Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill

When we were debating this last, we were up to a National Party call. I understand it is a split call, and so I call Todd Muller, with a bell at one minute.

For how many minutes, Madam Deputy Speaker?

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Five minutes.

Five. Very good.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Bell at one.

OK. That’s very good. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for the opportunity to just say a few words in support of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill in the first reading that we started a week or so ago. Obviously, we signalled that we’re going to support it, but I do just want to call out poor process, which is becoming a consistent theme for this Government, and particularly for Minister Hipkins.

When I looked through the regulatory impact statement, there was a section here which talked about key limitations of the analysis of the bill’s fit for purpose. It says that the key constraint in preparing the policy proposals was time frame. This means that the proposals that are listed in this bill could not be tested. They had not allowed any time for consultation with iwi and stakeholders. And then the reason given for that from the Government is their intense legislative programme. That’s what they have signalled is the reason why there has been no stakeholder engagement and the suggestions that are enabled in this legislation have not been tested.

I mean, this is completely woeful. We sit on the Environment Committee. In the last year, we’ve had the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill, which we had to look at a couple of times because we didn’t quite get the detail right; the America’s Cup Road Stopping Bill, which is about two clauses; the Litter (Increased Infringement Fee) Amendment Bill; and the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill—high-order issues! Clearly, we’re under the pump on the Environment Committee, to the extent that the legislative programme is so packed that we’ve got to put this bill in front of the House without testing it with any stakeholders, and with the quality assurance from the Government officials saying, “Well, actually, we don’t actually know whether these proposals are going to work, because they haven’t been tested.”

That talks to extraordinarily poor process. In fact, this Government wouldn’t know good process if they tripped over it. They’re not under pressure, had nothing in front of the Environment Committee, and have a new bill that’s been pushed through by Eugenie Sage that hasn’t been tested with stakeholders, hasn’t been tested with iwi—and their own regulatory impact statement says, “Actually, we can’t even be sure this will work, because we haven’t tested the proposals.” Now, we’ll support it, because the intent is in the right direction, but be assured we will interrogate this fiercely and do what the Government should have done before they put the first reading up in the first place. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill at first reading. The objectives of this bill are to “improve the workability of [the] fisheries management tools in the Conservation Act 1987” to “provide a complete and effective toolbox for … fisheries management”, and on the surface, the aims in this bill are good. Our indigenous freshwater fish are in need of protection. In 2013, nearly three-quarters of our indigenous freshwater fish were at risk of extinction, and 50 percent of those are not found anywhere else in the world, so the stakes are really high. And there are dozens of fish that are native to New Zealand—57 species, in fact, from slithering eels to tiny whitebait, each of them entirely odd, like the prehistoric boneless fish known as the vampire of the sea because it bleeds the blood out of its prey. It’s an ancient, spineless, endangered species that literally sucks the life of out of its host, leaving it an empty, useless shell. It’s a New Zealand First—I mean, sorry, a New Zealand fish, totally a New Zealand fish, called the lamprey, and it’s weird and wonderful and cool, and it is worthy of protection.

We acknowledge that these weird, wonderful, and special indigenous fish are precious, and we will support this bill through to select committee, but we do have some serious concerns, as my colleague Todd Muller pointed out, about the potential overreach—the unstated impacts this bill may have on our recreational fishers and our rural communities. Commercial whitebaiters, rural water users, and fishermen feel that they are adversely affected by this bill. They feel aggrieved that they have not been consulted. They feel that the excuse for no consultation—that the fact that it couldn’t happen was because of the legislative timetable—was feeble.

Fish & Game, who represent thousands of people across New Zealand, have not been consulted, despite the impact that this bill will have on them, and I’d say that this is unbelievable, but given the previous actions of this Government, the lack of consultation is entirely believable. One hundred and ten thousand anglers are represented by Fish & Game, so the unintended—or otherwise—effects of this bill will impact on a large number of people. So the question is: does this bill undermine the interests of Fish & Game? With no consultation from the Minister of Conservation, Fish & Game had to hire a lawyer to get an opinion on this question. The advice back wasn’t great. Fish & Game’s lawyer Geoffrey Palmer’s legal opinion says that “aspects of the reforms impact directly and negatively on Fish & Game”. He goes on to say he considers this bill has the potential to seriously impact on Fish & Game’s interests.

