Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon SHANE JONES: I move, That the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

With characteristic coyness and diffidence, I stand in our House in this late hour to share with New Zealanders that after 40 years—almost biblical—day and night, marine farmers have been waiting for this type of economic salvation. Now, let me briefly explain that this bill extends aquaculture consents by 20 years. It delivers the promise and the potential that New Zealanders saw when they enabled this Government to be formed through the sovereignty of the democratic franchise, not the sovereignty of the Treaty. This enables us to deliver on the commitments in our party coalition agreement of National and New Zealand First. The bill is designed to practically remove obstacles and impediments that thwart entrepreneurialism and drain the confidence of Kiwis who take a punt, go into debt, and create businesses and build jobs in the scattered coastal hamlets of New Zealand.

What the bill does is it enables 25 percent of our marine farms that need to be re-consented, who would have been facing bills up to $100,000—it enables them to keep $6 million within the industry to grow and to boost the productivity of that industry, owned by garden-variety Kiwis, by and large. This gives marine farmers certainty. No more empty promises, no more waking up to invasive correspondence from regional councils who have long since overstepped their statutory mark—no. This bill enables people to enjoy the tangible benefits of creating a higher level of confidence and getting on with the business of practising the best types of farming techniques to grow wealth for their families. What could possibly be wrong with that?

Of course, 2050, under this bill, is the point in the future when current holders of consents will need to come back and reapply—a substantial compromise on behalf of the party that I represent. My preference was for perpetual consents because it’s important that we give long-time, multigenerational confidence. Given that a substantial amount of the marine farming industry is owned by tanga whenua, I hear the songs being sung in my honour on the marae as I stand and offer this short little speech. There may be one or three hakas being conceived through kapa haka festivals, etc., but when we turn up to those events, they’ll meet the matua and I’ll give them a lesson in the real meaning of Māori language. But let me not be disrespectful to this House and digress.

Of course, there is controversy generated by falsehoods by a number of the commentators on this bill. People fear that there are conditions that may need to be renewed within these marine farming enterprises because they have had historical rights. There will be an opportunity for regional councils to redress that situation at their own cost.

We are not having any more indiscriminate, loose imposition of taxes on our enterprises for precious little return, and, of course, in the event that a regional council does want to poke its nose into the affairs of legitimate, God-fearing businesses running marine farms, they must get the permission of the Director-General of the Ministry of Primary Industries—i.e., fisheries. Now, this doesn’t mean we are compromising localism, but, as we are seeing, too many regional councils are pretending that they have the sovereignty of the nation—such as the Otago Regional Council. Soon they are to learn that the sovereignty is with Parliament, not these scattered, ill-informed individuals in regional New Zealand. I will meet them in my regional summits as I move around the country, spreading the gospel of growth.

Now, I must come back, as we draw this speech to an end, to acknowledge the work carried out by the officials and to acknowledge the work of the Primary Production Committee members, because we’re now at a point where trade-off is necessary. Yes, we do want positive environmental outcomes, but at the same time we must have economic resilience in the provinces of New Zealand, and we’ll get that by giving greater certainty to the people who hold rights. I only hope we can emulate this modest level of improvement in the water management system of New Zealand, as well; of course, we’ll get to that point in the very near future.

The chair of the select committee, Mark Cameron is very quiet, thoughtful. It’s quite extraordinary he comes from the same part of New Zealand that I do—a very judicious member of Parliament. We need to acknowledge the work progressing the bill through, and I say to the other side of the House that, yes, we have our differences. Surely, we all share the need to create outcomes in these benighted parts of New Zealand, where this is often the only industry that is capable of rapid growth and expansion: farming salmon, oysters.

In fact, I had two dozen oysters yesterday, and, fortunately, I do not suffer gout. I can assure you, I am practising at a biological level the intent of this bill. Indeed, I’m reminded of the word “kūtai”—don’t get the front consonant wrong. That is a type of kai moana that will be grown in greater volume as a consequence of this bill, and I find it quite extraordinary that a growing percentage of that great delicacy is now being turned into pet food. For those members of society who may or may not treat children as a luxury good and have gone for pets, kai moana is on the way to help you with that part of your whānau. On this note of common sense and the spirit of innovation and investment under the cloak of certainty, I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Kia orana, Madam Speaker. That unabated rhetoric that has come from that Minister’s mouth has done nothing except galvanise Labour’s opposition to this particular bill this evening. We have opposed this bill at all stages, and we will continue to do so tonight.

