Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill

Madam Speaker, thank you. I was saying previously that the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill will ensure that 57 species of native fish, including eels, will have the same level of protection on public conservation land as our birds, insects, geckos, and other wildlife. So it will end that double standard that currently applies where native fish don’t have any protection.

The Environment Committee has recommended that there be some changes here in terms of the authorisation that the Director-General of Conservation can give to go fishing on conservation land, where the bed of a stream or river is conservation land. The committee has recommended that there be a one-year transition period to ensure that there are quite careful decisions on what fishing authorisations are to be issued, and to ensure that this year’s whitebait season isn’t affected. And I also welcome the select committee’s addition to the bill of an ability for the director-general to authorise fishing not just by one person but to authorise it generally by Gazette notice. I’d also note that the number of rivers and streams where the bed is conservation land is a small proportion of the area where whitebait is fished, so I think some of the concerns that we have heard from the Opposition are somewhat erroneous.

I think the minority view that is in the select committee’s report back also indicates some confusion about the relationship between this bill and the consultation that the Department of Conservation is doing on whitebait management. It started that work last year, and it happened earlier this year as well. So the relationship is quite simple. The bill provides a tool box for managing freshwater fisheries. How that tool box is used needs to be decided in consultation with tangata whenua and with stakeholders and the wider public. There will be a discussion document on this released for public comment later this year, and then the bill will ensure, once it becomes law, that whatever comes out of that consultation and review process will be able to be implemented. Without this bill and the changes that it enables to the freshwater fish regulations, that would not be possible.

There were a large number of submissions from Fish & Game licence holders. They were concerned that the bill would affect the ability of Fish & Game councils to manage sports fisheries, such as trout and salmon, and so the committee has recommended that clause 5(3) be deleted. Now, that clause was all about ensuring that there was certainty if there was any conflict between provisions in a sports fisheries management plan and one for native fish, but the deletion of that clause has been supported by the New Zealand Fish & Game Council.

But the key issue is that for native fish to thrive—for any fish to thrive, whether they’re native or sports fish—they need suitable habitat. It’s the loss of spawning areas, the barriers to fish movement up and down streams, the sediment pollution, and the loss of habitats such as wetlands that have pushed our native fish towards the brink of extinction. The Government is tackling those issues through the freshwater reform, but this bill is also really important in the way that it goes about protecting spawning sites, because those spawning sites need to be protected if we are to have productive fisheries. But the existing law was unworkable. The committee has recommended some changes there, in that for spawning sites to be protected, they actually need to be identified and declared as spawning areas so that people know where they are, and before any of the offence provisions could come into play.

The hundreds of submissions that the select committee received on the bill highlight the passion that New Zealanders have for our native species, for native freshwater fish, and the overwhelming public support for protecting them and improving their management. The provisions in the Conservation Act around native fish are old, they’re incomplete, and in many cases they’re poorly drafted. This bill as reported back and when enacted will provide me, as Minister, and the department with a complete tool box for starting to address the serious issues facing our native fish. I want to thank submitters for their views, the Environment Committee, and the departmental officials for their work, and I look forward to a future in which every New Zealander can visit their local stream to either feed a tame eel, watch a shoal of īnanga, or can eat a whitebait fritter without worrying that they are eating threatened native fish. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise with anticipation and expectation, a desire to inject clarity into this argument as to the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill, because what I’ve heard in the media from Government members and throughout select committee is that it’s clear that Government members have not read the fine print, have not read the bill, or are simply applying a very wide, mischievous approach to the statutory interpretation of that bill.

Before I get to the detail of that, I want to talk about the process—an extraordinary select committee process that was fraught. Quite frankly, officials came into the Environment Committee and didn’t know whether they were Arthur or Martha. They did not understand exactly the purpose of the bill and what the bill was required to do. It was introduced to this House with very little consultation. It was introduced to this House as a minor and technical amendment, and what ensued was anything but. It was an absolute shemozzle, and what ensued from that were recreational fishers, were Māori groups, were whitebaiters who submitted, and, quite frankly, their fears have been confirmed.

Look, we supported this bill. The National Party supported this bill at first reading. We had a real, genuine desire to be collaborative with this bill and this process and have a desire to add protections with respect to our indigenous fish. We were the party that increased funding to clean up our rivers and wetlands, from $3 million to $30 million. We have a desire to invest in our indigenous freshwater fish, but, quite frankly, the wide-reaching ramifications of this bill run roughshod over recreation and private landowner rights. Hence, we are not prepared to support it. I will say, however, that it was National Party pressure that came to the aid of sports recreational fishers. We were able to put pressure on the Government to change clause 5 and make it clear that with respect to the hierarchy of plans between freshwater fish, indigenous fish, and sports fish, a freshwater indigenous plan would null and void a sports fish plan. It was through our pressure that we were able to make those changes in select committee, which obviously keeps Fish & Game and anglers very happy.

But whitebaiters and private landowners ought to be very, very concerned. This bill does primarily two things, and it’s there in black and white in new section 26ZHB, inserted by clause 7. It’s in black and white. The first thing that it does with respect to the take of indigenous fish on conservation land is it renders it illegal unless there is specific authorisation. For rivers and streams and water bodies that are outside the conservation estate, you may take fish provided it is for food and in accordance with regulation. It is through that regulation that we believe this Minister is trying to ban the practice of whitebaiting, and that is proven by the inclusion of the transitional clauses that give a one-year grace period to whitebaiters until another management plan and pseudo-consultation process is conducted. That is the method and manner of this Government: to run contiguous consultation processes to confuse the public as to a line of sight of what this Government actually intends. It’s designed to fatigue people and stakeholders that are interested in the management of indigenous freshwater fish.

Whitebaiting is a favourite Kiwi pastime. It is a tradition. In some cases, it provides a livelihood to people, and these people already sign up to sometimes voluntary but pragmatic measures to sustain the whitebait population. I have spoken to many, many whitebaiters over the course of this bill and none of them want to eat the species to extinction. They want to provide a legacy for their children so that they can continue to recreate on the conservation estate and elsewhere and collect a feed of fish for their table. Now, Mr Duncan Webb should agree with that, because I heard that he wants to eat kiwi. Now, I wouldn’t want to go that far, but sustainable management of our indigenous fish can be done in balance with taking a feed. And what about the money that goes into these stands, people investing into these stands—

💬 Maureen Pugh: Tens of thousands.