💬 Hon Member: Who paid him for that?

As we can see, tensions are high. And there needs to be a balance between protecting our environment, saving our native fish species, and allowing New Zealanders to enjoy access to nature, to the environment, as they’ve been doing for hundreds of years. It’s not one or the other, like the Greens would have us believe. In the select committee’s process, we will need to hear the vital evidence from Fish & Game, private landowners, recreational fishers, and the public. We will take their concerns seriously, as it is the first time that they will be heard. With that in mind, we look forward to scrutinising this bill at select committee. Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. It’s a pleasure to rise to speak on this bill. It will be a very short contribution. I want to congratulate the Hon Eugenie Sage, Minister of Conservation, for bringing this bill, because in fact we haven’t really got anything that protects our freshwater indigenous fish in this country. This bill is overdue and it’s important, because we actually get to turn our sights to our indigenous freshwater fish species in this country.

E Te Mana Whakawā, you may not be aware that apparently all fish are equal, but some fish are more equal than others. We have many indigenous sea fish, and we have lots and lots of marine fish, which have over 600 pieces of legislation or regulation that protect them. In this country we have one piece that protects indigenous freshwater fish, and that fish is extinct. So it is due time that we pay heed to the freshwater fish in this country. We would say, “He iti pounamu”—many of them are little but precious.

So, very briefly, this bill, as the name would surely suggest, specifically looks at indigenous freshwater fish, and it clarifies the name of indigenous freshwater fish as opposed to freshwater fish. It looks at changing the principal Act, the Conservation Act 1987, to tidy up a whole pile of things. When we hear the Opposition talk about the regulatory impact statement and the timing issues—let’s not forget that the Opposition, when in Government, didn’t even bother with some pieces of legislation having a regulatory impact statement at all—we just need to remember that this bill is a tidy-up. It’s a fix-up. It’s a protection for our freshwater fish within conservation areas. Really, it seeks to improve the management of our indigenous freshwater fish and it is, essentially, a conversation that we are beginning to have about fish such as whitebait and tuna, which are very important to us all as Kiwis.

So it is the beginning of the conversation. I am looking forward absolutely to the select committee process, and, as the Opposition knows, we take this seriously. We look forward to the contributions of the community. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill that National is supporting to select committee. We’re a party of practical environmentalists and conservationists and so, firstly, we support the view of the Government that our indigenous fish are the next sensible order of priority in terms of New Zealand’s indigenous species. We’re actually very proud of our record in Government in turning around a number of species that were on the road to extinction. For instance, our Battle for our Birds saw the numbers of takahē in our period in Government more than double, despite the fact that they had been in constant decline for the previous 20 years. I note my passionate colleague about conservation, Sarah Dowie—I’m sure she’s delighted with the efforts of her own constituents around the recovery of the kākāpō and the brilliant work that has been done in that regard. When we look in the North Island at the efforts of our Government to recover a really precious bird—my favourite bird, the kōkako, in terms of its call—again, we’ve seen those numbers switch.

Then I want to acknowledge my colleague Maggie Barry, who launched a tremendous campaign around the country, a War on Weeds, and a real focus on plants. Nobody would be surprised that Maggie Barry, with her experience and passion for plants through her long experience with the garden show, made a real focus of protecting those plants that are special to New Zealand. And so it is a logical progression, having worked on the birds, having worked on the plants, to put this focus on our indigenous freshwater fish.