What this bill seeks to do is issue a blanket extension for a 20-year period. We heard from the Minister this evening that he is concerned about environmental implications and impacts. There is nothing in the rhetoric that has come out of that Minister’s mouth this evening that would give any confidence that that is, in actual fact, the position that he and his Government take. This is a bill that will change the date on existing permits to be beyond a period up to 20 years. This has no regard to potential and actual environmental degradation that may actually follow.

This has no regard to the numerous number of submitters that actually submitted to this select committee process. In a truncated period of 13 days, 1,100 individuals and organisations took the time, despite the very short period, to have their views known. The overwhelming majority, be it 1,000 of those submitters, were very clear that they did not want this bill to pass.

It’s also very interesting that as part of this process through the committee stage, there were no changes that were adopted or entertained by the Government, despite the fact that many of them were put forward. On this side of the House, we were prepared to provide some element of compromise. We put up two possible amendments that would reduce the extension period, with one of five years, which was actually backed by a significant number of submitters through the select committee process, and the other was a 10-year period. None the less, the Minister and members of this Government were not prepared to consider that. That would still have provided the certainty and the confidence, which this Minister rabbits on about on a constant basis, to the many individuals and organisations that are part of this particular sector.

Seven of the eight consent authorities—local councils—throughout this country oppose this legislation. They talked about the costs of the review and how that would serve as a disincentive for consent authorities to even think about going down that particular path or track. We also heard about the concerns expressed that the director-general would be involved in actually making that decision—something that is rather unheard of in the Resource Management Act sorts of spaces as well.

When it comes to the cost, it’s extremely disappointing that the Government was not even prepared to entertain or respond—despite this being put to the Minister on many occasions—to the opportunity to have some sort of cap or ceiling so that there would be a two-pronged approach to councils wanting to seek cost recovery: firstly, that the cost would need to be fair and reasonable—and there’s case law in in that particular regard. The second would be that there would be a cap of 50 percent so that you wouldn’t be able to, effectively, recall or claim anything above 50 percent of the total costs that were in incurred for a council. Yet again, this is a Government that is not interested in any of that because this is a Government that is more interested in lumping costs on to ratepayers, who are doing it tough in this country right now, and we’ve already heard this evening the fact that ratepayers receiving the council correspondence in the post or via email will be opening that up to significant rates increases.

This will continue to be a disincentive for councils to head down that particular path. It is simply lumping costs on ratepayers because that is what the modus operandi of this particular Government is all about.

One of the concerns that has been expressed is the whole process that the director-general would take around making the decision as to whether a review would go ahead. There is no time frame for the director-general to actually make that decision within. There are time frames for the provision of further information, be it 20 working days, and what’s really, I think, quite important is that there is no guidance; there is no framework. Now, the Minister was asked about this in this House last week. He was asked what were the guiding principles that the director-general would be required to turn their mind to.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, what was the answer?

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, the answer, Rachel Brooking, was there was nothing. The Minister might be catastrophising in that particular space that there was nothing there at all.

There are concerns that this is a shambolic approach from this Government without any consideration about due process or about the way in which these decisions may be taken or made. It’s also of note that if a review process is actually given the green light—and bearing in mind that would be a disincentive for councils to actually do that—there is a requirement for there to be no hearing to be conducted. That is absolutely appalling, and it affronts natural justice in the sense of the decisions and opportunity for that information to be made available.

This is a bad piece of legislation that has been hurriedly rushed through this Parliament. The big concern from my perspective also is not only around the time frames for information but there is a requirement for decisions on a review to be taken two years after initiating the review. Now, this is a very interesting change from the bill when it was introduced, because the bill as introduced actually referred to a time frame of two years from when the review began, or at the beginning of the review. This is, again, a ploy by this Government to shorten the time frame within which decisions can be taken and to throw the die against councils in this country.

