always finish up in the hands of those people with the most money and, almost inevitably, they would be the big corporates. It was clearly an unworkable idea. On the one hand, marine farmers said: “What we want most of all is security of tenure. We want the right of renewal in perpetuity.” Members of the committee said: “No, this is public open space. This is commons, from which you are trying to derive private profit. It is not appropriate for you to have a permanent right of renewal. Look at what has happened with the high country leases—we had to buy them back.” On the other hand, there is the underlying reality that this is a biophysical process. There are physical limits to how many marine farms we can have in an area. It is not about simply allocating space; it is about asking whether marine farmers will be able to operate in that space.

The compromise that we have come to, which I think is a very good compromise, is that instead of the water space being tendered, the incumbent farmer has the right to make an application for a resource consent first. In other words, that farmer’s application is heard first. If that application is successful, the farmer gets a renewal of the lease for another 20 years. If the farmer’s application is unsuccessful, then other things kick in, and at that point it could go to tender or other applications could be received. There are a couple of instances where the person who is an incumbent will not get the right to make the first application. One of those instances is where the council decides that the area where the farm is will no longer be considered an aquaculture management area. In other words, the council has changed the plan and the area is no longer suitable for aquaculture. At that point the incumbent farmer says: “Right, that’s it. I’m out of here.” The farmer has no recourse, and there is certainly no compensation to be paid. The other instance in which the farmer may not have the right to apply first for renewal of the consent is where he or she has not complied with the existing resource consent conditions. If the farmer has been convicted of some kind of unsatisfactory behaviour, then he or she is deemed not to be suitable in terms of their specific resource consent.

What the bill now states is that the people not only have to comply with their resource consent, but also have to comply with the industry standards. At the moment industry standards—[Interruption]

💬 Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER: When a member is speaking at the back of the Chamber, it is really quite rude for members to interject across there. I call the member to order.

I understand how the Minister gets quite excited.

The incumbent farmers basically have to be good, corporate citizens. There is no formal statement that this is an industry standard, but what we are intending, and hoping I guess, from the passage of this legislation, is that the industry will get together and form its own voluntary standards, because the last thing people want is for their space, which has become a valuable commodity, to be taken from them and tendered to somebody else.

The other really contentious issue, I suppose, in this legislation is the 20 percent of new marine space that will go to Māori. In essence, the Government is trying to say that 20 percent of any new space that is created in an aquaculture management area is to go to Māori, plus any existing space that was created between 1992—the year of the deed of settlement for fisheries—and the present, also has to go to Māori. That was intended to be on a willing buyer, willing seller basis, so that if incumbent farmers wanted to sell and move on or to retire or whatever, then the Government would move in, buy farms, and allocate that to Māori. The problem, as we foresee it, is that insufficient space will come up in a sufficiently short period of time for Māori to get 20 percent of that space. What the bill is allowing for is that Māori get 20 percent of the new space, plus it may be that there is another 20 percent, or up to 20 percent, of that new space to take account of the 20 percent from the existing space that is unable to be allocated to them.

We are also aware that if existing marine farmers want to extend their farms, then the new space they are occupying would be treated as new space and 20 percent of that would go to Māori. This sounds fine, but if there are farms dotted around the Hauraki Gulf, the Marlborough Sounds, or wherever, we will finish up with tiny little patches of marine farms that have been allocated to iwi Māori. It becomes absolutely unworkable as they are uneconomic units. What we are trying to do is to encourage councils to aggregate these small areas so that iwi Māori have their space in a particular area, in an area that is representative of the productivity of the rest of the space that has been allocated from 1992 until the present. The Greens are happy to support the bill.

I rise on behalf of United Future in the second reading of this bill to state that we will be voting for it, and we would love to see it become law as soon as possible. There are very good reasons for us to do this, which I hope to elaborate on in the second reading, and if not then, certainly in the Committee stage and the third reading. The reasons we are voting for this bill are very simple. As incredible as it seems, the Primary Production Committee and officials, after we had heard from all the submitters, were able to turn the lemon that we had before us into a glass of lemonade. This bill is not 100 percent perfect, but it is certainly 90 to 95 percent operational. In a world where getting it right seems to be problematic, this is, by and large, an enabling bill to get this industry up and running again.