I do want to challenge members opposite who were keen to make disparaging comments about National’s record on fresh water. I would remind them that the very first National policy statement on fresh water was introduced by our Government. It makes specific mention of the importance of protecting our indigenous freshwater fish, and it’s particularly focused on the issue of sediment, because I think anybody who was scientifically focused on this issue would realise that the management of sediment is actually at the core of us giving our indigenous fish a better chance of survival.

I’d also note that when the previous National Government passed the national Environmental Reporting Act that required our collective Government agencies to produce a comprehensive state of the environment report, it did give credit in saying that in areas like birds and plants we were doing well, but did highlight the fact that we were going backwards on indigenous fish, and I see this additional focus being a logical response to that.

The areas where National does want to scrutinise this bill quite heavily are the extent of the regulation-making powers, because we are a party that wants to ensure that the environmental measures are practical for people like our farming communities and those that are passionate about whitebaiting. I have a father-in-law who is absolutely passionate about his whitebaiting. He’ll be out there in the rivers of Golden Bay right now, collecting a worth, and I confess to getting a dividend from that. This bill is going to make changes to whitebaiting, and I’d say that every New Zealander who has an interest in whitebaiting will be wanting to ensure that the extra regulatory powers that we are giving to the Department of Conservation around those freshwater fisheries regulations ensure that our whitebaiting communities are actually going to be consulted and engaged. We all want to enjoy a good feed of whitebait, but we equally have a duty to ensure our grandchildren in a hundred years’ time will be able to enjoy a good feed of whitebait.

The last point I would make is in respect of the practical issues for our farming communities in the regulation-making powers around allowing access for Government officials on to farmers’ land. Again, they are provisions that we want to scrutinise in the select committee stage to ensure that in finding that balance between protecting that which makes New Zealand special, we are also respectful of private property rights and the practical job that our farmers have, from Kaitāia to Bluff, in managing their properties as we go about this challenge.

So I commend the Minister for bringing the bill to the House, and look forward to the serious engagement at the select committee to ensure that we get the detail right.

E Te Māngai, he mihi mahana ki Te Whare i Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori; tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

[Mr Speaker, warm greetings to the House in Māori Language Week; greetings, greetings, greetings to all.]

Thank you for the opportunity to stand and speak on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. Learning the fact that we don’t have as many protections in this space as we ought to has been an interesting case. Also, I was interested to learn that this fish right here [Holds up illustration], the white spotted grayling—

💬 Andrew Bayly: Can’t see it. Can’t see it.

You can google it later, Andrew.

💬 SPEAKER: Order!

You can see that this is the only one that has actually been listed as being protected, and in fact, that fish is now extinct. So it proves that there is important space for there to be greater protections for freshwater fish. New Zealand has 77 species of freshwater fish, and 56 of those are indigenous.

Interestingly enough, I learnt a lot about freshwater fish while completing my Master’s at Canterbury University, because one of the big issues that came up while looking into the tino rangatiratanga of Ngāi Tahu rūnaka, when interviewing each of those, was the fact that those farmers were clearing out their drains at times when the tuna were swimming up to lay their eggs, and also when they were breeding. The time of the year that the farmers were undertaking this was hugely detrimental to the tuna population in parts of Canterbury. Only through Ngāi Tahu receiving their settlement and being able to go to the Environment Court and take this issue to a court were they able to receive an outcome that enabled a greater working relationship between iwi and farmers to make sure that those regular duties that did need to be taking place were being done at times of the breeding cycle that weren’t detrimental to the tuna breeding population. And that was seen as a great outcome for the Ngāi Tahu settlement, to have that ability to do that.

So it’s great to see a bill that now looks more closely at how that will be working and how we will be protecting freshwater fish species within New Zealand. I would like to note that there are particular implications for the Treaty settlement legislation as well, noting that freshwater fisheries are a vital resource for most iwi who have been significantly affected by the decline of their fisheries. Always, too, when looking at cultural settlements and cultural redress in a Treaty settlement package, freshwater fisheries are therefore key issues in many of those Treaty settlement packages.