It is an unfortunate piece of legislation which this Government should be absolutely ashamed of. It is shoddy, it is ridiculous, and it is not something that the Labour Party will support this evening. The Government and Minister Jones should be ashamed of this particular course of action. I do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this bill. I wish we could extend the analogies of Genesis, but just to recall that elegant second verse of the first book of the Bible, where the spirit of God moves across the deep, “where in life was created”, and I made the point in the earlier legislation that this is something where science and religion agree. Even before light began, the first interaction of the force of creation was with water, and those waters of the deep are a commons. It does not belong to anyone in a sense, though some have the right of customary claim to it based on their use over generations and generations.

This is a blanket piece of legislation that gives a free pass—a free licence—to 1,200 marine farms for 20 years, no matter whether they have been there for five years or they’ve been there since before the Resource Management Act was created in 1991. No matter whether they are a very good operator, whether they’re a questionable operator, or whether they’re a problematic operator, the good, the bad, and the ugly get a blanket licence—a blanket licence—no matter whether they’re in the right location and no matter whether they’re a form of marine farming that has a much higher impact than other forms of marine farming. We know mollusc farming—mussel farming, for example—has a lower impact than finfish farming.

We had hoped that this might be a Government—this was a forlorn hope, it turned out, but hope springs eternal, as the Prime Minister has said. We had hoped that the Minister might be open to suggestions of improvement of this blanket licensing of everybody, so we brought in a number of amendments. As my colleague on this side, Tangi Utikere, pointed out, we brought in an amendment to suggest that maybe it should be five years. Five years was well supported by iwi throughout the country, and there was a consistent feedback on that being a good thing to do—no, that was not an option. We brought in 10 years as a suggestion—no, that did not happen.

We suggested that perhaps, given that finfish farming has a particular impact on the environment, which is a much more significant impact than other forms of marine farming, and makes up a tiny fraction of the marine farms in the country—fewer than 2 percent are, in fact, finfish farms—this free licence should not be given to finfish farms. We made the proposal that they be excluded from the free pass, but, no, that was not accepted by the Government because this Government is not open at all to any changes or amendments that are sensible whatsoever to these reckless pieces of rushed legislation, as this one before us is.

We also made a suggestion that perhaps those farms that were designated by regional councils to be in inappropriate areas—there’s not many of them. Again, there are 18 in the Marlborough Sounds out of 600 farms in the Marlborough Sounds, and there are two in the Waikato. We suggested that maybe those ones that are in the wrong places should not be given a 20-year licence to continue being in the wrong place. It seems like a pretty nominal, sensible suggestion. No way—there’s no way this Government’s making any amendments to any bad piece of legislation, even when they’re good amendments that most New Zealanders would think were sensible.

Hon Shane Jones: Ideological—ideological.

STEVE ABEL: Far from it. I wish you would not speak about yourself so much, Minister.

The point is that this is amendment after amendment to try and make good of a bad bill and that the Government has said no to. I had been told by, actually, a former National member of this House when I was first inducted into Parliament that the job of the Opposition was to hold the Government to account and try and make legislation better if you can, even if you disagree with it. There has to be a willingness on the part of the Government to actually consider reasonable amendments to a piece of legislation for that to be possible. The effect of their attitude, particularly around this bill, is to lock in the basic cynicism of the attitude of this Government, and of politics in general, when we cannot have a reasonable process in the select committee for a large number of very well-thought-out and sensible submissions and have an utter unwillingness to even countenance making amendments that would improve the legislation.

I want to talk a little bit more about what the Environmental Defence Society said about salmon fish farming, which is that it can have serious effects on the seabed beneath and around farms because of the addition of feeds and associated nutrients, which contribute disproportionately to organic enrichment and smothering. Anoxic and hypoxic benthic environments are one of the consequences.

Another criticism of finfish farming is that it can be done in a way that is cruel to the fish, frankly. As dogs like to run, as the Minister for Racing says, so fish like to swim, and they don’t—

Hon Shane Jones: They’re cold-blooded.

STEVE ABEL: I don’t want to suggest the Minister is still speaking about themselves, but I would say that fish may be cold-blooded, Minister, but they are also sentient. They like to swim, and they should not be crammed like battery chickens into cages at sea. That is one of the submissions that we heard a lot from members of the public, who said we have to have an ability to recognise that fish are sentient, and, actually, our legislation, fortunately, does do that.

