Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill

I move, That the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill be now read a second time. Over the adjournment I took my children to the Ōhau Point area where the New Zealand fur seal exists in a truly beautiful spot. There were, in a small creek, over 100 visitors—families with children—watching a group of about 50 baby seals playing in a pond in a waterfall. That was that classic New Zealand visitor experience that is highlighted as one of the wonderful experiences in New Zealand in Lonely Planet’s guidebook. That visit reinforced for me the value in this Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. It provides for a New Zealand fur seal sanctuary at Ōhau Point. It provides for a whale sanctuary over that remarkable piece of coastline and ocean adjacent to the community of Kaikōura. It provides for a new and significant marine reserve, the Hikurangi Marine Reserve. It provides for five customary fishing areas for Ngāi Tahu and the local rūnanga. It also provides for a tightening of, and more sustainable approach to, the recreational fishing along that treasured Kaikōura Coast.

I want to begin by acknowledging the hard work of Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura. This is a process that has gone on for 20 years. The tensions were sufficiently strong 20 years ago in the early discussions, when this community was at loggerheads over proposals for marine protection in Kaikōura. I want to pay tribute to every one of the members of Te Korowai who have come together with the proposals that are in this bill. I also want to acknowledge Colin King, the member of Parliament for Kaikōura. He advocated for these marine protection measures as a candidate, and it is fitting that on a day on which he gives his valedictory speech, this Kaikōura marine management bill is to make further progress through the House.

💬 David Shearer: What did you push him out for? He was a good guy.

Well, unlike the Labour Party, the National Party is rejuvenating, Mr Shearer. We are bringing new, bright talent through the ranks, and that—

💬 David Shearer: Why are you still here, then, Nick Smith?

Well, I am substantially younger than those members opposite. I have not hit the grand old age of 50 yet, and I can promise members opposite that there will be a lot more good bills like this one in my name as we make progress, not just on marine conservation but on other issues.

I do want to acknowledge the work of the Local Government and Environment Committee and its former member Ruth Dyson; Labour, which has been very supportive; and the members of the Green Party, who are supporting the bill. I am not surprised by their typical rhetoric that it is never enough, but I do want to acknowledge their support and the agreement that has been reached to enable us to be able to progress this bill forward. I particularly want to acknowledge both those parties for their cooperation in allowing this bill to be progressed during the term of this Parliament. I actually think there is a pretty strong consensus across this Parliament that New Zealand has more work to do in respect of marine conservation and protection. I think it is the maturity of this Parliament that enables this bill to be progressed, given the long debate that has occurred.

In respect of some of the specific changes that have been made by the select committee in its hard work, I want to acknowledge both Nicky Wagner and Maggie Barry for their hard work in bringing this bill back through. Firstly, there is the proposal to change the name of the group that will have an ongoing oversight of these new marine protections tools on the Kaikōura Coast to guardians. We have guardians for Lake Wānaka, we have guardians at Manapōuri, and we have guardians in areas like the Fiordland coastline. I think it has been a good choice of the committee to use that term to aptly describe the ongoing role of the group that will be involved in providing an oversight of these new marine protection measures. I have also got to acknowledge that the select committee has tightened up the definition of the areas of the whale sanctuary, the New Zealand fur seal sanctuary, customary fishing, and the marine reserve. It is a sign of technology that previously we have not defined a boundary to less than 10 metres, but the select committee has said that, actually, with GPS technology today, we can get a greater degree of accuracy, even in an ocean environment. So that is being tightened up with the definition down to just 1 metre for the boundaries of these new marine protection measures. The amendments by the select committee also clarify the role of the Minister, quite sensibly, and they provide a broader role for the guardians in education around the marine environment. That, I think, is also important and is valued.

I do note in the minority report that the Green Party has made the point that it would like the marine reserve to be bigger, and that is a view I understand. But I also say that where you have these collaborative processes and where you have a community that is heavily divided over marine protection, I think this Parliament needs to respect the trade-offs, the gives and gains they have made. That is why the Government is not prepared to arbitrarily overrule that process and make the sorts of changes to the boundary of the marine reserve that the Green Party has promoted in its minority report.

The bill as reported back from the select committee provides for a review of these marine protection tools after a period of 25 years. This was done in a pragmatic and, in my view, actually pretty cooperative way in discussions with the Labour Party and the Green Party. It is my intention to introduce a Supplementary Order Paper during the Committee stage to bring that down to a period of 10 years. I have discussed that with Sir Mark Solomon, the chair of Ngāi Tahu. He too is happy for that compromise, which enables us to be able to progress this bill.

Much has been said about the Kaikōura area. Few members recognise that the richness of the marine life in the Hikurangi Trench has been measured by scientists to be the most abundant marine life at depths greater than 1,500 metres anywhere in the world. In fact, the truly remarkable figure is that it has about 100 times more species than the second-next area with the most abundant marine life. That, I think, reinforces the value of this marine protection tool. I also want to note this measure in the context of the debate around regional development. If you ever wanted to see a rural town that was, 25 years ago, quite economically challenged, and a town that was struggling, turn into a town that has truly blossomed, it is Kaikōura, with its opportunities that the whale-watching and other marine tourism experiences have added to this community.

This bill is good for the environment. This bill is good for the economy. This bill sets a good precedent for the way in which we develop marine protection. It is provides for the very first whale sanctuary that we have in New Zealand and the very first New Zealand fur seal sanctuary. It is also one that fishermen have already agreed on. They are practising the reduced recreational catch limits. It is a real model that other communities around New Zealand need to look to as we take greater care of the ocean environment. I commend the bill to the House.

Can I first of all acknowledge the drivers of the legislation, the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill, that we are debating today, Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura, the Kaikōura Coastal Marine Guardians. The leadership demonstrated within that group by a variety of people, but specifically Tā Mark Solomon, should be commended by everybody in this House.

This process is unusual. It was actually instigated by the Hon Chris Carter during his term as Minister of Conservation in 2005, in response to a concern from the Kaikōura residents and users of the marine environment that there was very little protection and that the legislative framework we currently operate under does not provide a strong opportunity for people to get together and get an agreement such as we are seeing delivered today. The report from that group was not presented for another 7 years. That is how much effort and time has gone in, but not because of arguments or any deliberate slowing down. There was no filibustering going on amongst this group. It was because of a genuine need to debate issues that are hard and that are contentious.

The report was provided to the then Minister of Conservation and has been delivered by the current Minister of Conservation, the Hon Nick Smith, and I want to commend him for not just his work on this bill but also the way that he has responded to the comments from the Local Government and Environment Committee. We do not always have that response from Ministers, and it is really appreciated when, after the select committee has worked hard on an issue, that issue gets a considered response from the Minister.