—to undertake whitebaiting? “Tens of thousands.”, my colleague Maureen Pugh from the West Coast says. What is going to happen with these people’s livelihoods when this ban comes into place? Now, the Minister has been quite tricky, in my opinion. She’s been heard quoting that “Oh, maybe we will, maybe we won’t; it depends what comes out of another consultation process.” She talks about moratoriums. Well, “moratorium” means ban, and that’s what she’s after. Her intentions have been exposed by this party. We need to make sure that we mobilise and hear from our hunter-gatherers in our regions who still go out and catch a feed for the table.

The other thing that this bill does is it talks about spawning sites, and gives the director-general, on the grounds of a reasonable belief, the ability to declare a spawning site on private property. Now, this has not been addressed by officials as to the ramifications of what this means. There is no process for the declaration of a spawning site; it is simply arbitrary and based on a reasonable belief. It has not been addressed as to how department officials will go about this. There has been very little research and acknowledgment and monitoring as to what a good spawning site is. It is unclear as to whether a spawning site will override any existing consents or concessions as to activity on, for example, a river bed. This is a Government that says that there are infrastructure problems. Well, you need gravel extraction to handle infrastructure issues. So if we’re going to shut down all of our gravel extraction then there’s going to be problems and that will cost people time and money. I certainly hope that it doesn’t turn into another area where people lose their private property land rights because of an officious little Department of Conservation officer that comes onto private property and makes a claim that is unfounded and not based on science.

This is the party that believes in pragmatic conservation. We believe that it can be balanced; use can be balanced with conservation if it is based on good science. That is simply what we need—some decent monitoring with regards to whitebait populations, in particular, and some decent monitoring as to catch. The people who whitebait need to be listened to, and private land owners need to be listened to. It is quite clear that National is the champion of recreation and recreational activities. We will continue to champion that as we move through this second and the third reading. For that reason we simply oppose this so-called minor and technical bill that is anything but.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s sometimes said that in these days of social media we’re into an age of “post-truth politics” where people ignore facts, try to go direct to the public via social media and think that they’ll believe the tripe that’s served up to them. Self-praise doesn’t make things true. I read the National Party minority view on this and the same phrases were trotted out that we heard from the last speaker, Sarah Dowie, and I’m going to quote from it: “The National Party is the champion of recreation and sports fishing”. When the National Party was in power they threatened the Fish & Game Council and said they couldn’t have the increase to their fees that they wanted for habitat protection, because they were advocating for environmental protection. That was the Hon Kate Wilkinson; it was exposed by the Fish & Game Council at the time. This is the National Party that is the “champion of recreation and sports fishing”.

Then they claimed credit for the change in the bill that went to the Environment Committee, which was the deletion of clause 5(3), which was a provision in the bill, as it went to the select committee, that said in the event of a conflict between a plan relating to native fish and a plan relating to sports fish, the native fish plan would prevail. Well, that was actually something that many parties spoke to in the first reading, including me, who said that we needed to fix that at select committee; it has been, by the Government, which includes the Greens, New Zealand First, and the Labour Party. Of course, it’s a change that, I suspect, National does agree with but, of course, they’re not voting for the bill. So to claim credit for that, again, is ridiculous.

The other thing I would say to the National Party that claims to be the “champion of recreation and sports fishing”: there’s not much recreation to be had when there’s no whitebait. That’s the point of the bill. We’ve got to the point in New Zealand where 70 percent of our freshwater species are classified either as “threatened” or “at risk”. Now, there’s 22 species “threatened” and 17 are “at risk”. That’s a total of 37 out of our 57 species. Some of those species, indeed, most of them, are found nowhere else in the world. What’s the answer, in the National Party viewpoint of that? Private property rights. They are so absurd in their articulation of private property rights that they think the private property right of a landowner includes the right to make whitebait extinct. That’s what they’re saying; they are just barking mad when it comes to this view of private property rights. A private property right doesn’t include—they’ve got this view that somehow rural private property rights are different. No one in a city can change their land use from a residence to a 20-storey commercial building or a tannery. We can’t do that. Our private property right does not include the right to change land use. But, no, we just heard from the National Party that if you own a bit of land that’s an estuarine piece of land your property right includes the right to stop it being the margin of an estuarine area, and turn it into a piece of pasture and kill off all the whitebait. That’s, effectively, what they’ve said there, because they think that it’s a property right to change the nature of a piece of land which is currently habitat for threatened fish species, and without any intervention be able to say, “My land is my castle and I’m going to turn this into something different and kill all the whitebait”. That’s what Sarah Dowie just said is their position in respect of private property rights.

Self-praise does not make it true, and for them to say that they’re the champion of recreation and sports fisheries—then they say they’re “The defender of private property rights”. I’m a defender of private property rights too. I believe in the importance of private property rights, I just don’t think the private property right that attaches to owning a piece of property includes the right to change its land use and to kill off habitat. If that was the case—taking that theory to its extreme—if the last tuatara was on a piece of private land they would say that the private property owner could actually just change that, cover over the bit of habitat where the last tuatara was and make it extinct. Private property rights have never been that extensive in New Zealand. They never will be and they never should be, unless you get the National Party, which is the “champion of recreation and sports fishing”, changing the law to say that a private property right extends to the right of doing away with the protection of habitat.

Now, they say, “While it supports protection of indigenous freshwater fish, any declarations as to spawning areas on private property need to go through a just process.” Well, I actually agree with that. But the idea that you have to have some long convoluted process before some sensible person at the Department of Conservation (DOC) can conclude that the water was already up to half waders or gumboots and those little fish that were swimming around, most people call them whitebait. And, by the way, they look like the whitebait that was in someone’s bucket that’s just put a net over. But that’s not good enough for the National Party. They want some process that goes to the Court of Appeal before they can determine that it’s not the right of a private property owner to change a habitat which already exists on that property.

💬 Hon Member: What a leftie.

What’s that? Half a sentence from the other side, that’s typical of that member. He’ll be able to double it one day but at that point it still won’t be worth listening to.

I don’t think there’s much more to be said. This is a good bill. It is a good bill; it’s a necessary bill, because we do need to do more to protect our whitebait habitat. I think just about every New Zealander knows that there aren’t nearly as many whitebait as there used to be when I was younger. [Interruption] That’s true.