In recent years, marine heatwaves have repeatedly caused mass mortality of salmon farmed at shallow sites in the Pelorus Sound and Queen Charlotte Sound. The coastal permits authorising salmon farming at these sites are due to expire this year—those coastal permits are due to expire this year. Despite evidence of significant adverse environmental impacts and limited, if any, productive capacity, the bill would allow farming to continue at these sites for an additional 20 years.

The good, the bad, and the ugly—the good, the bad, and the ugly—get a free licence. If this is not corporate welfarism, I do not know what is. If this is not the utter overriding of any say of local people, of iwi, of regional councils, of those who are most affected by these sorts of consents—and it takes no care for the other users of the marine environment. What about the recreational users? What about the commercial fishers in the wild fishery? What about the crayfish harvesters? What about the recreational users? What about tourism users? What about the customary rights users?

Carl Bates: What about the businesses we need to pay taxes so we can do stuff?

STEVE ABEL: Half of what I’m talking about are businesses. Half of what I’m talking about are businesses, and this bill says that no other business interest but marine farming gets a free licence. Even if that business is more profitable and less impactful on the environment, this bill explicitly favours—perhaps it favours the people who bought the 24 oysters for the Minister the other night; I don’t know. Perhaps he paid for them himself.

The point is that this bill is not about balance. It is not about considering that there are multiple interests in the commons that is the marine environment, and is central government going to make all of the decisions on the part of local government? Is central government going to come down and determine the consents on everything, or is it just on marine farms, and where—

Hon Shane Jones: Now, that’s a good idea.

STEVE ABEL: —there is the need for a review—I know that’s your idea, Minister. I mean, it’s good that you’re up front about it. But where there is the need for a review, who should pay for that review?

Hon Shane Jones: Mining—coal.

STEVE ABEL: Under this legislation—

Hon Shane Jones: Coal.

STEVE ABEL: —it is the ratepayer that—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Too much noise.

Hon Shane Jones: Coal or gold.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Tone it down.

STEVE ABEL: Under this legislation, it is the ratepayer that will pay for any review of the marine consents. Not only are the rates going to go up because of that water bill that is going to take away the ability of local councils to pay for their water infrastructure; the rates are also going to go up because if the regional council decides to review the consent, the consent holder is not going to pay for it.

The Minister spoke about a $100,000 cost for a consent. Some of those consents last for 35 years. That’s a $3,000 a year cost; it’s the cost of doing business. If you can’t afford to pay that, then perhaps you’re not a viable economic entity. I thought you guys believed in the market. That is the cost of doing business, and I have to say that the public watching this sort of outrageous legislation going through the House will be knowing that this is a Government that is anti-environment, anti-localism, and anti-iwi, and we do not commend this bill to the House.

Just before the next member starts speaking, interjections are fine, but some of the noise is getting a little bit loud to my right. If we can just keep it to interjections. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thank you very much. I always relish the opportunity to actually come to this Chamber and have a debate, rather than offer priestly sermons and speeches. Debate is what this Chamber is all about, I think we would concur.

To speak to this bill, the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill, I want to pose the question to this House, if I can: what’s the length of New Zealand’s coastline? I’d imagine the other side of the House doesn’t have the answer. It’s 15,000 kilometres in length. Let’s conceptualise 15,000 kilometres by 200 nautical miles. It’s several million square kilometres—

Hon Rachel Brooking: 200?

MARK CAMERON: —of coastline at our disposal. To contextualise—

Hon Rachel Brooking: We’re not talking about the EEZ.

MARK CAMERON: —without the catastrophisation of marine farming in New Zealand—Rachel Brooking—what that looks like in terms of affording the rural sector, the farming sector, who are some of our most marginal communities, the kind of economic activity that we on this side of the House would celebrate.

Now, I am trying to see where the issues lie. I’ve heard the member Steve Abel raise concerns about the benthic environment, and I think that perhaps those remarks are salient to the sentience of finfish farming.