The bill does some good things, and I think that is, of course, to be commended. The concerns that were raised at the select committee, however, which the Minister has alluded to in rather a negative fashion—unnecessarily, in my view—were that the agreement that has been reached is not consistent with best practice marine reserve protection. I think that is a tension that future Parliaments need to grapple with and resolve. You can legislate on top of local concerns or you can work with local stakeholders and come up with an agreement that might be less than best practice. There may be other opportunities to promote best practice and remove some of the concerns that local people have. In this instance, it is obviously fishing. We are excluding some areas from pāua or crayfishing. In particular, this area was, of course, a concern to local people. That is livelihood or that is their tradition, but the marine scientists whom we had appear before the select committee said this does not cut the mustard in terms of best practice.

So the decision for the select committee was whether we go part-way towards what would be the best marine sanctuary and accept the consideration of this local committee that, as I said, has been working for 7 years on this legislation, or whether we say no, we would rather hold out for best practice. I think we made the correct decision in saying we should support the hard work and commitment that has been shown by local people, particularly given our understanding that at no time were they guided towards a framework of best practice marine reserve legislation. So, on that basis, we support it.

I do not think that the National Government should be claiming great credit for this. Actually, it has not done any work on it at all. It has been the work of the local people. The fact that it is coming before the House now and that it has been announced at least twice by the Minister of Conservation is really a bit of election year window-dressing to make it look as if the Government gives a toss about environment and conservation issues. I do not think that its track record is very good, and I do not think its future commitments are any better.

The undermining of the Department of Conservation in terms of the funding that has been allocated to it through the Budget, in terms of the staffing resources, and in terms of the total absence of the advocacy role—the core role of the Department of Conservation—is a matter to be ashamed of, and I hope the Minister bows his head in that shame. There have been over 140 job losses at the Department of Conservation. It has really lost its connection with the community, and that it not the fault of any single staff member. It is because the constant restructuring and the centralisation of its functions has meant that that so important ability to understand, relate to, and respond to its community has gone.

We know that provincial New Zealand has been hardest hit by these cuts. In Nelson and Marlborough just this week we have had further job losses announced. So it is really the heart of the Department of Conservation that has been cut out. We know that we have some critically endangered species that the department no longer has either the resource ability or the clout to be able to do anything about.

We know, in particular, of the issue of the critically endangered Māui’s dolphins. There are more National members of Parliament than there are Māui’s dolphins, and I want to change both those figures in the coming weeks. I want the number of National members of Parliament to drop and I want the number of Māui’s dolphins to increase. The very future of that subspecies, the future of the Māui’s dolphin, is at risk because of the inability of the Minister of Conservation to stand up and speak on behalf of that critically endangered species. He has let the Minister for Primary Industries just ride roughshod over not only him on his own but also the future of that species.

We know that in the proposal for the Ruataniwha Dam—the proposal that would turn the Tukituki River toxic—the Minister of Conservation made his views so clearly known that the Department of Conservation withdrew its substantial submission in opposition to the planned change, and the Ruataniwha Dam—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on the second reading of this bill.

Therefore, its submission was watered down to next to nothing. So although this bill should be trumpeted and should be supported, and will certainly be by Labour, it should not be a gold star against the Minister of Conservation, who has done no work in this space. The Kaikōura Coastal Marine Guardians did all this work. At the same time, he is doing so little in areas that need so much attention.

Of course, the most damning aspect of the National Government’s proposals has been one that has had to be put on hold—that is, National’s changes to the Resource Management Act. I want to put on record my appreciation to the Hon Peter Dunne, who actually read the proposed legislation from the National Government, and said National’s proposals to change the Resource Management Act would gut the very principles of the Act—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on the second reading of the bill.

—and therefore he was not able to support it. So this bill is good, but it has to be balanced up against the bad things that are either being done, the terrible things that are not being stood up against, such as protection of the Māui’s dolphins, or the proposals that would gut the very heart of the Resource Management Act.

I just want to return to my commendation of the guardians. It was a very unusual select committee process that we went through in Kaikōura. We had submitter after submitter after submitter from local residents, and Ngāi Tahu representatives, including Tā Mark Solomon. We had representatives from the pāua industry, we had representatives from the crayfish industry and from the wider fishing industry. We had Forest and Bird representatives. We had representatives from whale-watching. So there was a wide range of representatives from the Kaikōura community all saying that they supported this legislation. I do not think that has ever happened before. I do not think we have had what is often a very controversial proposal, to have marine protection, to have exclusion of fishing from a specific area—I do not recall any time when we have had such unanimous support from the local community.

This is the first whale sanctuary of its type. It is the first New Zealand fur seal sanctuary of its type. It includes five customary fishing areas, two tai-ā-pure and three mātaitai. It establishes an advisory committee, and it introduces fishing regulations that are specific to this area and, of course, the overall marine reserve protection.

I want to just conclude by noting my appreciation of the advanced notice that the Minister has given us of his intention to move a Supplementary Order Paper that changes the review period from 25 years to 10 years. Labour will be supporting that Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Minister. I think it is a good move. I think the idea of having a review of these marine protected areas is sound. There must be monitoring. There must be some science behind the review, so that we can look at what we have currently and what we may lose but certainly what we will gain from this marine protection. That will give us a very solid base for the review in 10 years’ time, and I look forward to it. On that basis I am pleased to add my support to this legislation.

E ngā reo, e ngā mana, e rau rangatira mā, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. I rise with enormous pleasure to speak today to the second reading of this Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. It is a piece of legislation that is, as the Minister of Conservation alluded to at the beginning of this debate, unique in the sense that it is collaborative, it is the hard work of the community, and it is community-led and community-driven. Despite the political pot-shots that the member who just resumed her seat could not resist, this has gone ahead despite the Greens and despite Labour. Yes, there was some reluctant cooperation at the end, but only because they acknowledged that the level of work and support that came through—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: We supported it, you stupid woman.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. I object to that. I take offence at what that member has just said.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The member has taken offence to the use of those words. I would ask the member to withdraw that comment.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw—but she is.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Now, the member will stand, withdraw, and apologise for that comment. Once I have ruled, that is the end of the matter and there are no further interjections. The member will now withdraw and apologise for that comment.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw and apologise.

The interchange we have just witnessed is pretty much symptomatic of that member’s contribution to what goes on at the select committee and in this House. I would have to say that the level of bitterness, the level of, I suppose, just jaded over-it-ness of that member is a clear indication that retirement is overdue—long overdue, I would say.

Getting back to the bill, what we have in this piece of legislation is a hard-working community who have looked very long and very hard at the issues that concern them. They are issues that are of great moment to that community. I was in Kaikōura earlier in the year when the Prime Minister, the Minister of Conservation, and the Minister for the Environment made this announcement. I commend the very hard work done over very many years by the local member of Parliament, Colin King, who has done enormous work in this space and has kept the lines of communication and dialogue open in a way that the Opposition ranks, with their diatribe and bitterness, would not have been able to do. It would never have got to this stage under that kind of administration.