So it’s good to see that this bill will specifically improve the overall tool box for protecting, managing, and restoring fisheries and taonga species that are of such importance to iwi. A complete and effective tool box will give the Crown more ability to work closely with iwi in the restoration of local fisheries. In the case that I’ve already mentioned, it also enables a better working relationship at a practical level between farmers who are utilising the land and iwi who want to access those freshwater fisheries.

So I look forward to a day when we have more protected fish that aren’t actually extinct, and I look forward to the rigorous debate and further submissions that we will see during the select committee process. E Te Māngai, I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe, e Te Mana Whakawā. I want to remind the last speaker, Virginia Andersen, that we all suffer when the fish species suffer—not just sectors of our community; the whole community suffers.

I’ll take a brief call on the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. I think it’s certainly worthy of supporting to the select committee, and I take note of all those points that have previously been made, particularly by this side of the House, around some of the nervousness that might occur around what may happen to this bill in the course of it going through the Environment Committee.

I, like a number of the previous speakers, if I ever had time, would be a very keen whitebaiter. I don’t have the patience for it, unfortunately. And that’s not because we don’t catch any; it’s just because I don’t have the patience to sit down there and watch them swimming past the end of the net.

There are a couple of things I want to raise in here, and they relate to an issue that was raised very early in the piece by the Minister David Parker. He said that property rights never gave property owners the right to destroy nature, and I absolutely agree with him on that. The issue I’ve got with this bill relates to clause 11. So, because we live in a built environment that’s been changed and, I suppose you could call it, “built” over the last 150 or 160 years, or even longer than that, we have to live with what we’ve got now, and we’ve got to make what we’ve got now work better for us.

The issue that concerns me about clause 11 in this bill is that it gives the Government or its agents the right to enter private property and to close down, effectively, or potentially close down, pieces of nature reserve, or whatever, that have been hugely developed by farmers, by other landowners, by public trusts and all sorts of people who have changed the nature of our land—and they’ve created environments that are quite different than they were a couple of hundred years ago, but none the less they’ve created environments that are very productive from a fishing perspective or from a fish-breeding perspective.

I would be very nervous to think that we would get State intervention in that type of activity. That’s what clause 11, effectively, allows. So I think that, like many other things that we deal with in Government, we need to make sure that, whatever we do in this area, we are acting constructively and working constructively with those people who have created, sometimes through generations, these quite innovative wetlands and areas where fish can breed.

I’m very keen on eels. I like a smoked eel—you can’t get anything better than a smoked eel. I do accept that when we were young, or when I was young—I’m not talking about you, Mr Speaker, I’m sorry; I realise you’re quite a bit younger than me—you could go down to any river and catch eels quite easily. And I’d have to say that nowadays you still can go down to the river and catch eels—it’s just not quite as easy as it used to be. I think that’s the reason for this bill.

So I support this bill to the select committee. I am a little nervous about where it might take us, and I think from a fishing perspective, particularly a whitebaiting perspective, and from an eeling perspective, we need to make sure that all of those people’s views are respected as it comes through the select committee. So that’s my small contribution to this bill. Thank you.

Rau rangatira mā, tēnei te mihi i runga i te kaupapa o te rā. Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā huihui koutou katoa.

[Esteemed elders and others, I pay tribute to our purpose today. Greetings, greetings, greetings to all gathered here.]

It gives me great pleasure to speak in this first reading of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. I want to commend the Minister of Conservation, the Hon Eugenie Sage, for her work in this area and in many other conservation areas. She’s an inspiration to people around New Zealand who care about our freshwater species, our bird life, our forests, and our environment. So I want to acknowledge her work and her passion in this area.