The bill, as it came to the select committee, was a bit of a shocker, and some submitters noted that very clearly. As I listened to some of the conclusions they made, it was obvious there was really a great need for change to take place. The submitters had only 4 weeks to do what they could do, whereas the drafters of the bill, on their side, probably had something like 4 years to do this.

Out of all those submissions, the objections raised have, by and large, been answered fully in this rewritten bill—those issues have been addressed, and I want to take a bit of time to just go through some of those that caused concern. For instance, submitters stated that aquaculture needed to be treated under the Resource Management Act like any other activity, such as farming, and not prohibited, and not even put on a par with, say, nuclear waste. Now that has been accepted in this rewritten bill, and I am very happy to support it because of this sort of change.

The overwhelming number of submitters stated that many of the current problems in the bill were there because there had been a lack of listening by officials in the past, and therefore the moratorium was put into place to try to steady the ship. There was a plea to the officials: “Please, do not make the same mistake again.” That, I believe, has been accepted in this bill, and makes us satisfied in that sense to vote for this second reading.

We heard from an industry that had pioneered over some 20 years of work. It had very little hope that certainty would be available to it through the bill as originally proposed, but now that has been provided through the rewriting of this bill. The problem with lack of continuity of tenure has been satisfied. Now every person has 20 years of tenure and the first right to continue to operate. In farming language, that really means almost as if farmers can continue for ever and a day, as long as they maintain the rules, the regulations, and the strictures that have been placed on aquaculture management areas by local councils. So as they keep farming, they can be assured they will continue in the industry. That satisfied the submitters, and we are very happy that that has been adjusted in this rewritten bill.

The original bill was seen to set up possible fights between other marine players. For instance, recreational and commercial fishers could have been fighting with farmers for years, as they have done in the past. In some people’s minds, it was therefore improbable that the undue adverse effects test would work, especially on occasions when certain fishers would hold out on, and renege against agreeing between themselves. Now this has been put aside. The bill now has a common-sense solution. It has used the 90 percent rule that applies with sharemarket takeovers, and so this is now a very, very excellent addition to the bill.

We heard from submitters about the extraordinary time that had been taken in the past to get applications to the farming stage—we heard from some people that it took up to 9 years—and tremendous costs were incurred by farmers. We also heard in submissions that over $10 million was set aside in the Nelson-Marlborough area alone, and that that had really crippled both the attitudes of people and their desire to go into further farming. They were once bitten, twice shy, I suppose. They were suspicious that this legislation would not give them freedom. The only people they could see making good on this were the lawyers.

This bill now, as it sits in its rewritten form, I believe strips away that fear so those people can progress forward. So that is a very good addition to the whole bill. Certainty was needed, not only for the farmer, but for the lending institutions. Certainty has been put into this bill so that companies and investors can invest knowing what the rules are, as it were. Labour can be satisfied. Exports can flourish. This bill in its rewritten form provides business certainty.

Many submitters said that a public tendering process, with no compensation for the intellectual property established, could unjustly wipe the years of hard work from them, as farmers, overnight. It was their plea that the parties that had created the wealth should not have to tender for it. That injustice has now been resolved along common law principles in this particular rewritten bill.

Some submitters said they feared that bigger companies were waiting to pounce, to buy out the small ones that had no option but to sell if this legislation was passed, unchanged, through this House. They now have the power to raise their confidence, they have certainty behind them, incentives have been placed on local councils through this legislation to provide the aquaculture management areas, and now their fears in that regard have been resolved. Private aquaculture management areas can now be established. The industry actually asked for that, in submissions, and has been heard in that process.