We, on the other hand, are very capable of listening to good ideas and of maintaining a position that is consistent and a little bit flexible. Marine reserves are something that the Minister of Conservation has been very committed to for a very long time, as has this Government. To find a collaborative local solution like this was an excellent outcome. The guardians, the kaitiaki, spent many hundreds of hours discussing this amongst themselves in a very broad-ranging group of fishermen, of local tourism providers, of conservationists, and of environmentalists. It was very interesting to see that when it came to the crunch, when we as the Local Government and Environment Committee went to Kaikōura in May, there were very courageous people who came forward, including the local branch of Forest and Bird, which stood against the national Forest and Bird’s view of this, which was quite rigid and doctrinaire. It demanded that it be the same shape as other reserves, etc. There were all kinds of suggestions from high or from a distance, I suppose, which the local group, with very good awareness of what goes on in its community, overrode. That took courage and we commend it for that. Many of their ideas were listened to and picked up.

I suppose that when it comes to collaboration, which is an alien notion to the Opposition parties, we look at something that has been really worked through in a lot of detail. I think to be able to come up with a model that does give us our first whale sanctuary, our first fur seal sanctuary—and, as the Minister indicated, he took his children to see it in the recent adjournment. The select committee stopped off on the way back to Christchurch and had a look at the seal sanctuary, the baby fur seals. What an extraordinary and marvellous spectacle it was. I am extremely pleased that this piece of legislation will allow for that fur seal sanctuary, and for the baby seals in particular—the baby seal creche, we call it—to be safe and able to do their customary route down to the sea, under the road. They go and visit their mothers. It is a time-honoured thing that this particular species has done. It is again an indication of the care and level of attention to detail that the local groups brought to this that that aspect and that particular element for the fur seals was enshrined, and it will be in this legislation.

We have a community-led and community-driven piece of legislation that really covers an area of our territorial sea that includes the exclusive economic zone from the Clarence River, north of Kaikōura, to just north of Gore Bay. It is about 91 kilometres of shoreline and it covers about 4,686 square kilometres. GPS and modern technology is an important aspect of why this marine reserve is the shape it is and why it will work. When fishermen are out there, how do they know when they are in the marine reserve? It will be very carefully gone through and calibrated with GPS. That was something that the select committee did some careful work on because there were some approximations around this that were not actually very helpful to do the demarcation of this reserve. So that was a very helpful outcome from the select committee process.

I think that the advisory committee that advises Ministers on fisheries and conservation matters in Kaikōura has also been a very worthwhile channel of information coming through. The Minister’s decision to put a Supplementary Order Paper to amend the bill in order to have a review within 10 years is very much in keeping with what Sir Mark Solomon and Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura wanted to have happen. Again, we are listening, we are acknowledging, and we are following through with that so that this will be a very workable piece of legislation and a very workable bill.

For those of you who have ever visited Kaikōura, going back probably 20 years—which I have done; I first went there in the mid-1970s—you will know that it was a sleepy hollow. It was a place that really did not have very much of a bright shining future. The whales have changed that. The way that the community has got together and has been revitalised by the marine life and the marine reserves, which this bill will enshrine, has really paved the way for a brighter future. Kaikōura has the resources, the ability, the knowledge, and the passion for what goes on in its area to make this work terrifically well. I think that the gifts and gains part of this collaborative process is something that we could learn about as legislators and hopefully apply to other laws that we bring through as well. It is an absolute success story and a tremendous piece of legislation, which is why I commend this bill to the House.

I would like to put on record my disappointment at that speech from Maggie Barry because the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill is actually a very positive piece of legislation. My colleague Ruth Dyson, whom she chose to attack, was actually saying really good things about the process. I also want to put on record my thanks to the Minister of Conservation for the collaborative way in which he has worked with parties for this piece of legislation. I do not think we needed that level of negativity in that speech on a bill that we support overwhelmingly.

I am disappointed by that, but I also want to thank Maggie Barry for the work she did as chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is a committee that works extremely well together. It is a committee that is very, very busy dealing with a lot of environmental legislation. We had the privilege of travelling to Kaikōura to hear submissions on the bill, and I must say what a beautiful part of the country it is. I actually had never been there before. Ruth Dyson and I arrived at the airport and drove down the Kaikōura Coast, and it was just incredible to be able to drive down and see the seals right there, on the side of the road. We could see the families out enjoying seeing such amazing wildlife so close up, and it really makes you think how lucky we are to live in such a beautiful country. I was really privileged to be able to visit Kaikōura and to get a sense of what we were protecting. To the local member of Parliament, Colin King, who is retiring, I say that I am sure he will enjoy spending a lot more time in a very beautiful part of the country, and I wish him well.

As my colleague Ruth Dyson said, this process was started by Chris Carter, and it is good to see it coming to a conclusion here. We have a marine reserve up just north of Gisborne, where I live. That marine reserve was contentious. There is a view sometimes that marine reserves are locking up the ocean—which I always find odd; the idea is that somehow fish are not going to move in and out of a marine reserve—and there was concern about the impact on local fishing industries, because whenever we do this kind of legislation, we are dealing with a lot of existing rights. A lot of people already use and often make their livelihood out of that part of the ocean, and there is a fear that this would somehow limit their ability to do that.

Well, I remember visiting the marine reserve just north of Gisborne with Chris Carter when he was the Minister of Conservation, 4 years after it had been implemented. There was a young woman there who was doing her PhD. She was going out and putting craypots down outside the marine reserve and inside the marine reserve and then comparing the amount of stock. Only 4 years after the implementation of that particular marine reserve in a part of the country where our crayfish stock is severely depleted and it is a real issue, outside the marine reserve she was getting less than 1 kilogram of legal-sized cray, but inside the marine reserve she was getting more than 30 kilograms of legal-sized cray. So the regeneration that had occurred in the crayfish population in a very short period of time was incredible. Not only that but we started to see the fish stocks coming back to the East Coast that we had not seen in a long time, because we had created a new environment for them. So it is a success story.

I have personally seen the value of marine reserves up my way at home, and I would like to see more of them. I want to mention just one area in particular, and that is the Kermadec Islands. I think that this is an absolute no-brainer that would have support right across the House. The Kermadecs are an absolute treasure for this country, and I honestly expected that this would be—and maybe it is still to come—an announcement from the National Government that it was going to put the Kermadecs into a marine reserve. To me that just makes so much sense. I cannot imagine why you would want to do anything around the Kermadecs that would be limited by having a marine reserve—for example, mining, or anything else. I do not know why we are not also passing legislation to put the Kermadecs into a marine reserve. I certainly know that the Labour Party would strongly support that move, and I hope that the National Government does not have any plans for activities that would be contrary to the protection that a marine reserve would provide around that particularly important taonga for New Zealand.

As I said, we had some concerns going into this legislation, and the chair of the select committee, who has just taken her seat, mentioned Wellington Forest and Bird. I do not think it was being doctrinaire at all in raising concerns about the size of the marine reserve, the shape of the marine reserve, and the science of it. It was not doctrinaire, it was not being rigid, and it was not sitting in Wellington and dictating. It was simply raising very, very valid concerns, which were backed up by science, about why this marine reserve looks so different from other marine reserves. I want to thank Kevin Hackwell from Forest and Bird, who gave that submission, for being a very passionate and a very positive defender of our environment in New Zealand. He does incredible work, and I would never ever say that just because he so passionately believes that we should have so much more of our marine environment in protection—and we agree with him—he needs to be, well, degraded, really, in a way that he cannot respond to.

