Bradford Sue: Fisheries Act 1996 Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Bradford Sue: Fisheries Act 1996 Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:19012. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party believes that the Fisheries Act 1996 Amendment Bill (No 2) is a necessary fix to one of the many flaws in the Fisheries Act 1996. Given that for many if not most fish stocks we have very limited actual biomass data let alone good enough data to accurately estimate what sustainable yields are it is an unacceptable situation for the Minister to not be able to set or change the total allowable catch for those fish stocks. A number of alternative methods for guesstimating maximum sustainable yields are required for fish stocks without good biomass data. As a result of a High Court decision those are unavailable to the Minister. The bill amends section 13 of the Act to use the best available information to estimate the maximum sustainable yield.  
The Green Party believes that fisheries management in New Zealand is fundamentally unsustainable with fish stocks continuously being depleted and that deep quota cuts are required. Orange roughy is the classic example of that having been fished almost to death by bottom-trawling. Since quotas were reduced in some areas in the 1990s the state of the fish stock has hardly even begun to recover. The hoki fishery despite recent recertification by the Marine Stewardship Council is heading in the same direction as are many of our other fish stocks. The Minister may describe the New Zealand quota management system as a world leader but the sad fact is that it is not. It could be a world leader if the Fisheries Act was based on a precautionary principle if the sustainability of fish stocks in the wider marine ecosystem was paramount if customary and recreational interests came before commercial interests if the Minister mandated best-practice fishing and by-catch avoidance methods and if foreign fishing vessels were restricted in New Zealand waters.  
The fish in New Zealand waters are a natural resource that belongs to all New Zealanders yet since 1992 the commercial fishing industry gets to catch them for free provided that it owns quota. The public of New Zealand get no return on the use of that resource. If commercial fishing was required to pay resource rentals for the fish it profits from our fisheries management would be better and fairer. When total allowable catches are based on treating biomass maximum sustainable yields as targets we regularly overfish the stocks. The biomass maximum sustainable yield should be treated as an absolute maximum in setting the total allowable catch not a target. I have learnt that only 24 of the 629 fish stocks managed under the quota management system have quantitative estimates of current biomass and maximum sustainable yield. By number that is just 3.5 percent of all fish stocks but due to many major fish species being in the 24 by volume it is actually 24 percent.  
In addition to general concern about the inadequate precautionary and sustainability principles in the current fisheries legislation this bill raises a more specific issue about research. We can estimate fish stocks in ways other than quantitative estimates but we must not rely on them. There are woefully insufficient incentives for the fishing industry to do the necessary research to obtain hard evidence of the sustainability of fish stock and catch levels. I am advised that we invest less today on stock assessment research than we did 15 years ago. Taking inflation into account it is under half what was spent in the early 1990s. The investment dropped drastically during the period when the National Government was in charge and the Hon John Luxton was the Minister. Those were dire days for fisheries management. The current Government has improved things somewhat but it is still a fact that we invest significantly less in research than we used to. That has to be addressed.  
The Green Party amendment to this bill would help. It says that if the Minister has to set a total allowable catch under new section 13(2A) inserted by clause 4 of the bill he cannot increase the total allowable catch. In order to increase the total allowable catch the Minister would need to be satisfied that there is sufficient information on the stock. Where there is uncertainty then the precautionary principle would apply and the total allowable catch would not be increased. It could be reset at current levels or reduced depending on what the limited information available suggested was prudent. The incentive should be that if one does more research one gets estimates of sustainable yield that comply with section 13(2) of the Act and then one can increase the total allowable catch if the reliable estimate can sustain that. The second part of the Green Party amendment simply ensures that the broader purpose and principles of the Act are taken into account when setting a total allowable catch using the new section 13(2A) and section 13(3). We commend this amendment to the House as a way of ensuring that the bill does not have the perverse outcome of allowing catches to be increased in the face of uncertainty.  
Finally I say the test of this legislation will come when the Minister sets the total allowable catch allocations for the major bluenose stocks which have one stock with a quantitative estimate that has not been updated since 1991 and no estimates for other areas. Limited evidence suggests that this fishery is actually unsustainable. This legislation should allow those total allowable catch allocations to be reduced. For that reason the Green Party will support this bill even if the House does not accept the Green Party amendment.