United Future looks forward to this bill becoming law to help business in New Zealand. Our business friendliness is in sharp contrast to that which we have just heard from both the National and ACT parties today. Honestly, how can those parties look aquaculture farmers in the eye and ask for their votes? Speakers from those parties in this House have put farmers down by being more ideological than in line with what the legislation actually offers, which is now a fantastic business opportunity awaiting everybody. I was amused today with Dr Brash’s mathematics in his press release. If that is the way a Governor of the Reserve Bank does his sums, then that would signal a rapid change of governors, but I will deal more with that in the Committee stage, as time is not with me at this point. I add and reiterate that United Future will be pleased to see this legislation move forward and become law.

I rise to commend the Aquaculture Reform Bill and its second reading to the House. In doing so I shall map out firstly the way in which this Government approaches many macroeconomic issues. As we have demonstrated, whether it is in the telecommunications industry or with regard to roads, Tranz Rail, air transport, or the reformulation of our Stock Exchange, we are a very business-friendly Government that is very supportive of Kiwi endeavour. This legislation with regard to aquaculture management areas is merely another litmus test that this Government will pass. I am grateful that we have received the support of New Zealand First, of the Greens, and of United Future on this wonderful legislation. It is about unleashing Kiwi potential in a new and dynamic way. No one has written the best manual on that, but this is one of the best possible attempts to do so in legislation in a long time, and I am grateful to the Opposition parties that are supporting the Government. The bill entertains for the very first time spatial rights in the seabed and foreshore areas.

💬 Hon David Carter: Not the first time.

Yes, it does, to the extent that all communities, whether they are local communities acting through local authorities under the Resource Management Act, or whether they are Māori, Pākehā, or from Timbuctoo, all have, quite clearly, been given a range of security in their opportunity to get into, and finance, the business of aquaculture. They have been given certainty, and as usual, they have been given closure.

I am interested in, and somewhat intrigued by, some of the comments from National Party speakers. What I am intrigued about is that they practice one of the worst forms of selective amnesia this Parliament has ever seen. What is that selective amnesia? They have forgotten that one Douglas Montrose Graham cut the “Treaty of Wellington” in 1992. He had no process going through any select committee phase, and no robust consultation process—nothing. He dropped the bill into this House, and just rammed it through. At the end of the day that process might well have been fraught, but members of the Opposition continue to practise that selective amnesia. They cannot remember Jim Bolger or Douglas Montrose Graham setting in place the legal and statutory framework that we are obliged to follow. In the event that we did not follow due legal process in terms of our constitution, and in the event that we practised amnesia to the extent that the National Opposition members do, surely one would have to go gaga and take a one-way ticket to Kurdistan.

I tell David Carter, and his erstwhile colleague from Whangarei that no one can remember the name of, that when they get up on their feet to talk about the 20, 40 or 60 percent of the quota for Māori, we should explore that for one little moment. Douglas Montrose Graham cut a deal. Right now proceedings in the Court of Appeal in New Zealand have been adjourned sine die, because Douglas Montrose Graham and James Bolger were directed to negotiate a settlement with Māori. That is our court speaking. Not only did our court speak but Parliament spoke. The previous National Government drove legislation through that stated it did not know what would come into the quota management system, but whatever did, Māori were to get 20 percent of it. Giving Māori 20 percent then freed up the whole of the quota management system. It was a world first, and that was great. Today we hear from National and ACT party members that they want to recant that. They want to recant all the things their leadership did in those days, in terms of the 20 percent that was to go to Māori. They do not want that. They do not accept that this is unfinished business, and that this legislation does exactly what Douglas Montrose Graham and the Hon Jim Bolger portended. The framework is in place, this is unfinished business, and this Government cannot change an agreement that was executed between Māori and the Crown and enacted in legislation.

I might say that the Hon David Carter voted for 20 percent. He did not know what it meant, but he said that 20 percent, or whatever the amount was, would go to Māori. That is exactly what is happening right now. The member for Whangarei, whom no one can remember—

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: Plonker.

Whatever. He will get up very shortly and prattle off that Māori will be getting 40, 50, or 60 percent. Māori, as usual, will get 20 percent, because that was the deal that was struck by the previous National Government and it is one that we will continue to accede to. We will not overturn an agreement between Māori and the Crown that was executed as a deed of settlement and brought into this Parliament. There is a comment on and a description for that. I am not allowed to use it for the National Party, of course.