Then we went down to Kaikōura. I have to say—and Ruth Dyson and I were talking about it while we were travelling back from those select committee hearings—that we were very moved by the submission process. When we sat down and listened to all the various submitters—Mark Solomon in particular, actually—all of whom had come together, and heard their points of view and heard why the marine reserve had ended up being the way it was, and why there was so little of the coastline actually in the marine reserve, I gained a real respect for their position and also gained a far greater understanding of the huge amount of work that had gone into this collaborative process to come up with a solution that had the agreement of all stakeholders. I think Kaikōura is probably one of the parts of the country where there is an exceptionally large number of existing interests that operate in the marine environment, so it was even more difficult to get everyone on board. We heard from crayfishermen, pāua fishermen, the Whale Watch Kaikōura people, local iwi, and local environmental groups. All of them came together and positively supported this legislation. As my colleague Ruth Dyson said, I do not remember a marine reserve process that has ever been so positive and where all the stakeholders have come together and said that this is what they have agreed on, this is what they want, and they are really, really passionate about this process, the marine reserve, and the protections they are putting in place.

The very important message they gave us was that they will build on this marine reserve. Do not think that this is the end of a process and this is all that is going to happen in terms of marine protection in the Kaikōura area. They will build on this, and because of the relationships they have developed through this process and because they have all listened and taken all the existing interests into account and respected people’s points of view and come up with a local solution, that process will not end here. The process will continue and they will build on the protections that have been put in place. I have to say that I was really impressed by that, and I really felt—as someone coming from the outside in—that we needed to respect the huge amount of work that had gone into that local process. Even though we would have loved to have seen more, and even though we went in there with much greater concerns about how different this marine reserve was from the usual ones and about the different process that had been taken, I was genuinely very impressed by what came out of that process and I genuinely respect the wishes of the local people.

One of the issues of concern—and we never actually got an answer to it, and I do not know whether the Minister has an answer to it—was that we found that, in fact, we had to make an amendment to the bill because it was actually 10 or 20 metres out. The marine reserve boundaries we had in the legislation were wrong by about 10 or 20 metres because apparently the Ministry for Primary Industries takes GPS coordinates to only two decimal places instead of three. We asked why the Ministry for Primary Industries takes coordinates to only two decimal places instead of three, and we were just told that it is the Ministry for Primary Industries’ policy. For us it seemed very bizarre that if you could take coordinates to three decimal places and actually get the marine reserve right, you would not do that. Why would you take them to only two decimal places and be 20 metres out?

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: And what did they say? Because that’s how they’d always done it.

They said that is how they had always done it. We thought “OK, that is strange.”, and we never really got a response. It is not the biggest issue in the world, but it was one of those kinds of Gliding On moments, I think, where practicalities kind of went out the window a little bit.

I want to acknowledge the officials and the very, very hard work they did on this legislation. The other concern I will raise is around the policing, because policing of marine reserves is also very important. The best fishing is on the boundaries of marine reserves, so you need to make sure that marine reserves are being policed. I have concerns about the capacity of the Department of Conservation to do that, given the cuts in funding and staff that it has had. You know, a marine reserve and the boundaries are only worth anything if we know they can be policed and those boundaries are not going to be breached. The very department we rely on to do that is under enormous financial pressure and has lost a number of staff, particularly in the regions. The policing of the marine reserve is one of my big concerns.

But I congratulate the Minister on this bill. In fact, I congratulate Parliament on this bill, and I congratulate in particular the guardians, who did all the work in getting us to this point.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to support the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. The Green Party loves our oceans, we love marine reserves, and we love marine protected areas. We have a vision for New Zealand that every New Zealander can have their birthright and go swimming on oil-free beaches, or in a lake or stream, and to not get a one-in-20 chance of getting sick when they swim in some of our monitored rivers. It has a vision that Kiwis can go out and put craypots out with their dads, keep fishing, and—I am a bit of a hopeless surfer—that Kiwis are out there enjoying our surf and our treasured beaches. So I rise to support this bill, which is a small step in the right direction toward protecting the waters, coasts, animals, and species that we as New Zealanders love.

This bill establishes a new marine reserve, whale sanctuary, and other provisions off the Kaikōura coast. The Green members will be voting in support of this bill. We have voted for it throughout. However, in this speech, after the Local Government and Environment Committee report-back, I would like to note some of our concerns around the outcomes we see. First up, we support this bill. We would like to thank the committee, we would like to thank the new chair, Maggie Barry, we would like to thank the officials, and we would like to thank all the submitters, but most of all we would like to thank the local community and Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura which came together over 7 years to negotiate this. They used a gifts and gains approach to negotiate this, and the member is correct that they have been contentious in our country’s past, but this one has had a measure of community support, which we welcome.

It is great to see some marine protections on this coast, given that New Zealand has only 0.41 percent—that is, less than 1 percent—of our waters protected in marine reserves. What we know from all the evidence—from all the science—is that they are important, they contribute to economic development in our regions, they provide jobs for the local communities, and, importantly, they actually work. They do protect the species and the ecosystems within them.

We support it, but let us touch on those three concerns I talked about. The first is that this process and this legislation soon to be passed do not even meet the Department of Conservation and the Ministry for Primary Industries’ Marine Protected Areas Policy and Marine Protected Areas: Classification, Protection Standard and Implementation Guidelines. The Government officials and Ministers who signed it off have done an awful amount of work on these guidelines over the years to make sure we have good, best-practice marine protected area policies like marine reserves, but in this case we actually see it being absolutely disregarded. What I would have preferred to see is a more effective marine protected area being established than what we see here. The first concern is that the guidelines have not been met.

Secondly, when it comes to the Hikurangi Marine Reserve, I think it is fantastic that we are using a marine reserve—the strongest protection measure—to protect this iconic feature of this coast, the Hikurangi Trench. It is an amazing feeding ground for whales and an important part of the local economy. Kaikōura runs off the whale-watching operations, which are responsible for numerous jobs in that community. It is great to be protecting it. However, what we see with this marine reserve is that it must be one of the oddest marine reserves in the country. We are talking about a 12-sided—it is hard to describe—marine reserve, covering only the bottom, the benthos, of the trench. The sides, the important biological and ecological diverse areas where there are a lot of fish, are not protected. We are protecting only the bottom. Only 1.97 kilometres of the coastline is protected. So what you see is this very odd, complex, multisided shape with very little area touching the coast. We have heard about the enforcement and detection fears with such a complex shape.

We also heard from Dr Nick Shears, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, who talked about the boundary effects. In any marine reserve, no matter how big it is, depending on the type of species that are resident in the marine reserve, obviously they are going to move on the boundary, be it a starfish moving slowly, or a crab or a lobster moving maybe a little bit faster, a crayfish, or a fast-swimming finfish, which can swim much faster. What the boundary effects show is that the actual effective size of the marine reserve is reduced by the boundary effects. When you have got such a complex, 12-sided shape, which is very narrow, the boundary effects are magnified many times. What we heard on the select committee from this expert was that the marine reserve’s real impact on the marine environment and those protected species is limited because of those boundary effects.

