Estimates Debate — Vote Primary Industries

I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take a call in this Committee of the whole House as we examine the Appropriation (2013/14 Estimates) Bill. Vote Primary Industries is a crucial appropriation. The primary sector underpins the entire economy, and in areas such as fisheries it overlaps into our very way of life. Going fishing is synonymous with the development of New Zealand society and the New Zealand nation itself. From our first-nation’s peoples and their canoes to the earliest European discoverers, from the sealers and the whalers to the surveyors and the settlers and the colonists, anybody and everybody who came to these islands since time immemorial has had the ability, indeed the right, to throw a line over the side and catch a fish. For many, if not most, of them, fishing was a matter of pure survival. The ocean provided dependable sustenance where the bounty of the land was a far more frugal affair.

Today that reality remains for literally hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders. Ordinary people up and down the length and breadth of this country enjoy nothing more than the opportunity to take to the sea and bring home a feed for themselves, their family, and their friends. It is a birthright, the stamp of egalitarianism that set us apart from the feudal restrictions of class and ownership that so many of our forebears experienced in the older countries of a previous world. New Zealanders cherish that birthright. Everyone is equal in our society, and everyone is equal where the baited hook hits the water—the doctor, the lawyer, the accountant, the farmer, the labourer, and the truck driver. Anyone and everyone can throw a line in the water, and anyone and everyone can catch a fish. The rules are the same for everybody. Or are they? I ask because many people could be forgiven for thinking that under this Government some have become more equal than others.

Every New Zealander who fishes in the sea knows the importance of the fisheries resource, everyone knows that this resource is finite, and everyone knows that it must be harvested sustainably and that all other users must be treated with mutual respect. The nation charges the Government with the responsibility of managing that harvest, managing the sustainability of that harvest, and setting the rules that will ensure that mutual respect and the preservation of everyone’s rights are upheld. We put in place a system of rules and laws, of quota and catch limits, for the purpose of ensuring that there will always be fish in the sea—fish that our egalitarian people can catch to feed their families, sustainable populations of fish that will still be there in years to come, so that the children of our egalitarian people and their children and grandchildren will still be able to go down to the sea and fish, to catch the food that is their birthright and their inheritance.

We task the Ministry for Primary Industries with the responsibility of administering those rules, and we fund its activities through Vote Primary Industries. We hope and trust that the ministry will get things more or less right, and we hope and trust that the Government will fund it adequately and give it the direction and the tools that it needs in order to ensure that the fisheries resource is properly and sustainably managed and that the right of all New Zealanders to go down to the sea and fish is preserved. We hope and trust that they will get it right. When they get it wrong, we are given cause to question in whose interests they are working.

The old saying goes: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” But teach a man to fish and then cut his daily catch limit in the snapper 1 fishery from nine fish down to three, and, I have to ask, what will he do then? Will he be able to justify putting petrol in his boat, let alone paying for his gear, if the number of fish he is permitted to bring home is worth less than the cost of going to get them? Why, I ask, is the bag limit for ordinary recreational fishers being cut in this arbitrary and pointless fashion? If the fishery is under pressure, if the fish stocks are being mined unsustainably, and if the populations need time to recover, then why are the ministry and the Government not looking to reduce commercial catch limits, when it is the overfishing and the unsustainable practices of some in the commercial sector that have been the cause of decline in our fish stocks in the first place? Why should the recreational fisher be forced to bear the cost of a problem that is not his fault?

And how much will it cost? How much of Vote Primary Industries will be spent on hiring fisheries officers and equipping them with vehicles, boats, pepper spray, handcuffs, and whatever other tools they are going to be given to allow them to focus on chasing ordinary citizens for the crime of catching more than three fish from their little tin boats, when the trawler operating right alongside them is allowed to carry on business as usual, with no reduced limits, adding insult to injury by dumping tonnes of fish made useless as they are crushed in a trawl net? It is an unspeakable injustice and a pointlessly wasteful mismanagement of a precious and finite resource.