I conclude by commending the Minister of Fisheries for the fine effort he has made in bringing this legislation to the House. But because I am a good Labour MP and we are coming toward the end of the year, the Christmas season and the like, I say it is always good to remember the workers. Whether they are from the Primary Production Committee or the Ministry of Fisheries, or whether they are our officials, our messengers, or our security staff in this building, we honour and acknowledge them, and pay them tribute for bringing forward a wonderful piece of work. I regret the mean-spirited nature of the Tories over there on the Opposition benches, unably supported by the ACT party. Kia ora.

I say to the House that it should not be deceived by members on the Labour benches. This 20 percent allocation of aquaculture space to Māori has always been a quid pro quo for the seabed and foreshore deal. When the deal blew up in Labour’s face, Labour figured that it could throw to Māori 20 percent of the aquaculture space and Māori would be satisfied with that. How patronising and how condescending can one get! That is why National will oppose this bill. Labour figured that it would do a dirty deal, but the marine farmers who are out there working today, Māori and others alike, will pay the price for that. The moratorium will be lifted once the bill is passed, and it is about time for that to be done. The industry has been hamstrung for too long, with moratorium after moratorium being used as a solution rather than a tool. Marine farmers from across this country have been invited to Australia and to South America to set up camp there, and some have. Fortunately, others have stayed here, in the hope that finally a bill would be brought to the House that would solve the majority of their problems.

I also acknowledge the work of the Primary Production Committee. Through the select committee process we changed what had been a dog of a bill into a much-improved bill. We have changed significant aspects of the bill, but National still opposes it on a number of fronts. Firstly, as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, there is the issue of horse-trading with Māori. Labour thought that if it chucked 20 percent of marine space to Māori they would go away feeling very satisfied indeed, and would not kick up a fuss over the seabed and foreshore issue. That is patronising and condescending. Now, we discover that it could be up to 40 percent of new marine-farming space, because the promise of 20 percent of aquaculture space to Māori may never be fulfilled. Marine farmers may not give up their current space, and therefore 20 percent may not become available for Māori. So the top-up has to come from new space—anything up to 40 percent of it. Interestingly, most Māori submitters did not acknowledge this bill as a settlement. There are several reasons for that. Firstly, there was no negotiation with Māori over 20 percent of the aquaculture space. Secondly, there is no deed of settlement over the aquaculture space to point to, unlike the fisheries settlement of 1992 where there was a deed. Therefore, many Māori submitters are already dissatisfied, because of that lack of a negotiated deed of settlement. They are concerned they will receive space they would not have chosen for themselves: patches of random space, uneconomic space, and small space. That sets the scene for another revisiting of aquaculture-space settlements.

I direct the House’s attention to the Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill, which is the last bill on today’s Order Paper. Under clauses 118 and 119 of that bill Ngāti Awa is to receive 5 percent of the aquaculture space through preferential tendering, and that is over and above the 20 percent figure. Ngāti Awa has its own separate little settlement. That bill is on the Order Paper in Parliament right now. So we have the Aquaculture Reform Bill giving Māori 20 percent of the aquaculture space and the Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill giving Ngāti Awa another 5 percent. That is without mentioning Ngā Rauru Kītahi and Ngāti Ruanui, which get aquaculture space in their own settlement bills, Ngāti Tama, which gets 10 percent of the aquaculture space in its own settlement bill, and Ngāi Tahu, which in 1998 received 10 percent of the aquaculture space in its settlement bill. Therein lies the problem. The National Party does not see a solution in this bill whereby we will put an end to treaty claims in aquaculture.

We also have unanswered questions as to how the interests of aquaculture will be balanced with commercial fishing interests. Certainly, National supports greater interaction between the two sectors. There has to be a timely, fully transparent, and cost-effective process to follow—namely, commercial fishers talking to marine farmers and marine farmers talking to commercial fishers about their aspirations in a particular area, reaching a transparent and cost-effective agreement, and then moving forward. National is unsure how regional councils will be able to quantify or qualify aquaculture’s effect on fishing—effects such as those on spawning and stock development. We do not know how they are going to do it. We hope regional councils can do that, because we want aquaculture to move ahead. In reality, regional councils will have to employ very smart scientists and researchers in order to ensure they have the best advice on how to address that issue.