Freshwater fish has not been an area of particular attraction, I would say, for a lot of conservation Ministers in the past, because it doesn’t get people up and bouncing in the way that saving a kākāpō or a kiwi does. People love cuddling kākāpōs, and I can highly recommend it, having done it myself, but if you talk about the protection of whitebait or other freshwater fish, people don’t get as passionate about it. You don’t cuddle whitebait. I think, as the previous speaker, Ian McKelvie, saw, there is a different destiny for whitebait in the minds of most New Zealanders. So protection of them is not high in people’s minds. But our indigenous freshwater fish are a really precious part of our natural heritage. I’m delighted that the Minister of Conservation has recognised the lack of robustness in our protection mechanisms, and has taken what is quite a small step, to be fair—as, I think, the Minister even acknowledged in her first reading speech—but it’s a really vital step, and it’s a step on the path to better protection.

I also want to acknowledge that these freshwater fish are important not just in terms of being part of our culture but being important socially and being important economically. We’ve got a legislative framework that is very outdated. It doesn’t allow for decent data to be used, it doesn’t allow for review of protection mechanisms, and it doesn’t provide the robustness that we need to ensure our fisheries are fit for purpose in the future. In fact, the only fish that is legally protected in New Zealand is extinct, which is quite a bizarre fact for this House to ponder. So it’s pretty obvious, I think, to all the speakers—and I’m delighted that we seem to have unanimous support for this legislation. I’m really pleased that people have recognised that our legislative framework isn’t any longer fit for purpose.

This bill doesn’t cover the full gambit of fish, and I was really pleased to hear the Minister of Conservation’s personal commitment to working with iwi and consulting the public before we consider our extensions to protection for fish in lakes, in streams, and in wetlands. So the Minister indicated a clear path of work ahead, but also a very good process for making sure that iwi and other members of the public are involved in that.

One of the first things that I know members of Parliament often ask when they look at a bill that’s before the House for consideration, is: is there a problem, do we need this legislation to fix the problem, and is it the right way to fix it? We’ve got 77 species of freshwater fish; 56 of those are indigenous, and many—in fact, most—are found nowhere else in the world. So we have a resource in New Zealand for which we are responsible for protecting.

Out of those 56 indigenous freshwater fish species, 21 out of 56 are threatened with extinction. So I don’t think anyone would deny that we have a problem. As I said earlier, we talk about protecting kiwi, but to have 21 of 56 freshwater fish species threatened with extinction is not something that you hear in the mainstream media or talked about, you know, over the barbecue when people are doing their whitebait patties. So we certainly have a problem. In my view, the legislative fix that is proposed in this bill is an appropriate way of dealing with it. But I have confidence in the Environment Committee, to which the bill is proposed to be referred, under the leadership of Deborah Russell, who has shown an extraordinary talent in bringing out the best of people on that select committee, and she’s got some very experienced and competent people on that committee—I am really confident that she will be able to use her skills, and the skills of the committee, to rigorously assess the content of this bill, hear the submissions that I’m sure will be forthcoming, and bring back to Parliament perhaps even an improved bit of legislation. So I’m delighted that it’s proposed that it go to that committee.

Of course, there are always considerations which we need to make, and, as Ian McKelvie and others have mentioned, we don’t want to put the recreational activities of many New Zealanders—we don’t want to threaten them. But at the same time, we have to balance our responsibility, which I think is superior to recreational needs, to ensure that these freshwater fish survive in the future, for our children and grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren. I do think that the bill has been drafted with a lot of consideration of that balance that needs to be met. There appears to have been a lot of care taken in ensuring that we don’t have any threats, that we only have win-wins.

The contribution of Fish & Game to the consideration of this bill should be noted. They have a valuable contribution as guardians of our waterways around New Zealand, and I understand that they’ve had a good amount of input into this bill, and, I’m sure, will make further submissions.

So I’m pleased that, at last, the Minister of Conservation—the current Minister of Conservation—has recognised other less interesting, less attractive species that are worthy of protection, and has brought this legislation to Parliament. I look forward to the deliberation of the Environment Committee. I am sure they’ll receive a lot of submissions, and, as I said, under the competent chairpersonship of Deborah Russell, I’m sure that this House will receive a good report back at the second reading, and, in the meantime, I commend the progress of this bill to the House.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Environment Committee.