I want to go back to the 15,000 kilometres of coastline in New Zealand. That is the equivalent of one-third of the length of the entire coastline around Australia. We’ve only five million people here in New Zealand. Let’s frame some logic in the debate without the priestly sermons. I want to see economic activity afforded to all New Zealanders, sir—and I respect your opinion, Mr Abel, but I handsomely disagree with you. Some of the poorest New Zealanders are in our regions. Some of the poorest New Zealanders in New Zealand happen to be people that live in coastal communities, and by the certainty that this bill would bring them, I would hope that we could see some of the support for this legislation on the left.

We’ve heard about the sentience of finfish farming. We’ve also heard the counterfactual, which was that the population densities in those finfish farming environments was conducive that the concerns that the member raised and I raised and others raised in the Primary Production Committee, weren’t as onerous as perhaps were otherwise framed.

We heard about the frequency of development that this piece of legislation would afford with mussel spat, and how wonderful that industry was, with the 3,500 people that that entire industry encapsulated—3,500 jobs. I wager anyone worth their salt, when we’re trying to frame that in our minds, what that looks like when we’re talking about $700 million for 3,500 people, in a country that is economically depressed, with the left, respectfully, telling us every day, ad nauseam, that they care about people.

Well, I absolutely do—I absolutely do. I live in and I go home to rural New Zealand, and they are economically deprived and, quite often, suffering. The average income in New Zealand in some of those areas is $37,000. I’d wager anyone that this kind of business would certainly afford them the reality that they absolutely deserve.

I’m sorry that I disagree with Tangi Utikere. He is a good member. He sat on my committee and is very collegial. But this is a debating chamber where we actually put cause and effect—causality, you might say—into the debate, and I don’t think that that member has actually reconciled causality, cause and effect.

This will give investment certainty to the kinds of people that deserve it. Everyone in this Chamber here, we have a pretty comfortable lifestyle, you might say, by virtue of our income. These people often do not, and when I’m trying to reconcile $20,000 to $100,000 for a resource consent—some said, flippantly, that that’s not a lot of money. Well, it certainly is when your margins are slight.

Operational costs, in the remarks by Steve Abel, were excluded, in that part of his speech. I appreciate his remarks. You would argue that that isn’t a lot of money if you were to extrapolate that out over 20 years, which is the extension we’re affording, but that assumes that these businesses, kind sir, do not have costs, and they’re exorbitant, excluding the resource consent. The margins are so slight, and I’m not going to over-litigate the point, because I want to hear what remarks other members have in their speeches that support rural New Zealand.

We hear all the time on the other side of the House the evangelical sermons: “I care about rural New Zealand. I care about poor people. I care about marginal communities.” Well, this bill, being shepherded by my Primary Production Committee, with the steer of Minister Jones, I think—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, it’s just the steer, Minister Jones.

MARK CAMERON: —puts fishing people, fishing communities, rural people—Rachel Brooking—back into the conversation. That is our job as parliamentarians, to represent their interests, and, hopefully, tomorrow is a little bit better for those people than today. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m very happy to stand in support of the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill tonight. I must say, the Minister probably spoke very eloquently about the topic, and—

Hon Rachel Brooking: “Probably”?

MILES ANDERSON: Well, he did, Rachel, and you agree with me. Look, I couldn’t add any more to what he said, and I think the member Mark Cameron from the ACT Party also talked about those marginal and, I suppose you’d say, those desperate communities that are looking for economic development. I support the words that he said as well, so I commend this bill to the House.

The next call is a split call.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Kia ora tātou, kia ora tātou. Well, e tū ana ahau ki te tuku i ētahi whakaaro, kōrero mō tēnei o ngā pire e kīia nei ko te Resource Management (Extend Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill.

[Thank you, Madam Speaker. Hello, everyone; hello, everyone. Well, I stand to offer some thoughts and comments about this particular bill called the Resource Management (Extend Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill.]

That’s a mouthful, eh? That’s a mouthful.

Look, in all seriousness, I spent seven years in Te Tau Ihu at Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NMIT) as the director of Māori education during the time that NMIT championed the first Bachelor of Aquaculture in New Zealand. So, ae, we heard a few things while we were there doing that. One of them was that the iwi in the top of the South were concerned about the quality of the water of the Sounds—the quality of the water of the Sounds. The people with the longest-vested history and future in Te Hoiere, Arapaoa—ki hea anō? [Where else?]