You know, the only place there’s really good stocks of whitebait left are really where it’s coming out close to the DOC estate. On the West Coast, we’ve got some areas where the catchments are pretty much unmodified and we’ve got good whitebait in some of those areas, but you go to most of the parts of the East Coast, where most of the wetlands have already been filled in, and you’ve got problems. You know, the last report in New Zealand on environment Aotearoa, which came out last year, said that 100 years ago, New Zealand lost 90 percent of our wetlands, and that was when we cleared all of our land for farming—90 percent, and that includes national parks. We lost 90 percent of New Zealand’s wetlands about 100 years ago. Do you know in the last decade in New Zealand, we lost 5 percent of the last 10 percent—we lost one-twentieth of what was left. That’s what’s happening. We’re losing this habitat, and that’s one of the reasons why we’ve got to the point where more than half of our indigenous fish species are either threatened or at risk, and that’s one of the reasons why whitebait fisheries are in decline. So I thank the Minister of Conservation for bringing this forward rather than doing as the prior Government did, which was actually to oversee the decline of the whitebait fishery.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The Minister who has resumed his seat is going to need to do an awful lot better than that if he wants to sell his water reform package in a couple of weeks’ time, because if that was a warm-up speech for a kind of defence that he is going to mount on that kind of policy and it applies to this tricky, slippery whitebait-banning piece of legislation, he’s going to have to do an awful lot better.

At first reading, this bill was presented to the House as an innocuous indigenous fishes’ protection piece of legislation. It was delivered to the House as a technical, minor piece of legislation, a piece of legislation that was designed to be protecting and to ensure enhancement of a fishery. When we got it to the Environment Committee—having been aware of the legal opinion that Fish & Game had had prepared by none other than that legal giant Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who had expressed, in his opinion, great concerns about the bill—it became immediately obvious that the bill as introduced, as presented to this Parliament, actually was something quite different. The officials were completely at sixes and sevens in terms of their understanding of the purpose of the bill. They were completely unsure about the direction that the Minister of Conversation was trying to take, or, indeed, what was the required outcome from the bill. It was only after lengthy, sustained, and persistent questioning by National Party members on the select committee that the true purpose of this bill began to emerge, and it was like pulling teeth to try and find out what it was all about. We went at them week after week to try and get clear, simple answers.

What we found was that, actually, within this bill was camouflaged intent, camouflaged language, camouflaged purpose, and absolutely a camouflaged attack on, really, the whitebait fishing that has been so much of the tradition of the New Zealand way of life. What this bill seeks to do—and I listened to the Minister completing her speech this afternoon, and she again repeated that this is a piece of legislation designed to create a tool box, to give a complete tool box to her and the conservation department. What we found out is that “a complete tool box” is a euphemism for “a ban”—a complete ban—and that is not what was put to us at first reading.

This is a Government that at one stage—I remember back to the Speech from the Throne, where the Speech from the Throne proclaimed that this was going to be the most open, transparent, and honest Government that New Zealand had ever seen. Actually, this bill is an indictment upon that pledge, because nothing could be more open or transparent or honest than a bill that purports to do one thing but actually has an intent and a desire and an objective to do something completely opposite. It’s Orwellian in its definition, this bill.

So we have a bill on the face of it that appears to be some kind of conservation measure but that actually is designed to achieve a political purpose that is not what was put to this House at first reading, and it was only through diligent, careful, persistent questioning at select committee that we were able to get to the bottom of it. I want to commend the work that my colleague Sarah Dowie has done on this, because she’s been able to delve into the detail of this bill and find, really, what the Minister’s true intent is.

So we had a disguised purpose, a hidden meaning, and what is, essentially, the use of a piece of Government legislation to pursue what is a political, ideological debate around the rights of people whitebait fishing. Actually, what this piece of legislation does is ensure that the Minister will have a tool box that enables her to ban whitebait fishing when she wants to. Previous comments that she’s made, not in Government but in Opposition, would indicate, actually, that that has been an intent for some considerable time. So when the Minister says “no ban within the next 12 months”, that’s code for “a ban very soon after 12 months”, after the so-called consultative process is complete.

So we on this side understand completely what the objective of this piece of legislation is. What we will continue to do is to make that objective very clear to New Zealanders, who have for generations been able to whitebait fish in a way that has ensured that the traditions are maintained and upheld. We will defend our right as an Opposition to expose the hidden objective and the hidden agenda of this Government who want to do things under the guise of conservation. This is a bad bill. It’s much worse than we thought it was going to be, and it’s deeply flawed in so many ways.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. It’s an absolute pleasure to stand on behalf of New Zealand First and take my call on this, the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill, now in its second reading. I’d just like to begin talking about our taonga, our native fish species that we have taken for granted for so long. On this side of the House, we understand that they need protecting. They desperately need our protection, and this is what this bill will ensure—that these little fish are protected. There are 57 known native freshwater fish species, and, you know, actually, some of them are really incredibly interesting: tiny fish that migrate enormous distances between fresh water and out to the ocean; some of them can survive out of water for a period of time as well, but they can actually end up carelessly killed when we drain our wetlands, when we clear our drains. An example of an incredibly interesting slippery creature—and not from that side of the House—is the long-finned eel that’s been swimming up and down New Zealand’s waterways for around 23 million years. It’s not unheard of, too, that eels can climb around 20 metres up waterfalls, so they’re pretty interesting creatures indeed.

Something is happening—actually, it’s just been announced today—and it’s something that a lot of New Zealanders have embraced, and that’s Bird of the Year. Now, we love our birds. We see them in our backyards, we see them as we drive to work, and New Zealanders have an affinity for them because we see them regularly. But our freshwater fish, they’re in our rivers and our wetlands—we don’t tend to see them, so we don’t tend to have that compassion or understanding that they actually need protecting. So instead of just Bird of the Year, I think it’s time to turn to our fish of the day—not about our puku, but our protection of these species.

So something that has been leaching a whole bunch of misinformation from that side of the House, we really need to spell out clearly—that sedimentation that’s oozing from the Opposition. In fact, let’s get the facts here: there are no plans for a blanket ban on whitebaiting—it’s as simple as that. Three-quarters of our native fish species are threatened; they are at risk of extinction. There is very strong support—these are the facts—for improving our whitebait fisheries. There is a review underway. There will be a chance for the public to have their say on any changes to the whitebait regulations, but that is not inside this bill. So perhaps the Opposition would like to stop their campaign of misinformation and confusing the public.