New Zealand First, when in a position of influence over the Government, will reverse this focus. We will give priority to the needs of ordinary people, and permit the commercial harvest of only that portion of the fishery that is surplus to those needs. We will prioritise Vote Primary Industries accordingly, and manage its appropriation properly and responsibly, unlike this dreadful administration, whose dreadful Appropriation (Estimates 2013/14) Bill we unequivocally oppose. Thank you.

Vote Primary Industries includes what was until 2 years ago the stand-alone Ministry of Fisheries. This vote includes appropriations of over $86 million for fisheries policy advice and operational advice on sustainability, fisheries management, and enforcement and monitoring—$86 million. It is interesting because if we spent only $20 million a year on buying back commercial quota from the large operators, such as, say, Sanford, then within 3 years the 15 percent improvement target would be reached, and it would all be very, very simple. But I must say that that was not in the options that were in the discussion paper that the Minister alluded to today, when I was questioning the Minister.

What is the Minister for Primary Industries, Nathan Guy, doing instead? Well, he is snatching snapper off the plates of New Zealanders. It is not just a few recreational fishers who are affected, because everyone is affected. The Minister’s answers to my questions today were entirely unsatisfactory. I wonder how that member could have got it so wrong. How can it be that this Government has not considered the possibility that the biggest maritime environmental disaster to ever hit New Zealand—and that is the Rena—would not warrant a scientific investigation into its effect on the reproductive and growth cycles of our most valuable and dominant coastal fish, the snapper?

Today I was also told that I should get along to one of the Ministry for Primary Industries’ meetings. In Parnell tonight approximately 300 people listened and they went along to the Quality Hotel—and there is some irony here because there was absolutely no quality in that meeting. What was there tonight was absolutely embarrassing, but a fair indication of that Government. What was there was a handful of Ministry for Primary Industries representatives with posters, and they were speaking to the different small groups that came along. There was no microphone, there was no measured debate, and there was no intellectual discussion. The people of Parnell went there hoping for intellectual discussion, but there was none of that. Actually, it is interesting because the Quality Hotel is on Gladstone Road, and that is just down the road from where the Prime Minister lives. They would have snared a big fish if the Prime Minister had been there, but, alas, that did not happen either.

So I ask, where is the science in this report? Where is the cost-benefit analysis of recreational fishing to New Zealand? The petrol taxes, the diesel taxes, bait, tackle, motors, boats, books, videos, food, drink—the list goes on. Did you know that one-third of all kayaks sold in New Zealand are fishing kayaks? Where is the cost-benefit analysis of recreational and charter fishing, with tourism and accommodation and other benefits? It is simply not in here. This is a devious document. It is a dishonest document. I ask where the basic thought is of seagrass areas, snapper habitats, and the most basic of options—that is, the possibility of growing and seeding baby snapper into certain areas.

Where in this document is the effect that the explosion of snapper would have on the mussel industry, the mussel farms, if there is a reduction in the recreational fishers’ catch? More snapper means more mussel spat being eaten on the mussel lines. That is probably $100,000 a line. Can the mussel industry sustain the extra loss that would undoubtedly follow? At the moment, snapper costs around about $39 to $40 a kilo for fillets. What would happen to that price—which is already beyond many Kiwis’ budgets—if this Government is successful in its effort to cut the catch limit to two or three snapper and thereby create a scarcity in the market? Well, if you do the maths, and you cut the catch from nine to three, then we are looking at snapper going from $39 a kilo for fillets to $120 a kilo. Who will benefit from that? The big players—the big players, just like Sanford. [Bell rung] This bill will destroy—

Order! Your time has expired.

💬 Brendan Horan: Mr Chair—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Sorry?

💬 Brendan Horan: I’m trying for another call. Nobody else is calling. Surely—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Just wait until I check the schedule. The member has only one call, by the schedule.

💬 Brendan Horan: Yes, but I was taking a call from all those other people who haven’t called.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): No. The member has only one call.

💬 Brendan Horan: Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Thank you.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Commerce agreed to.

Vote Consumer Affairs agreed to.

Vote Internal Affairs agreed to.

Vote Energy