Te Tai Tapu, Waimeha, all of it—the place where more than 60 percent of this work goes. The majority of them are kūtai farms, which are their own thing, but a large number of them are also king salmon fish farms. The Marlborough Sounds, Ngā Iwi o Te Tau Ihu o te Waka a Māui; Ngāti Apa—I’m sure you know Ngāti Apa, Minister—Kurahaupō waka; Ngāti Kuia, who led the charge that resulted in, you could call it a fallout from the foreshore and seabed debacle, but it was really about rights to marine space in the Marlborough Sounds. So, in all seriousness, this is the fight that an uncle of mine, Butch Bradley, led on behalf of Ngāti Apa. You probably know Butch, Matua Shane.

In all fairness, this comes down to the quality of local waters for the local people that live there, right, and here’s the problem. Here’s the problem with a kūtai farm: the farmer doesn’t have to do anything about cleaning up the mess he makes or the mess he leaves when he goes out of business. Mother Nature won’t take out two-ton bricks and a whole bunch of lines, so that’s one problem.

Although kūtai farming can reasonably be deemed as a fairly good use, except for the big tracts of water that it cuts out of everyone’s use—but kei te pai, you can catch a lot of snapper around them. But when it comes to fish farming—and unequivocally these are the views not only of Ngāti Kuia and Ngāti Apa but also of some of the leading aquaculturalists in the world, namely Dr Mark Burdass, who led the development of NMIT’s aquaculture programme along with Dr Charmaine Gallagher, and you might have met them too, eh matua? They have all said that fish farming in the ocean is destructive, and this is the thing, right?

What lives under a fish farm? They won’t know because they don’t dive. I dive, and I know what lives under a fish farm: nothing—zero. Nothing can survive under a fish farm. That’s why they’re located in high-flow areas. So the easiest thing to do to protect those waters is to move them out to sea. We want to move them out to sea—put them way out in the ocean, where 100,000 parts per million can be done just like that. But when you’re doing it in a sound, that’s not an option, OK, and we know because we’ve seen that if the fish farm can’t handle it and goes under, they just pack up and leave all the mess there for Ngāti Apa and Ngāti Kuia to sort out.

In all fairness—this is serious, right?—Ngāti Kuia is a small iwi at the base of Te Hoiere inlet, or at the base of the Pelorus Inlet, and the inner sound water doesn’t flush to the open ocean—ta-da! So if—and it’s not “if”; it’s “when” because it already has. When it goes wrong, guess who has to live with it! Ngāti Kuia. Many iwi in the top of the South are involved in fish farming, with most of it, or, actually, exclusively—all of it—kūtai and oyster farming. None of it is fish farming, because they don’t like it. So, anyway, I’ll leave you with that. Kia ora tātou.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Now, this Government are making some truly terrible decisions, and I must say this bill is actually up there with some of the worst of them. This bill and its blanket-exemption approach of locking in existing marine permits till 2050 is plain wrong, and the people have voiced it. They didn’t actually have long to voice it, but they made the effort and voiced it.

Now, 90 percent of the 1,100 submitters actually opposed this bill, and why did they oppose it? They opposed it because it’s plain wrong. All councils bar one opposed it, and they opposed it because it’s plain wrong. It is wrong to lock out communities and iwi and hapū from having a say on activities that take place in our precious coastal areas for decades. That is wrong.

It is wrong to give industry a completely free pass on disregarding and denying the actually very real environmental impacts that exist with some of these activities. It’s not in every operation, but absolutely in some of them, and especially for those operations that have been in place since before the Resource Management Act was even enacted and that have never had any form of environmental scrutiny on their operations. It is wrong to progress a bill where official advice made it clear that it does nothing for the sustainable management of our environment, it does nothing to uphold the Crown’s obligations under Te Tiriti, and the best it does is provide what we’ve heard spoken of as so-called certainty for industry.

The truly perplexing part of this is that at no point in this whole process has it become clear what exactly the policy problem is. Even the official advice itself says that the case for change is unclear, and it outlines how the existing national environmental standards have actually been effective in managing marine farms while ensuring that environmental effects are properly managed, and I think the really key thing to note with this is that no applications under these rules have been declined. The applications that have been processed under them continued to be notified, communities could have their voice, and all were granted with no appeals within existing time frames. I think that is really important for the House to note—that this is purely a bill that’s put in place because industry wanted it.