Something that they do need is educating—our young people, when maybe a teacher takes their class down to the local river. One of the things that the Environment Committee has recommended, after listening to the submissions during the committee stage, is that to temporarily take maybe a bully from the river, enabling the kids to have a little nature science time to learn about these little fish is a good way to educate them, but they need to be, actually, not taken from that area; so too, if there’s going to be a temporary take, to make sure that they stay there and that they’re returned back to a close proximity to where those fish were taken. So that’s one way we can educate our young people on species we don’t get to see, like we see the birds in our backyards, to ensure that future generations have an understanding of the importance of these freshwater indigenous species that do need our protection.

The Environment Committee had quite a number of submissions, and I do note Sir Geoffrey Palmer QC and the work he did on behalf of Fish & Game.

You know, our freshwater sports fishing is an exciting thing for many to do—150,000-odd New Zealanders, along with international visitors who come to New Zealand specifically to fish trout, browns, rainbows, and in some parts of the South Island, there are salmon as well. They spend a lot of money coming to New Zealand for a chance to catch one of these fish.

I spent a period of time, a wee while ago now, living in Taupō, and one of the things I did every day is listen to—as part of the programme on the very first radio station that I worked on Hits and Memories, Radio Lakeland—the fishing report with Chris Jolly and his boat Prime Time, and every morning he would ring up and talk about what rivers to fish, where the trout were running at that time, or what parts of the lake to fish in. So this is something that we know a lot of New Zealanders are very interested in. So for Fish & Game, obviously, with their work in managing our sports fish, we acknowledged their concerns around clause 5(3), and that was then removed from this bill, allaying their concerns.

I did mention earlier these fish that travel, draining of the wetlands, how these small fish do get munched, whether it’s through these hydro dams that are no longer actually fixable—they are old and unfixable—so that we have made some recommendations to change the bill so the requirements of any new regulations relating to fish passage do not apply to existing hydroelectricity dams. And I think that is a good change and a very sensible recommendation from the committee.

So just in closing, I think that fish are highly important in terms of being a part of our whole ecosystem, and our rivers, and, you know, not just something that we just want to eat. So all of these little species—of smelt, there’s galaxiids, and little eels as well—do need our protection, they do need to ensure that they are able to have spawning sites, and that must be at the forefront of our conservation to ensure that these species are not only surviving now but actually thrive into the future.

So I am pleased with the changes that the Environment Committee has made. I acknowledge those in the committee who worked hard on this, alongside the officials. I acknowledge the Minister, Eugenie Sage, as well, for her work in this space. And I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and may I first acknowledge your high elevation. It has been a while since I have spoken in this House, and certainly not since you have been given this role. So I acknowledge that. I must think what it must be like now—penny for your thoughts—listening to all the various contributions and forcing yourself to keep a straight face. Your discipline does you credit on a Thursday afternoon, Madam Speaker.

Now, I just want to make a couple of comments on the rather remarkable contributions that we’ve heard so far. Firstly, is it not the case that every single time that David Parker stands up to speak, the red mist of anti - dairy farming just descends from the heavens. It doesn’t matter what the issue, it doesn’t matter what the bill is, it doesn’t matter which piece of legislation it is, he has to wind in this fundamental view that New Zealand with its economic engine driven by primary industry is somehow flawed, it needs to be constrained, and, actually, his utopia is everyone walking around and just, sort of, singing “Kumbaya”, and not having anything to do with rural New Zealand at its best. My goodness, it’s going to be fun in the next couple of weeks when he announces his water-quality standards. If—as my colleague, Mr Simpson, said—what we’ve heard in this debate is going to be the entrée for that, it is going to be a fascinating debate indeed.

At the core of the debate, this afternoon, is this view from the Government side that somehow our critique of this legislation and suggesting that it can constrain the average New Zealanders’ right to whitebait is fundamentally flawed. And they have come up with the most extraordinary statements and accused us of overreacting. Well, ladies and gentlemen at home, I know you won’t be able to see it, but here is the bill—here it is reported back from the Environment Committee. And if we turn to clause 7, inserting new sections 26ZHA to 26ZHD, under Indigenous freshwater fish—which I believe we’re talking about; not birds, although that was quite an entertaining departure from the core subject that we’re focused on—there was—

💬 Simon O’Connor: It was a flight of fantasy.

It was flight of fantasy, well done. Indigenous freshwater fish: there is an explicit section in here, 26ZHB, and I quote, “Prohibitions and restrictions on taking … indigenous freshwater fish.” It lists the powers that are given to the Minister to decide whether he or she may or may not give the right to a New Zealander to whitebait.

So I tell you: this view from the Government side that we are scaremongering is absolute nonsense. This is an attack as they attack everything that, actually, real New Zealanders like to do—like farm, like fish—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Hunt.

—hunt, oh, and, by the way, have an oil and gas industry that underpins it; anything that moves, they want to tax it or ban it and they’re going down the same track. It’s the Green Party that are part of this Government, they’ve written this and they want the power for a Minister to say no; not “Maybe” but “No”. And it’s explicit in terms of the power that the Minister has and the regulations that they can apply and the conditions in which they can say no. And so it is absolutely right for the National Party, that has always argued strongly for people to be able to manage themselves, within, of course, the constraints of the overall environmental system, to be supported and to have clarity around what they’re doing. This Government is saying, “No. More power to the Minister to decline your right to whitebait.” That’s the reality, it’s written here; it’s in the bill. These guys are the ones that are twisting the scrum. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I was only just today reading an article from that excellent publication The Spinoff, headed: “You wouldn’t eat a kiwi—so why is whitebait okay?” And I thought it was a great article, I must say, because, you know, the extraordinary thing is that whitebait are as endangered as kiwi.

I would impress upon the members on the other side—there they are—to have a bit of a read of this: this 2017—which largely repeats a 2013—study, telling us about the conservation of New Zealand freshwater fishes. And do you know what? It tells us that one of the species is on the threatened list; not threatened with the frypan but threatened with extinction. And yet here we have a party that is saying it is our God-given right to go out and grab our whitebait and fish them to extinction. If that’s private property, you can have it. That fact is that we are stewards of our indigenous fish, of our flora and our fauna.