Lastly, when you look at the new whale sanctuary, it is fantastic that we are protecting the local whale species, but the Green Party would not have stopped just there. We do not think that just a whale sanctuary is needed; what we need is a marine mammal sanctuary. There are other threatened and critically endangered species resident in the area, such as the Hector’s dolphin. By setting up this stand-alone whale sanctuary, there are no powers to protect those other species threatened by the Government’s deep-sea oil drilling agenda—from the gigantic underwater noise explosions of the seismic surveys through to the lethal fishing nets, which still haunt the Hector’s and Māui’s dolphins—and these animals are not being protected, because we are making only a whale sanctuary. The Green Party would have extended this and used the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 provisions to apply a more generous, wider sanctuary encompassing more species.

So, in summary, the Green Party supports this bill. We love our oceans. We want to protect them. We want to see New Zealand do a lot more than have just 0.41 percent of our waters—less than half of 1 percent—protected in marine reserves. We have got concerns around the process and the marine protected areas guidelines were not being used. The Hikurangi Trench is this odd, 12-sided, complex, hard-to-enforce boundary-effects-magnified marine reserve. We think that we could have done better. We could have had a larger, more uniform shape and that is what the experts have advised the committee. Lastly, the whale sanctuary should have been extended to other animals. But we will be voting in favour of the bill. I urge any interested submitters to read our minority report, which, while supporting the bill, points out these concerns in a bit more detail.

On a final point, the clock is ticking down. You also have to ask the rationale as to why this happening right now. It has taken 7 years and now the Government is trying to rush it through, and the reason is that the Government is incredibly weak when it comes to the environment. New Zealanders tune into the TV and they see those dolphins that live in this area—the Hector’s dolphin and their cousin, the Māui’s dolphin. They see a Government that is risking the future of the dolphins, risking the extinction of the dolphins, because of its actions. We see a Government that is happy to still allow lethal fishing nets in their sanctuary. We have a Minister who is happy to sign off on great underwater noise explosions that can deafen the Māui’s dolphins—the seismic surveys. We see a Government that in the last 5 years has covered one-third of the Māui’s dolphin sanctuary in marine mining permits—permits that the Department of Conservation itself says are troubling and likely to degrade the Māui’s dolphin environment. With 55 Māui’s dolphins left, we should not be gambling with their future for the pollution economy.

When it comes to our sea lions, we are seeing them on a pathway to extinction because the actions needed to protect the critically endangered New Zealand sea lions is not happening. The Government, embarrassingly, backed to the hilt—including with public subsidies—Trans-Tasman Resources, with Dame Jenny Shipley as a director. It is a company that even National’s Environmental Protection Authority could not grant the permit to mine the iron sands in the blue whale area—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

Lastly, when it comes to the marine reserves, we have had a target for more than 14 years now to get to 10 percent. The size of this marine reserve is absolutely tiny. It moves only the decimal point when we come to the percentage of New Zealand’s waters being protected. The Green Party will get us to not just 0.41 percent; we will go further than this, the step in the right direction. We will get us to 30 percent. It starts with the Kermadec Islands Marine Reserve, and I have a bill in my name on that, which overnight takes us from 0.41 percent to 15 percent.

This election a lot of people get a choice on how we look after our oceans. We support this bill, but I can commit to the people of New Zealand that we would look after the Māui’s dolphins, and we would look after the whales, the sea lions. We would do more to protect our oceans. Ultimately, it is our birthright as New Zealanders to swim in oil-free seas, to surf our beautiful beaches, and to enjoy a coastline that has not been mined. I want my kids to grow up with a future with Māui’s dolphins not just hanging on, but Māui’s dolphins thriving. That is the future. That is the smarter, greener economy the Green Party is championing, and that is what we will be doing this September. Kia ora.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker, i tēnei wiki o Te Reo Māori. E tika ana kia tukuna atu ngā ruarua kupu hei tīmata i tōku huihuinga ēngari, e tika ana ngā kōrero o ō tātou mātua tūpuna ahakoa he iti, he pounamu. Nā reira, tēnā koutou e te Whare.

[Salutations to you, Mr Speaker, in this week of the Māori language. It is fitting that I utter a few words to begin with but concur with the aptness of the sentiments of our forefathers that even though it is few, it is a treasure. So greetings to you all in the House.]

I have only recently come on to the Local Government and Environment Committee, and I have missed the bulk of the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. In fact, I am quite disappointed that I hear the select committee went down to Kaikōura without me, because if anyone knows the Reo Māori, Kaikōura means to eat crayfish, and I certainly missed out on that opportunity down there. In fact, it is almost culturally insensitive to invite me on to the select committee after a visit to Kaikōura, but maybe for old time’s sake we could have another meeting down there and I would get my colleague Moana Mackey to recommend a good restaurant for us to have our select committee hui in.

The Kaikōura marine and coastal environment has unique biological features and is of historical, cultural, economic, and spiritual significance. It is a thriving tourism industry, as we have heard and as we know through Whale Watch Kaikōura, which contributes some $134 million to the local economy. Despite these attributes, Kaikōura has very little formal coastal and marine protection, hence the establishment through this bill of a marine reserve, a whale sanctuary, a New Zealand fur seal sanctuary, five customary fisheries areas, and an advisory committee on fishing regulations.

We need to acknowledge the work of the local community members, who came together in 2005 and established themselves as Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura—that is, Te Korowai Coastal Marine Guardians—to provide leadership about the use and protection of Kaikōura’s resources. We have heard that they developed the strategy over 7 years and they encompassed iwi representatives, local marine industries, tourism operators, and environmental groups. They set out the vision for the area and reached a consensus on the coastal and marine environment and how it should be managed.

Te Korowai in itself, and I will jump a step here—the bill actually makes use of Ngāi Tahu names in recognition of Ngāi Tahu. I just want to explain about the name Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura. Te Tai o Marokura means the seas or the waters of Marokura. Te Korowai is a cloak. It was often used to lay down over something, as an analogy for ownership or protection or guardianship over whatever it was laid over. So Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura literally means the cloak of Te Tai o Marokura. Culturally, it means to lay the cloak or mantle of Ngāti Kuri, who are the iwi of that area, over Te Tai o Marokura, caring for the seas around Kaikōura. I want to also make a distinction in relation to Ngāti Kuri around Kaikōura. There is also Ngāti Kurī up where I come from, in Muriwhenua, who are the iwi around Cape Reinga, Te Rerenga Wairua.