Our third major concern is the right of first refusal for an incumbent marine farmer. National members on the select committee fought hard, and it was a big win for us, to get the gains we achieved. But we are still quite concerned that incumbent marine farmers will get priority over newcomers, due to their pre-existing investment. Contrary to David Benson-Pope’s statements made in the media, commercial aquaculturists have never asked for space in perpetuity—not ever. They have never asked for a right of renewal; they have never felt that public space should be in their hands forever. They have only ever asked for the right of first refusal—that they have first dibs at renewal if they have been good tenants. Yet in order to gain renewal they will have to follow industry-good practice, and no one has defined that. It will change with changes in technology. Marine farmers now discover that regional councils may tender out occupied space, if they feel it is necessary. We are not quite sure what the test will be, in terms of being “necessary”. We certainly have reservations about whether those requirements and tests are sufficiently robust to provide the certainty that incumbents need for their investment.

In the Committee stage I will be submitting various amendments to this bill. They will also deal with the ability of the Department of Conservation to intervene in the whole process and issue a veto as an objector under the Resource Management Act—the Minister of Conservation being able to veto the process. We need changes to this legislation in order to provide certainty for this fledgling industry.

As a member of the Primary Production Committee, I rise to support this bill. As I kick off my brief call, it is fair to say that this bill came to the select committee with a high degree of contention and with some major issues. But the committee—apart from the member who preceded me—in the spirit and nature of its work, got through those matters, and I think we have brought a substantial, quality bill back to the House.

I want to correct a couple things put forward by Mr Heatley, the well-known, so-called member from Whangarei. The first—and he is right in this—is that one of the major issues in the bill was the perceived lack of security of tenure by industry players. Contrary to Mr Heatley’s submission to the House, that has been fixed, and he knows it. Existing marine farmers, unless the aquaculture management area is changed, get the first right to apply, if they have been good citizens and have not breached their consents. Effectively, unless the plan is changed, they get the first option. Of course, Mr Heatley conveniently forgot to make that point. What we heard from the National Party was the usual stir-up on race. Somebody should tell Mr Heatley and Mr Carter that Don Brash tried that in Ōrewa, and it worked for 5 minutes. Now the tables have turned, and the people have told Don Brash to wake up. Mr Heatley said that he fought hard in the select committee. Well, if he fought hard in the committee, then he fought harder than Don Brash did over the issue of the foreshore and seabed.

The committee visited a number of marine farmers in Clevedon, Auckland, and Blenheim, including people like Callum McCallum who contribute a huge amount through both their fish-processing factories and their aquaculture farms. They are battling Kiwis—great business people—who, as Mr Ewen-Street said, contribute much to the economy. It would be fair to say that in Blenheim, when the Minister was down there recently and met with aquaculture people subsequent to this bill coming back from the select committee, peace had broken out in respect of this bill. I think that, in general, most aquaculture farmers are pleased with the content of the bill, especially in relation to the security-of-tenure issue, which is most important to them.

I also join in congratulating the officials, the staff, and the clerks who worked tirelessly on this bill. We had an interesting hearings process. A number of our members developed some new skills towards the waterfront in Auckland, especially Mr Woolerton. I am sure he knows what I mean. But the process was a very good one. It was open, and, in the spirit and tradition of the Primary Production Committee, in a non-partisan way we have brought a solid bill back to the House. I support it.

After hearing that contribution from Clayton Cosgrove, I now know why Kate Wilkinson will be the next member of Parliament for Waimakariri. At heart, this bill is against everything that Trevor Mallard, the so-called Coordinating Minister, Race Relations, promised. Supposedly, at the beginning of the year this Government was going to eliminate all race-based politics. That is what we were told, but this bill is proof that Labour is more interested in buying votes than in being fair to all New Zealanders. This bill is all about two very different standards of citizenship. With this bill, a public resource worth hundreds of millions of dollars is being allocated to a group of people, based on race. The National Party—

💬 John Tamihere: Based on rights.