Look, here we have these fish which are currently not protected at all. The Wildlife Act protects 12 species of weevil, and yet we don’t protect our indigenous fish. If you took the time to actually have a look at these, these are actually fabulous creatures—creatures that can climb up a waterfall, creatures which, at maturity, are fantastic and important parts of our flora and fauna. The irony is that if we were to trade these internationally we would be in breach of the CITES treaty—the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. So along with elephants and rhinoceroses, these are actually endangered fish. These are fish which we have committed internationally to protect.

Here we have Ms Dowie saying that our whitebaiters have an absolute right to go and pull them out of our waterways. Well, look, I don’t deny that gathering of food is an important tradition in many parts of our country. You know what? We want to preserve it, but you don’t preserve it by doing nothing. Not by the nine years of nothing that happened on the other side. This is an issue that needs addressing. We can’t solve it right away. It needs a long-term approach. That’s what this Government is going to do. It’s going to take a long-term approach to make sure we can restore these fisheries by appropriate management, not saying, “It’s yours. It’s private property. Go and pillage it until they’re extinct.”, but taking a balanced approach.

The transition is important. There is a moratorium. We want to make sure that people aren’t immediately deprived of what they thought they were going to be able to do come September-November. But we’re going to take a balanced approach and make sure that the spawning grounds that are on conservation land are protected, because that’s the only way we’re going to have these fish available for years to come.

Of all of the other species, one is absolutely threatened and the others are all declining. They’ve been declining for years. We need to turn that around. It’s a tough job, but we’ve got to look ahead, not just to what’s going to happen to the next whitebait season, but the next one and the next one and the next one. Look ahead for 30 years, not just for one, two, or three. So we can’t solve this straight away, but it’s time to start.

It’s absolutely mischievous—it’s pernicious to start calling this a ban, because it’s absolutely not. It is managing in a responsible way. There is nothing in this legislation which talks about banning on non-conservation land. So the vast majority of the streams and rivers that people have their nets on, people can still have their nets on. For one minute I do not apologise for saying that spawning grounds—if reasonably identified by the Minister—need to be protected, because that is the absolute heart of this fishery. If we have people disrupting spawning grounds, the fisheries will die. The fish will become extinct.

We’re very lucky in many ways that, as far we know, only one native fish has become extinct in New Zealand to date, but of this long list of indigenous fish in New Zealand, almost all—the vast majority—are declining or threatened, and some on the brink of extinction. So that’s why all of our indigenous fish need protection. Just because it’s not furry doesn’t mean we shouldn’t look after it. The fact of the matter is that these are an important part of our flora and fauna, so it’s no good muddying the waters saying that this is a ban, because it’s simply not. It’s management. We won’t be sold down the river by the National Party telling us that they’re protecting the rights of New Zealanders, when in fact they’re not. All they’re doing is—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: They’re making it worse.

Absolutely, Minister Little, they’re making it worse. They’d be destroying our infrastructure. So the whole thing is really just a beat-up by the National Party, where we are absolutely trying to protect the rights of people to go fishing in perpetuity. So it’s no good to have the National Party meme of private property again and again. And we know that every responsible landowner wants to protect the flora and fauna on their property, including indigenous fish and other native species. But what we want to be able to see is that the Minister of Conversation can identify those sensitive areas, inform the owners, and the owners, I’m sure, will not be unhappy to know that they have an important spawning ground on their property, and, if they were thinking of running a bulldozer over it, that would be a bad idea. That’s absolutely what it’s about, because we know that everyday New Zealanders want to be good stewards of the land, and good stewards of the flora and fauna. So we want to see it absolutely protected—these fabulous creatures, which really are an important part of our fauna.

So what we have here is a long-term approach. An approach which finally—and the other thing is it was absolutely aberrant that we had these whitebait native fish as practically the only native species not captured by either the Conservation Act or the Wildlife Act. So all of our native wildlife is covered by the Wildlife Act—absolutely protected. You can go to jail if you kill it. You can go to jail if you try to export it. But the whitebait—just as important—and many of our other fish, and including our eels, as member Marcroft pointed out, are not protected. All of a sudden we’re aligning these pieces of legislation, bringing them into alignment with each other so that we are protecting this. What happens on the other side of the House? They cry foul. I am absolutely astounded that they’re not supporting this bill and that they would see us fish these things to extinction.

This is an issue that we’re addressing. We’re addressing it now. It’s a long-term issue, but we’re taking a balanced, careful, and fair approach, and I’m proud of that.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. How that member, Duncan Webb, kept a straight face for that six or seven minutes that he spoke, I will never know. This from a member who, not just in the privacy of his own home or to a mate, but on television, said quite forcefully that he would eat a kiwi and he would eat a whale. And now he’s standing up telling us that we so desperately must protect these little slimy fish. It’s remarkable that he managed to keep a straight face that whole time.

I’m pleased to speak on this bill, but just before I do I just need to take a quick step back, because I promised that I would do something. I’m just going to take a couple of seconds to congratulate someone in my electorate very quickly: Harry Shine. He’s in year 6 and he won the speech competition at Pinehurst School, and I said I would mention him. He did a speech on why we should get rid of trees, so getting a clever segue into this important piece of environmental legislation was quite difficult. So my segue is that there’s no segue.

This bill has been described, as people have said before me, as a bill of minor technical changes. The regulatory impact statement said that most of the amendments are relatively minor and technical, and they’re not expected to have any unintended consequences at all—famous last words. I’d just like to point out that this bill was allocated to the Environment Committee a year ago, in two weeks—a year ago. This is a small, technical amendment bill on freshwater fish that has been in the select committee for 11 months. Just contrast that, if you would, with the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill—the biggest challenge facing humanity and we’ve got a three-month, truncated process.

What I want to go into today is why we had 11 months in select committee. Why it was that a minor, technical amendment bill that should have taken three months to rock through, actually ended up taking us 11 months, and I want to get into that. Basically, what happened was the Minister of Conservation realised that she had an unutilised Environment Committee, because, despite being the “Greenest Government ever”, we’ve had almost no work—certainly no good environmental bills. So she saw an opportunity. She thought, “Here’s a bill that we can race through. Don’t worry about it. Don’t need any consultation. We’ll just race it through.” And her poor officials had that to deal with.

I would say at least 80 percent of the submissions that we had mentioned the fact that there was very little or no consultation on this bill. We had Fish & Game, the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of NZ Inc, Tourism Industry Aotearoa, the Eel Enhancement Co. Ltd, South Island Eel Industry Association, and Te Wai Māori. All were very disappointed at the fact that there was no consultation.