Another Māori name that has been used in this bill is Te Whata-Kai-o-Rakihouia. A whata is a raised platform where food was stored on top of it. Making reference to the evidence of Maurice Manawatu, on behalf of Te Rūnanga o Kaikōura and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu when they submitted to the Canterbury Regional Council, they explained the name of Te Whata-Kai-o-Rakihouia. They say in their records that Waitaha were the first people to have arrived at Te Waipounamu. Waitaha arrived under the leadership of Rākaihautū in the Uruao waka at Whakatū, which is Nelson. They arrived there in about AD 850. From here, Rākaihautū led a party inland and down the island, but his son was Rakihouia. Rakihouia led another party in the Uruao waka, down the east coast, and landed at Kaikōura in the area that we have been talking about—the east coast of the South Island. Along the cliffs at Kaikōura, Rakihouia and his wife Tapuiti were busy gathering food. Men were lowered down the cliffs in that area with flax ropes to secure eggs and young birds from the nests there, and the precipitous seafront has since borne the general name of Te Whata-Kai-o-Rakihouia—the Lofty Storehouses of Rakihouia. This gives a bit of context around at least one of the names that is mentioned in this bill, and it also goes back to what I said earlier, that this area has cultural and spiritual significance to the tribes—Ngāti Kuri, in particular—down there in Kaikōura.

We heard from the Minister about the Hikurangi Trench, and I just want to endorse what he has said about it in terms of the biomass that is in the Hikurangi Trench, which is part of the reserve area. Just taking a report from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) website, it talks about the Kaikōura Canyon, which is part of the Hikurangi Trench. It says: “New Zealand’s Kaikoura Canyon is a ‘biodiversity hotspot’ containing far more life than seen before at such depths.” When this area, the Hikurangi Trench, was surveyed, NIWA took digital photographs in different parts of the canyon, at various depths. The photographs were analysed to determine the abundance of large invertebrates and fish, as well as what they call levinspirin, which are signs of life on or beneath the sediment surface. I hope I pronounced that correctly.

A digital map of the floor of the Kaikōura Canyon was generated using bathymetric data. It was collected during the voyage by a multi-beam echo sounder. I am not sure whether many people know what a multi-beam echo sounder is. Certainly not many people have one of those in their garage, next to the lawnmower, I am sure. But this data was then used to estimate the total area of the canyon that could be considered to be a biomass hotspot. The analysis of fish abundance was undertaken using information gathered from the photographs and trawls taken during the voyage, as well as the bottom trawl. But what the outcome of this said is that the Kaikōura Canyon is one of the most productive benthic—which means ocean floor—deep-sea habitats yet described, exceeding by 100 times the highest biomass measured for large invertebrate at those particular depths. This productivity may contribute significantly to the surrounding ecosystem, which includes deep commercial fisheries for hoki and orange roughy, which in itself is a reason why this reserve, the Hikurangi Reserve, has been created.

I also agree with what Gareth Hughes said about the shape of the Hikurangi Reserve and the fact that less than 2 kilometres of coastline is part of this reserve. I take his point that the odd shape of the reserve boundaries tends to undo a bit of the good of the boundary. However, we have also heard how the boundary, the GPS coordinates, were measured down to two decimal places, which gave it a margin of error of 10 to 20 metres in terms of any particular position on that boundary. The select committee has changed that so that it now measures down to three decimal places, with a margin of error of about 1 metre.

There is also a little issue with slipways in the reserve where people would launch their boats. We had to make a change because if people launched their boats and there was a rock or a bit of seaweed in the way of launching the boat, they were not actually allowed to move that rock or that bit of seaweed. Anyone who did so would have broken the law, so it was best decided that instead of putting people into that sort of situation, we would change it so that the slipways were taken out of the reserve area. It encompasses only a very small area of some 20 square metres or so. We thought that instead of putting people in the situation where they may be breaking the law by removing rocks or seaweed or debris from the slipways, we would just take the slipways out of that reserve area.

I am proud to be part of a Labour Party that is supporting this bill. It is supporting the economic, the cultural, and the spiritual well-being of Ngāti Kuri and Ngāi Tahu in the Kaikōura area. Kia ora.

I am pleased to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. Having sat on the Local Government and Environment Committee for this legislation, can I just say that this is one of the more pleasing pieces of legislation that we have had to consider in the last 3 years. Across all parties there was a real commitment to ensure that this bill progressed, and it progressed positively, for the best outcome of the marine environment of Kaikōura, that special place, and down the coast of the Kaikōura area.

As a select committee we visited Kaikōura to hear submissions, and we were all incredibly impressed with what the community had done there. Across whole areas of the community over 7 years, Te Korowai o Te Tai Marokura, the marine group, had put it together—7 years of consultation. I was impressed to see submissions there from the local cray fishermen and from the pāua divers, who are directly affected by all of this, of course, with their livelihood and their income. They were on board with it, as well. So at the end of the day this will improve the whole marine environment down the coast there for the mutual benefit of everyone.

The tourism aspect is immense in Kaikōura now with the whale-watching and the New Zealand fur seals there, and people are just wanting to go there to see the marvels of nature and see what is so abundant there. There is a significant underwater canyon out off the Kaikōura Coast that is so abundant with fish life and all sorts of marine life and what that offers—and it is the breeding ground for the whales, which stay there because of the abundance of plankton and the abundance of food—and that incredibly deep canyon provides such a marvellous area for New Zealand to cherish. We were a little disappointed, of course, that there were comments about the extent of the boundaries of that canyon and whether they went far enough. However, New Zealand First is certainly of the belief that they are sufficient. They do represent a very, very significant area of ocean out off the coast, and by having that, it certainly will provide the basis of ensuring that the whales and other marine life in the area there are given an incredibly important area of water.

Similarly, we went as a select committee to the breeding ground—or not so much the breeding ground, but the creche, as they call it—for the fur seal pups. It was marvellous to go up the inlet and up the stream—it is about a 5-minute walk off the main highway there—to see 40 or 50 pups, or maybe more, frolicking in several pools there. Apparently, what the pups do is they leave the mothers, they leave the parents, and they go up the stream during the day while the parents are off getting food and all that sort of thing. The young pups were all playing around and jumping around and having a great time. It was just marvellous—marvellous—to see, and that is all included in the sanctuary. It is amazing. So the whole area of the New Zealand fur seal colony there is protected under this bill as well. Again, that is just such a marvellous thing, which New Zealand can cherish.

Can I also pay homage to Ngāi Tahu and local iwi and hapū, who, under the leadership of Sir Mark Solomon and many other leaders in the Māori community there, have put so much effort into this legislation. Again, it was very heartening to see how much they were involved in it and how there was so much buy-in from them, working in with the cray fishermen, working in with the pāua divers, working in with the tourist operators, and working in with all sorts of other interests there.

Can I especially pay tribute to the Department of Conservation people in Kaikōura, who took us and showed us the various areas of the sanctuaries and the marine colonies. What a marvellous job the Department of Conservation is doing in that area. I also pay tribute to the fisheries inspectors in the area. They are just tremendous people, they were great hosts that day, and they really are dedicated to what they are doing in the area, and they are locals. You know, they are working with the locals, and they are locals. They are part of the local community, but they are very much providing that Government input, that legislative, regulatory input, and ensuring that it all works well for everyone. So I was very, very pleased about the collaboration.