Now, we’ve heard even tonight about the so-called crippling costs that industry would face if they had to go through these consenting processes, and the regulatory impact statement quite erroneously claims this $100,000 cost of re-consenting—and we heard it from the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries tonight. But Auckland Council made it really clear in its submission the actual costs that these applicants face. It quoted that replacement resource consents for 100 percent of the applications, which, again, they have been granting under the national environmental standards, were processed at an average cost of $3,844.

The other aspect that I’m hugely disappointed about with this bill is it undermines the local voices and existing local planning processes. It is so wrong for the environment, and it shows a total ignorance or wilful negligence in understating the impacts of aquaculture on marine species. Now, again, the official advice made this all really clear that the types of aquaculture can differ in terms of the actual environmental effects, but it’s been well documented that mammals like New Zealand fur seals, Hector’s dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, and dusky dolphins have been reported entangled in marine permit gear in the Marlborough Sounds, just as one example. This bill is wrong, and the Greens will continue to oppose it.

I rise to support this bill because it is all about supporting our primary industries and our food producers, and it will enable us to drive more productivity and increase the value of our exports—double those exports in the next 10 years, by value. This is really important because aquaculture is going to play a significant role in helping us do this in the next 10 years. That is strengthening the economy. That is supporting our primary industries. It’s about driving more productivity and it’s about taking a common-sense, practical approach when it comes to legislation.

This bill extends aquaculture consents by 20 years. It’s significant for supporting our aquaculture industry in New Zealand, and that is why I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for this opportunity to talk on a bill that is amending the Resource Management Act. Of course, this is a bill that went not to the Environment Committee but the Primary Production Committee, and I disagree very strongly with Catherine Wedd, the last speaker, that this is about primary production. It is about pollution—unregulated pollution. That is all that this bill is about.

Now, I would note that because it’s amending the Resource Management Act, it applies to the coastal marine area and not the entire exclusive economic zone, as the chair for the Primary Production Committee suggested. We’re looking at 12 nautical miles—not 200 nautical miles—here.

Anyway, what this bill does is it relates to coastal permits, and we’ve heard in the various different stages of this bill the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries deride wealthy bach owners who are going to oppose the review of coastal permits for marine farms. But this bill doesn’t just apply to occupation permits; it applies to discharge permits as well—that is, coastal discharge permits—and that is a very real type of pollution that requires some regulation.

How do you do that with these very real environmental impacts? Well, councils can review the consent conditions for two years after this bill is made into law, and if they want to review in that two-year period—remembering that these permit extensions are for 20 years, so there’s 18 years there where they can’t be reviewed. The councils, if they are going to review in that first two years, need to first get the permission of the Director-General of the Ministry of Primary Industries, and then they cannot charge that industry for that review. That is totally outrageous and is very different from anything else in the scheme of the Resource Management Act, and I was very disappointed that the Minister for the Environment did not seem to be involved in this process.

When I’ve asked questions at annual reviews and the like, it seems that the Ministry for the Environment—which is the administrator of the Resource Management Act—has not been involved with this bill at all, and then, today in the House, we heard a heckle from the Minister for the Environment about people opposing this being vegetarians. That does not take these very real environmental effects seriously and it is shocking.

Now, it’s also important to remember that we are not talking about private lands here. These are not land-use consents; this is the commons, with the coastal marine area being part of the commons. It’s very unusual for anybody to get such an extension.

We know—well, people on this side of the House know—that human-made climate change is a real thing, despite what the Deputy Prime Minister might be saying today when he is visiting Pacific States who know all too well about climate change. But we know it’s a real thing, and it will impact the environment that these marine farms operate in, yet they won’t be able to be reviewed.

Hon Member: Yes, they will—20 years.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, I’m told that they can be reviewed in 20 years. Well, the member opposite makes the point that these extensions are for 20 years, and, at that point, in 20 years’ time, a new application will be required. Twenty years is a very long time, particularly in the context of the warming of our oceans and the impacts of climate change, and if that is the kind of time frame that the members opposite think is OK, then I despair.