I want to talk about Te Wai Māori for a little bit. They had a terrible time. They were told that the bill was a minor, technical fix-up bill. “Don’t worry about it. We’re not going to consult with iwi.” They pushed back and they wanted to see a copy of the bill, which they managed to get. They were of the understanding that they would have a chance to provide input on the draft bill, but the bill was put to Parliament on the same day that they were due to put their comments.

So, effectively, no consultation, and no changes were able to be made from iwi consultation. This just sums up this Minister’s disregard for the views of New Zealanders. Had we had proper consultation, had we gone out to people like Fish & Game, we could’ve had this bill sewn up in three or four months.

I want to talk very quickly about clause 5(3), the clause that is no longer, and that is thanks to the National Party. It is a—

💬 Hon Clare Curran: Oh, rubbish!

The member says “rubbish”, but we fought and fought to get this clause out. Stay with me, because it is very complicated. Basically, there was a clause in the bill that said, “Well, look, if we’ve got a freshwater fish management plan and we’ve got a sports management plan and a little bit of either one are in contradiction to each other, then there is a hierarchy and the freshwater fish management plan will override the sports management plan.” Of course, that raised the ire of every single sports fisher in the country, and Fish & Game had to hire a hot-shot lawyer in Sir Geoffrey Palmer, spend loads of money—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: A legal luminary.

—a legal luminary, as my colleague Scott Simpson so eloquently puts it—at great expense, and then after many months, the poor officials, who are just as confused as the rest of us, came back and said, “Oh, well, actually, the reason we’re doing this is because, as the law currently stands, if there is a contradiction in two clauses of the bill, then, actually, the sports management plan—the whole thing’s null and void.” This is brand new information to everyone on the Environment Committee, months down the track, and then they tell us that, actually, there’s never been a freshwater fish management plan, so that’s why it’s never happened—again, brand new information to us, months down the track. The Minister has not briefed her officials, and we were certainly not briefed. It was all brand new information. We eventually had to send the officials away back to Fish & Game and say, “Look, sort it out, because this is a shemozzle.” They came back and said, “Oh, actually, yeah, we didn’t need that clause anyway, because it turns out that Sir Geoffrey Palmer was right in the first place.” Months and months and months of this and of us demanding better advice from the officials—and it’s not their fault; they were not briefed by the Minister.

Freshwater fish management plans are required to help our indigenous fish, 75 percent of which are threatened, and we need a serious and coordinated approach that looks at the declining state of fish habitat and land-use change. It’s easy to point the finger at low-hanging fruit like the whitebaiters, but that is not the answer. This bill has a massive overreach into private property rights. The other side of the House will say “Oh, no, it’s not.”, and Mr Duncan Webb got up today and told us that, you know, if the Department of Conservation officials come in and they reasonably identify a spawning zone, then, you know, no problem, we’ll be fine, but he wasn’t in the select committee. The officials told us in select committee that, actually, it’s really difficult to identify a spawning site, and, actually, in most cases, it’s a best guess. So you’ve got these poor landowners who have got officials coming on to their land, making a best guess, and then telling the landowners that they can’t do anything in that particular part of their own land. That’s why it’s a massive overreach, and that’s why we will not support this bill.

This is a split call. I call Kiritapu Allan—five minutes.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. Usually, I love listening to my colleague from across the aisle, Erica Stanford, and her contributions on conservation, but in this instance, that side of the House has things abysmally wrong. On this side of the House, I guess, this is another area—protecting our indigenous native fish species—which the previous Government, for nine long years, turned a blind eye to. Now, on this side of the House, we are tackling these long-term issues and we’re taking not a short-term view, not a do-nothing view; we’re taking a long-term view, an intergenerational view. We’re looking at things 30 years down the track.

Now, I am one of these people—and my colleague Dr Duncan Webb might not like it so much, but I’m a recreational fisher, and that’s why I’m quite pleased to speak to this bill this afternoon. A couple of weeks ago, my father-in-law and I and my daughter, who’s two years old—we did what we do in preparation for the whitebait season. We walked up the Rangitaiki River. We looked at and we identified all the spots, and we watched the other whitebaiters who are getting ready for the season that opened up a week ago. We identified our spots, we looked at the river, and we do what we do every single year, as do many whitebaiters up and down this country.

Being a recreational fisher, whether that’s on the sea or in fresh water, it’s inherent to our DNA. It’s something that we enjoy the privilege of, but we take the responsibilities very, very seriously. In my own little patch of the world where I live, quite close to the Rangitaiki River, it is a significant responsibility that we all feel, and we seek to practise those kaitiaki responsibilities. If we see a spawning ground, that isn’t where we go drop our nets, but that’s not the law. That’s not the rules. We don’t have regulations around that. So I want to commend what the Minister of Conservation, Eugenie Sage, is doing in this area, because what she’s doing is ensuring—now, my daughter, Hiwaiterangi, she’s coming out this weekend. We’ll be whitebaiting. We won’t be selling it; we’ll be taking a little bit for our family. She’ll be learning how to whitebait. She’s learnt how to set the hīnaki, the eeling traps, and she’ll learn those practices from my father-in-law, from me, and she’ll go on to practise those, hopefully, when it comes her turn.

But what we want to do on this side of the House—we want to make sure that her right to do that in 10 years’, in 20 years’, in 30 years’ time is protected. Now, I would’ve thought that that’s a pretty common-sense approach. I would’ve thought that what we’re trying to do here is pretty balanced. It’s a reasonable thing that we’re trying to do, to understand the state of those fisheries, ensure that we’ve got good regulation, and protect the right of all New Zealanders to practise those practices in the future.

I don’t have too much more to add to that but to say that we’re taking a common-sense approach. It’s pragmatic, it’s balanced, and we’re thinking in the long term for next 30—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: It’s a balanced approach.

It’s a balanced approach; that’s exactly right, and I’m proud to do that under the leadership of our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Tēnā koe.

I call Hamish Walker—five minutes.

I just want to acknowledge that last speaker on the other side of the House there, Kiritapu Allan. There’s a bit of red mist going on, and what I mean by red mist: why have we got people in Maureen Pugh’s patch here attending a town hall meeting—three or four hundred people—absolutely terrified this way of life is going to get taken away? I just want to acknowledge the excellent work that Maureen Pugh is doing.