I suppose it is the same sorts of rights Mr Tamihere thought he had to the $200,000 golden handshake that he promised he would not take; the same sorts of rights he believed he had to a car paid for by the Wairapeira Trust, when he already had a car provided by—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member, but I refer members on my right to Speaker’s ruling 56/1(1), which states that interjections are to be rare and reasonable. They should not be a running commentary. If members want to make a speech, they can take the next call.

This bill reinforces everything that New Zealanders dislike about this Labour Government. It is saying that if people are non-Māori New Zealanders—

💬 Mark Peck: National down!

One of the reasons Mr Peck has decided to throw away his seat in Invercargill is that he knows that the people there do not want to live in a country where the opportunities to create wealth are based on race, not fairness. Trevor Mallard promised there would be complete race neutrality in the policies of this Labour Government. There is anything but that in this bill.

Let us reflect back on the history of the fisheries settlement in 1992, the provisions of which were absolutely comprehensive. The settlement was to satisfy all claims, current and future, in respect of all commercial-fishing rights. This deed of settlement defines commercial-fishing rights as those that require a fishing permit under the Fisheries Act. If we look up what the Fisheries Act requires in terms of aquaculture, we note that to have an aquaculture farm a person requires a fishing permit. There can be no question at all that the 1992 settlement involved aquaculture, yet no member of the Government has been able to explain why the gravy train has been reopened. Under Labour, full and final settlements do not mean full and final. Labour is happy to reopen the chequebook if it suits its political agenda.

💬 Darren Hughes: What did the judge say about this man?

Members opposite want to get into all sorts of irrelevancies, because they cannot defend what they are doing in this regard. [Interruption]

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. Since I have been on my feet I have faced a continuous barrage of interjections. I have heard three in the last minute in respect of what members opposite claim was a conviction. That is factually incorrect, and it has been clarified by you on many occasions.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The matter would not have been in Hansard in that regard, and I was trying to help the member out. Now that he has drawn attention to the matter, there will be no further interjections on it.

If we go back to the 1992 settlement, we will see, as I have carefully explained, that it did include aquaculture, because it was full and final settlement of all matters, yet members opposite have reopened the chequebook. Let us ask the question why they have done that. Well, it is actually very simple. When the foreshore and seabed issue arose, the Government got itself into difficulty. It lost one of its Māori MPs, then searched out as to how it could buy back some support. So in April the Government suddenly got extremely generous about throwing away rights that should have been shared by all New Zealanders, and providing them exclusively for Māori. I say again that that is a tragedy. It is a tragedy because all New Zealanders should have an equal right to apply for and develop marine farms in this country. To have a race-based system under this Labour Government, whereby people of one ethnicity have different rights, is quite simply wrong.

I also want to reflect on another botched process by the Minister, Mr David Benson-Pope. Only last week we were in urgency dealing with legislation that was being rushed through under that Minister, and here we are back in the House again, once more in urgency, dealing with matters promoted by that same Minister. The tragedy is that the aquaculture industry was put under a moratorium by this Government a long 4 years ago. During the 1990s, under National’s careful stewardship, we saw—

💬 Government Members: Ha, ha!

I will put my record on it. I ask members: do you know how much the aquaculture industry expanded—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Do not bring me into the debate, please.

You are so finicky with me, Mr Speaker, and so inadequate with every—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member will now resume his seat. His speech is terminated. I am not having that sort of rudeness.

That’s what I am talking about.

💬 Mr SPEAKER: The member will now leave the Chamber.

Hon Dr Nick Smith withdrew from the Chamber.

During the course of that debate Jen McCutcheon knocked on another 200 doors. She is looking extraordinarily well placed to be the next member for Nelson. I must say that the House is looking forward to a real member of Parliament for Nelson, particularly one who will be a member of the Government. [Interruption] I can tell members that Wayne Harpur will fly in this place. He has my support as the new, vibrant member for Invercargill. I support the second reading of this bill.

Amendments recommended by the Primary Production Committee by majority agreed to.