This is the short-sighted legislation that we see in this House time and time again. We know that international markets demand New Zealand to have appropriate environmental regulations, but there are no environmental regulations here for that 18-year period when a council cannot review the discharge consents that will have very real environmental impacts, or they could—they might not, but they could. That is what we are worried about, if there’s a possibility of those environmental effects and they’re reviewed, and we heard from the most recent Greens speaker, Lan Pham, that of course there are other environment effects that can come with the structures as well.

The Minister tries to justify the need for these marine farms. He said that because industries ask for it, we should do it, but also for more pet food. An increase in pet food is no justification for ignoring important environmental laws. The need or the want—the desire for pet food—is no reason to make ratepayers, for the two-year period that they’re able to, pay for problems that may be occurring within the marine farming industry.

This Government, over and over again, is just tearing through all of our environmental protections, and I keep hearing National members laugh when the Minister Shane Jones is speaking with some extreme language, but it is the National Government that is allowing the destruction of our environment. I hope that voters, particularly those involved in the Bluegreens, realise what a disgrace they are.

I’m quite interested in this. In fact, I went with the great, hard-working MP for East Coast, Dana Kirkpatrick, and visited Tio Ōhiwa and the amazing oyster farm that’s there—this is just in and around Ōhope there. We had a chat, and I have to acknowledge Winnie and Simon and the great work they do there. They are not the environmental bandits that Te Pāti Māori make them out to be. They are using this to feed and to fund their iwi, Ngāti Awa. They have different marae come in each time to run the fish and chip shop, and anyone that’s been to Ōhope has had fish and chips from this shop. The best fish and chips in the region—great place to go. They’re feeding and they’re providing jobs for the different marae from the iwi, and they are creating a great environment there.

Of course they care about the environment, because they live off it and because they work off it, and they are part of the way that we are growing our economy. They are helping us not just grow the economy, but, as part of this plan that we’ve heard of, to double the value of our exports, and we have to support these people. The plan that we heard, where Tangi Utikere said in the second reading, “Oh, we’d do it for five years, I guess, but maybe not more.”—they want to keep them on the hook. Every two years, Rachel Brooking wants to have them having their consents reviewed. Actually, we need to support these people, and that is why this bill is doing it. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I cannot but agree with my colleagues on this side of the House that this is a terrible piece of legislation. It is lazy and it is irresponsible.

My colleague Rachel Brooking laid out very clearly how climate change is accelerating—particularly given that this Government feels no need to mitigate against the impacts of climate change, we’re going to see it accelerate even more quickly. We know that there are negative impacts of climate change on salmon farms, for example, in the Marlborough Sounds. We don’t know how quickly things are going to deteriorate. That is the whole point of the reviews. That is the whole point of looking out for the environment, which this piece of legislation runs roughshod over.

To add insult to injury, there was a very truncated consultation period. We know that there was inadequate time for this legislation to be considered. We also know that the overwhelming majority of those who submitted to the select committee were opposed to this legislation.

For all of those reasons, for the fact that from the point of view of the environment, of conservation, and of pure common sense, this is terrible legislation. I do not commend it to the House.

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. But grant that man a 20-year extension on his marine farm and you’ll feed the entire nation. What an inspired bill by an inspired Minister—the “Cod-father”. I commend the bill to the House.

It’s pretty obvious that James Meager needs a bit of a lesson in the gender make-up of the country, because there’s more than men.

There are many parts of this legislation that are objectionable. They have been well traversed by others, but I think the only thing that I would reinforce to the House is that it’s just wrong in principle. For a council to do its job to monitor the environmental effects and, on occasion, update conditions as necessary to meet the challenges of the day, they should be able to recover the cost of that from the people who are having the free use of the public space, and this legislation prevents them from doing so and it’s just wrong.

There’s been no justification given for it. The regulatory impact statement that accompanied the bill didn’t properly explain it. There has been a bombastic response from the other side to criticisms of it. It just doesn’t withstand scrutiny, and the Labour Party will be opposing this legislation.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s my absolute privilege to end this evening’s debate with this bill being commended to the House. It is important for us to be removing red tape and enabling businesses to continue to do the job that they need to do to support our farmers and our food producers, and that’s exactly what this bill does. I commend this to the House.

The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The House adjourned at 9.56 p.m.