This might sound a little strange, but people in Southland are best prepared for the full effects of this bill. You’re probably wondering why people in Southland are ready for the full effects of this bill. Well, basically, in the last 18 months, we’ve had everything else taken away from us. We’ve had every other critical health service taken away from us. Now they want to take away whitebaiting. This Government wants to stop farming. They closed a children’s care—our most vulnerable kids. They reversed the National Party’s decision on a 24/7 police station. They took away a 24/7 helicopter service. They shut a small, rural maternity hospital, forcing mothers to give birth on the side of the road.

Now it comes to whitebaiting. This is a favourite pastime for Southlanders. When they’re hard-working on their farms, it’s actually quite nice to head along the river. I used to do it when I was a child, and I had a lot of fun. If you want to talk about a common-sense approach, I was a commercial fisherman. In 2003, I used to go out—some days, I’d catch one, two, three crayfish for a whole 12 hours a day. For the record, that’s probably $5-10 for me for a whole day fishing. Fifteen years later, that fishery is now probably the second-best fishery in the country. Why—because fishermen spoke to each other, they planned accordingly; now they have one of the strongest fisheries in New Zealand.

Now, if some of the Government members actually left the beltway of this Parliament often, they’d actually talk to the people, find out why these people are rallying in places like the West Coast. People in Southland have already suffered so much. We don’t have cops. We don’t have maternity hospitals. We don’t have choppers. We’re probably going to get hit rather badly by the Southern Institute of Technology. Whitebaiting is just another one. We’re here for the commercial fishermen and the recreational fishermen, and we will continue to fight for them.

Thanks, Mr Speaker. Well, I can tell you why you got that many people at a meeting, and that is because of the wilful misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, dirty politics campaign that is being run by the National Party on a number of issues including this one, and it is actually telling untruths to the community about the impact of this piece of legislation. That’s why, and we’re seeing the ugly, dirty politics tactics coming out again, which is what the National Party does.

Interestingly, I’m sitting on another select committee at the moment which is looking at misinformation, disinformation, malinformation being waged during election campaigns and having what feels like a sensible discussion about some measures that we can do in this country to address that. In the meantime, the National Party is out there spreading those—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I want to ask the member to come to the bill. It’s been nearly 1½ minutes.

Sure. Well, what I’ve heard during this debate tells me that the members have been either deliberately or refusing or just had their fingers in the ears while the Minister of Conservation was speaking about the impact of this bill on the whitebait fisheries. I’m going to remind them. Actually I’m going to suggest that they all pay a visit to their GP to get the wax removed from their ears, because I think that’s a bit of a problem. The Minister clearly said that the bill does not change the general controls on whitebaiting or prevent commercial fishing of whitebait. Now, I wonder which part of that is not clear.

What the bill does is ensure that we can better tackle threats to whitebait populations, particularly the loss of spawning sites, which is what David Parker talked about. So, gee, that means more whitebait not less whitebait. It’s actually about growing the whitebait population, about managing the whitebait population, and looking at providing some protection within protected areas, requiring that any fishing in a protected area needs permission—in a protected area. Now, I know that is apparently a huge encroachment on private property rights.

What I find extraordinary is that the spokesperson, the National Party spokesperson on conservation, studied ecology and, not only that, she worked for the Department of Conservation. She said that we needed to take a science approach, but she appears to be oblivious to the actual science around this particular issue, which is around the threat to the 57 indigenous freshwater fish, more than half of which live nowhere else in the world.

I haven’t heard one National Party speaker this afternoon in this debate, which is about a bill that’s called the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill, talk about the protection of indigenous fish. Now, why is that? Is that just something that is just being wilfully ignored? And, of course, whitebait is there, as are various species of eels. The conservation status of freshwater fish was reassessed in 2017. This information was provided to the Environment Committee, and I know, Maureen Pugh, that you sat on that select committee a few times, so you did have access to the papers and you could have actually read some of the information that was provided, where it said that 22 species are now listed as threatened and 17 as at risk, and that 70 percent of our native freshwater fish are classified as threatened or at risk.

💬 Maureen Pugh: So where’s the data?

Is she challenging the data—is she challenging the data? Well, in that case, get up and give us the alternative data that the National Party has access to, because this is about protecting and growing our indigenous freshwater fisheries that have significantly declined over the last century and about broadening the protections for that. Now, you can’t really dispute—well it’s really hard to know what the argument is that disputes that.

I do want to make a couple of comments about the removal of clause 5(3) and the claims that have been made by the National Party speakers that somehow that’s all because of their work. I want to give a shout-out to Fish & Game New Zealand, who are our pre-eminent, respected organisation in this country that does the hard yards around the recreational activities in fishing and game hunting, but is also concerned about protection of habitat. Now, they came to the select committee and they brought one of the most pre-eminent lawyers and previous legislators in the country, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, who had done a lot of work on looking at the impact that clause 5(3) might have. There was a lot of discussion about that in terms of whether or not a freshwater management plan would have—what impact that would have on the sports fisheries plan. In the end, it was decided and, as I recall, the committee agreed—

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: I recall that too.

And that was everyone on the committee, if I recall correctly, who agreed with the advice that it be removed. In fact, we ourselves suggested that the officials go back to Fish & Game and talk to them about that and come back and report to us in the committee. That was the whole committee, and they did. We agreed that that was the best course of action, and I really do want to commend Fish & Game for the approach that they took with us. They didn’t go out and run a misinformation campaign. They came to the committee and gave a well-reasoned argument, which the committee listened to and acted upon. As a result, Fish & Game have said that they felt that that dealt with their biggest concern around this piece of legislation. So that kind of undercut, to be honest, the National Party’s misinformation campaign, because they didn’t have the backing—

💬 Brett Hudson: No more whitebaiting.

—of Fish & Game. So, therefore, they’ve had to just rely on their “No more whitebaiting.”, even though what this bill does is actually increase the whitebait population in this country and protect it.

You know, when all of those submitters, those individual submitters that came with their pro forma submissions to the select committee, worried that somehow they weren’t going to be able to do whitebaiting again, because the likes of Maureen Pugh had been out there telling them that, and they were asked by me and other members of the committee that if their concerns were to be alleviated, did they support the management of our indigenous fish species. What did they all say? They all said yes. And guess what? That’s what’s this bill does.