As we have heard from other speakers, this would probably be the most significant collaboration across a community in terms of developing a marine reserve, a whale sanctuary, and other things such as customary fishing areas and an advisory committee to oversee it. This would probably be the most comprehensive ever marine reserve in New Zealand, and it was very, very heartening to see.

New Zealand First absolutely does support those initiatives, and we were very pleased that the select committee was very collaborative in being able to work through it. However, there was one area that we questioned, and it was about those coordinates under the GPS. I think officials are still looking into that matter, because there is no real reason why those coordinates could not go to three decimal places to ensure—

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Absolutely.

What was that?

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: No, you’re right—absolutely.

Yes—to ensure that there are no anomalies or errors, or that certain rock areas or whatever fall just outside the area simply because we did not go to a third digit. I hope that common sense would prevail. As we all know, New Zealand First’s policies are common sense—it is just common sense. As you will see on the billboards around New Zealand in the coming weeks, it is common sense that we apply common sense, and in this case it would be common sense to just simply add one more decimal place and make sure that these particular boundaries in these particular designated areas are not 20, 30, or 50 metres away from the area they are supposed to be protecting.

In saying all this, we are increasingly aware of the fact that we are the guardians. Humans are the guardians of our planet, the guardians of our oceans, and the guardians of our land. In this case it is most important that we do all we can to ensure that what we are guardians of is taken care of. The number of marine reserves around New Zealand are increasing, from the very first one at Goat Island, up on the Leigh coast north of Auckland, which is now a marvellous area, to inner-city, urban ones, such as at Long Bay on the North Shore—which, again, has been marvellous in the Long Bay area—and many others around the coast. I visited the one in Akaroa, which was established and extended just in the last year. Again, it is very, very significant.

But it is important that at the same time we do not neglect other issues that are outside the marine reserves. Such an issue has been raised in this House today, with the Māui’s dolphins. I am very, very disheartened by the snail pace progress that has been made to protect the wonderful little Māui’s dolphins. When you look at these beautiful little creatures, there are only 55 left of them in the world. They are all in New Zealand, and they are mainly off the west coast of the North Island, running down from Manukau Harbour down to Taranaki and, indeed, perhaps some are even down as far as Whanganui. When we are looking at marine reserves and at what we are doing here, the onus is also on us to look at the wider impact on our oceans. We need to ensure that with beautiful little creatures like this, and there are only 55 left of them left, we have got to do something to protect them.

So, similarly, in New Zealand First will be working and doing our darnedest post-election, if we are in any position to influence the Government of the day, to ensure that a much faster pace is taken in terms of protecting the Māui’s dolphins. Indeed, we will extend that protection to the Hector’s dolphins, too—they are under threat, but not under the same level of threat—and ensure that New Zealand does play its part internationally in terms of protecting our marine species and our marine life.

The last dolphins that went into extinction were in China, on the Yangtze River—the round-nosed dolphin, I think it was called. It would be devastating for New Zealand’s image if the next species of dolphin that was to become extinct was in New Zealand, after China. That would be a terrible message. We cannot allow that.

Today I was very pleased to meet with Professor Elizabeth Slooten and Gemma McGrath—and indeed, in the past, it was Christine Rose—who are doing a marvellous job on working to protect the Māui’s dolphins. In their survey we hear that New Zealanders overwhelmingly—80-something percent of New Zealanders—say that we have do something about this and that we have do something about it very soon. So New Zealand First commends this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. Tēnā koutou e ngā rangatira huri rauna i tō tātou Whare i roto i tēnei wiki o Te Reo Māori.

[Greetings to you, Mr Speaker, and to you collectively, the revered throughout our House, in this, the week of the Māori language.]

I am very pleased to make my contribution at this second reading of the Kaikoura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. I do also endorse the spirit of cooperation and collaboration that has been embodied in this bill, right from its beginnings and through the hard work of Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura, and all of the stakeholders who were involved in that process. Although I am not a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, as the member for Te Tai Tonga, I also have deep connections to Kaikōura through whakapapa, through Ngāti Kuri, and I have also been able to enjoy all the various aspects of fishing that the whānau enjoys along that beautiful coastline.

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: I’ve enjoyed the products.

My colleague here, Mr Mallard, has enjoyed a good kai, as well. I am happy to host my whanaunga Kelvin. Any time he wants to come down there, we will make sure he has a good hākari.

This has been a collaborative approach from the community. I was pleased to be involved with Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura in its early stages, back in 2005, I think, when I was working for our own iwi in our fisheries. I am familiar with a lot of the commercial stakeholders—the pāua management company, the cray or lobster management company, the wet fish stakeholders, the customary fisheries groups, and also the recreational groups. It is definitely great to see this work come to fruition and I know that the fisheries were just one of many stakeholders. We can add in the tourism industry, which is flourishing and has totally transformed the Kaikōura township over the last—coming up to—30 years. There are also the environmental groups and, of course, the wider community. That spirit of cooperation has flowed on, and I acknowledge the work of the local member, Colin King—it is sad for him to be departing this House, but I am sure I wish him well and I am looking forward to his valedictory speech—and also the cooperation that flowed through to the select committee. I also acknowledge the Minister for his amendments, which he will be putting through in the Committee of the whole House stage.

This is a great initiative in terms of management measures for the marine environment, conservation, and protection. I commend the select committee for some very practical amendments that it has made—specifically, the place names. I acknowledge my colleague Mr Davis, whose abilities in Te Reo far exceed my own and who gave very thoughtful and helpful translations for the names. The amendments that have been made to the names reflect more of the Ngāi Tahu mita or, perhaps, the Ngāi Tahu way they would phrase certain place names. Those changes have been made and acknowledged in the bill. That is quite appropriate, being that this is Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori—Māori Language Week.

I do also commend the work of the committee for adding greater specificity to the actual boundaries of the marine sanctuary and reserve areas. By being more specific, it has protected my very secret mark for bluenose. There are some really good fishing spots there. By adding greater specificity to the areas, it is very good for the local fishermen as well, so they know exactly where they can fish and where they are not allowed to fish. So it is great that the committee was able to hone in on those areas. Much has been mentioned about the size and the unusual shape of the reserve area. One marvels, really, at the aquatic life that is in such abundance through the Hikurangi Trench. It is obviously a feeding area and a navigation area for whales and much other aquatic life.

We also know the fact that the boundaries did not include the sides of the trench or certain areas of the Hikurangi. I believe that this is a good thing because in certain instances there may be aquatic life or species that could actually be of benefit to New Zealand. I say that only to the extent that I am aware from my past experience working in fisheries that there is certain aquatic life, such as certain sea sponges, that is unique to that area. The research is ongoing, but scientifically they have shown unique properties. One such property is cancer-fighting properties from certain sea sponges and other aquatic life—in this instance, it was a sea sponge. We do not necessary want to close the door on what might aid research to aid the world. I know that the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research is doing a lot of research into understanding the particular sea sponge that comes from that particular part of the Kaikōura Coast. It is the only place in the world where this particular sea sponge is found. So we do not necessarily want to close the door on what might be very much groundbreaking research on unique attributes found in this particular species of sea sponge. So I can understand, to that extent, that a complete reserve status throughout all dimensions of the whole entire trench could, indeed, preclude what could be groundbreaking scientific discoveries.