So, you know, do your worst. Get up, spout off more misinformation and your dirty politics tactics, but in the end what this bill does is responsible. It’s about the long term. It’s looking forward by generations for our freshwater indigenous species. It’s the right thing to do. It will be done well and it’s what a good Government does.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Well, what a load of rubbish we’ve heard here this afternoon. Now, I’m going to say that the National Party on this side of the House says that this piece of legislation is absolutely nonsensical, but I did hear—and I did attend the select committee, as that member Clare Curran, who’s just resumed her seat, said—some scary things that the whitebait population was in decline.

So I thought, “OK, I will go and get the facts. I will go and do the research.” I was concerned because on the West Coast and in Golden Bay where they do a lot of whitebaiting, we actually have down there some very special conditions that are peculiar just to the West Coast, that don’t apply across the rest of the country. Our season starts two weeks later; it finishes two weeks earlier. We have closed rivers and creeks to protect those high-value spawning areas, and we also have a significant control over the ability to whitebait because—in case you haven’t worked it out, that’s the spring period—the spring period is the wettest time of the year on the Coast and so you can only whitebait when the rivers are not in flood. So there’s a whole lot of control over it. Plus we have—and I’ve flown over the areas and I have seen it for myself—tens of thousands of hectares of wetland in South Westland. You are never going to catch the last whitebait.

Now those particular areas—so what I did, I went to the Minister of Conservation and I said, “Minister, I’m concerned about the declining numbers. Can I please have all of the reports, memos, and advice that you have received and all the data on all West Coast rivers that you have collated that justify your claim that the whitebait stock is in decline.” And guess what? They have none. They have no data. They have—

💬 Brett Hudson: Misinformation.

—misinformation. Misinformation—it’s missing-in-action information. And so I thought, “OK, this must be based on something. I will go and find an independent researcher who has got this information.” Very, very interesting, this independent researcher has shown—and this is the information that the public in Hokitika, who turned up to a public meeting outraged have heard, because they know that it’s rubbish what we’ve got in this bill—in 1964, 215 rivers across this country were surveyed and the whitebait stock numbers were recorded. In 2015, those same rivers were surveyed, the whitebait stock numbers were recorded, and guess what? There is no change. There is no change in the whitebait stock numbers over 50 years; 50 years of whitebait and no change in the stock numbers. Now that is information and that’s why the people are angry, Ms Curran.

So what we want to do with this bill is throw it out, because when you apply for land-use consents on the West Coast the regional council take into account whether it affects whitebait spawning areas. They do it on the Taramakau River if you’re going there to extract gravel, so already the systems are in place to make sure those habitats are OK.

But there’s another interesting thing that we learnt about whitebait and that is because the whitebait spawning areas on the West Coast are so plentiful. And another thing—whitebait don’t necessarily go back up the same river they were hatched in. What they do is they come into this massive nursery on the West Coast—tens of thousands of hectares—and then they come out of the river after about three months and they go around the island and they populate the other rivers. That’s where the whitebait for the other rivers come from. So this bill is totally unnecessary.

And it’s not just this bill, because if we look at this bill in isolation we can think, “OK, we can live with that.”, but it’s actually the cumulative effect of all the other legislation and the policies that are coming out of this Government. No new mining—on its own, probably, you know, not too bad, but then we’ve got the squeezing out of existing miners and that means job losses.

It’s funny though, because while the policy makers over there are still enjoying all the products that come out of mining we’ve had a two-year delay in a decision for another hydro scheme that would make the Coast even more plentiful in hydroelectricity. We’ve got wetland designations, we’ve got significant natural areas, we’ve got the land restrictions that will come out of this bill as well. We’ve got car tax and we’ve got fuel tax. We’ve got climate change targets and now we’ve got a new scary water policy coming down the pipe. We are told this bill is not a ban. Well, excuse me if I have no faith in the rhetoric of that Government because a ban by any other name has the same impact.

Oh, Mr Speaker, thank goodness! It’s a pleasure to stand tonight as the last speaker on this bill. OK, so first and foremost, a couple of things before I actually talk about the bill.

Maureen Pugh, I appreciate the detail that you have gone to. I appreciate that. Having a strong background as a West Coaster myself, having on either side of my family two generations of West Coasters who whitebait, and also myself having a whitebait stand, I absolutely can endorse the love that we all have for the whitebait. Absolutely—I love the whitebait. But just like the kiwi example, it is time now to protect our endangered species: 57 species—not five whitebait species; 57 species—are covered under this bill. And it is not just the West Coast of the South Island that we refer to. We talk about all the rivers in this country. We are not only referring to the fact that some of that most beautiful, pristine, conservation land in the West Coast has been protected despite the desire to mine and despite the desire to cut down the beautiful beech trees, etc.; that is what enables an amazing fishery.

Now, that fishery is surviving because there’s a shorter season, there’s a whole pile of things that those people do. And, yes, we hear you and it’s absolutely correct that we should be concerned about a way of life that’s going. But we look at the long-term future of this country and we look at the difficult problems and the way that actually is sustainable.

We cannot—we cannot—continue to have whitebait and our other species being endangered in a way that somehow, over there, they think it is absolutely, absolutely, OK. They think it is absolutely OK that we have 57 species that are endangered, 70 percent of those species are endangered—and that’s what this bill does. After nine years of neglect, there is so much to fix, but this is a very small part of what we are doing to fix what’s happening.

One of the difficulties that we know is that our environment has been degraded by those people on that side of the House. In nine long years, what did they say to us about the rivers? What did they say? “It’s OK to be wadeable.” The rest of us over here—look at the Kaipara Harbour. That’s what we’ve started doing. What did those Opposition members do? Nothing. They just said that it was completely OK.

Now, back to the bill. We heard from a lot of submitters who were absolutely concerned about a whole pile of things with this bill, and, yes, it did take quite some time to work through the process of getting it across the line. But, absolutely, most of the time we worked very closely together as quite a collegial committee. We had a lot of questions—a lot of questions—for our officials, and I want to commend them for coming back, time and time again, and answering our questions. We had lots of issues, trying to work out for ourselves where things sat. For example, when we looked at who would have the best power around the plans for fisheries, it was decided absolutely—absolutely—that we needed to consider that, and we rolled it back.

Essentially, this bill is great. We’re fixing the difficulties. We’re fixing the long-term issues. This bill is clear and sensible. I commend this bill to the House.

Amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority agreed to.