I would also like to touch on the regional development opportunities. Kaikōura itself, as a township, is a great example of regional economic development. We know the history of Whale Watch Kaikōura and the families of, in particular, the Kāti Kuri hapū who were involved in establishing the whale watching business. Through the establishment of that business, it has transformed the economy of that whole township. I do acknowledge also the work of the late Hon Parekura Horomia. Yes, there were five families who did mortgage their houses to actually set up that Whale Watch business, but it was the good work of the Hon Parekura Horomia through the Community Employment Group—

💬 Hon Trevor Mallard: And do you know who helped a lot? The Minister in charge of regional development at the time, Annette King—she gave the first grant.

—and the very good Minister at that time, the Hon Annette King, who gave the first grant through the Community Employment Group that gave the tautoko to actually get that Whale Watch business established. So I do acknowledge that work, which has aided in the regional economy. Of course, everyone in the Kaikōura community wants to protect their coastline and they all support these measures. Just in closing, I had a chat to a cousin of mine. I said: “What do you reckon about this bill, cuz?”. He said to me that this bill is a great bill—just paraphrasing his words. He said: “Cuz, it saves our kai moana.” We know how important to the taiāpure the mātaitai measures that are contained in this bill are. That is going to really strengthen, protect, and enhance the customary fisheries along the coast, and so we support that. And, finally, I hope that this piece of legislation is a model that we can apply around the country. If we can go up to Tai Tokerau and further north to the Kermadecs and apply the same marine management reserves there, all the best. Kia ora tātou.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. E ngā mana, e ngā reo, e ngā waka e rarau mai nei, tēnā koutou katoa.

[Greetings to you, the Speaker of the House, and to you all, the powers, voices, and canoes settling in here.]

I am pleased to take a call on the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. The Green Party supports the creation of more marine protected areas around New Zealand and the protections contained in this bill. That is why we are supporting it, because it does advance marine conservation. In New Zealand we are about a century behind on protection at sea compared with where we are on protecting land. New Zealanders generally think that about one-third of our marine area is protected, according to a survey that the World Wide Fund did in 2011, but, in fact, less than 0.5 percent of our waters are protected as marine reserves. So this bill is a small step towards improving that statistic, but, as my colleague Gareth Hughes noted, we do have some concerns about it and believe that it does not go far enough.

Before I move on to that, I would just like to acknowledge, as others have done, the huge amount of work that Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura did in discussing and identifying areas for protection and coming up with the package that has been put forward in this bill. I certainly enjoyed the visit that the select committee made to the Kaikōura area, hearing the strong submissions from members of Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura and other members of the community about the bill, because when law puts in place the views of the community, it is generally good law.

But this bill could have been improved if the marine protected areas guidelines that were developed by the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Department of Conservation had actually been applied to the process of identifying areas for protection as marine reserves and dealing with their boundaries. It is in that area that we have some significant concerns, because, as the Minister of Conservation noted, the Kaikōura Canyon is nationally and internationally recognised as a hotspot of biodiversity. When you apply the marine protected area guidelines, that is about ensuring that marine reserves protect a representative range of the biodiversity that is present. The guidelines also talk about avoiding edge effects, and here we have a very odd-shaped marine reserve with two lobes and about 12 different sides within a very irregular shape that submitters have said will cause difficulties with enforcement and will also compound the problem of edge effects. It is widely known with a lot of the marine reserves here and overseas that fishers will often sit on the outer boundary of the reserve because the reserve assists in increasing marine life, obviously. That fishing will have an impact on species within the reserve. Where you have an odd-shaped reserve that in parts is less than a kilometre wide, those edge effects will be intensified because of the very odd boundaries. That will limit the effectiveness of the reserve.

Those concerns were set out in strong submissions by the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society’s national office and the Marine Sciences Society. Like Moana Mackey from Labour, I strongly reject the claim by Maggie Barry that the submission by Forest and Bird was doctrinaire, because it was based on very sound science about the impact of edge effects and about international best practice in terms of marine reserve design. It was very disappointing that the statutory agencies involved in the Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura forum process, in that collaborative process, did not help the forum to implement best-practice guidelines or the Marine Protected Areas Policy.

We applaud the change that the Minister proposes to bring in a Supplementary Order Paper to reduce the review period from 25 years to 10 years, and we hope that that review will address these issues of the extremely complex, 12-sided boundary and the fact that the reserve does not protect all the areas that it should do. The experience around New Zealand has been that where you have had significant opposition to the establishment of marine reserves, that has generally changed after they have been established, and you have had strong community support. The Leigh Marine Reserve from Cape Rodney to Ōkākari Point—there was a lot of opposition to that. Yet when the Department of Conservation and others did a study in 2008, they identified that over 375,000 people visited that marine reserve annually, and they contributed $18.6 million a year to the local economy.

So the fact is that this Hikurangi Marine Reserve protects less than 2 kilometres of the coast, which is much less than any other marine reserve in New Zealand in terms of the length of coast protected. Even the tiny postage stamp Pōhatu Marine Reserve, or Flea Bay, in Canterbury, which is only 215 hectares in size, protects nearly 7 kilometres of coastline. Here, with the Hikurangi Marine Reserve, it is going to protect less than only 2 kilometres. That is overlooking a major opportunity for recreational tourism, because the coast at Kaikōura is very accessible, given that the State highway runs along it. As we have seen with the Tonga Island Marine Reserve in Abel Tasman National Park, that resulted in a lot more visitors to the Abel Tasman, more accommodation providers establishing, more water taxi operators, and more kayak companies. So there was a major boost in economic activity associated with marine protection, and the same at Leigh. I think that if the reserve had been bigger along the coast so that it was easily accessible to people wanting to go diving and snorkelling and to see marine life where it is unfished, that would have increased the significant benefits that Kaikōura already has from nature-based tourism around the whale-watching operation. So bringing that review period down to 10 years is certainly a good idea because we hope that the community will recognise that there are substantial economic, as well as ecological, benefits from increasing the marine reserve.

We certainly support the collaborative process that has operated here, but we think that it definitely needs to occur within the framework of the national policy—the Marine Protected Areas Policy—where you have scientists on the forum, because there were not any scientists on Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura. We note in the regulatory impact statement of the bill that Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura identified the marine reserve as an area that would not have a major impact on fishing activity. So that focus on ensuring that the fishers are not too badly affected by the marine reserve and the lack of a strong science input has, I think, led to the very odd boundaries and the strange, two-lobe shape of the reserve, and the fact that it does not protect a lot of the canyon walls above 800 metres depth and that it has excluded areas like some critical seamounts, which we know are a hotspot for biodiversity.

So the opportunity for the review is where we hope some of the shortcomings in the marine reserve will be addressed, but it is a bill that we support because it does take marine conservation forward. Thank you.

Bill read a second time.

Name changed to Kaikōura (Te Tai o Marokura) Marine Management Bill.

The House adjourned at 12.22 p.m. (Wednesday)