Smith Stuart; O'Connor Greg; Brooking RachelSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Oh thank you Mr Chair. As my colleague the Hon Scott Simpson said I do have quite an interest in this section of the bill. The Kaikōura electorate as well as being comparable in size to Israel has over 20 percent of New Zealand's coastline. I know that will be a surprise to many but the Marlborough Sounds alone makes up 20 percent of New Zealand's coastline. Hon Scott Simpson: How much?STUART SMITH: Ha ha! 20 percent. Then of course we have the Kaikōura coast all the way down to the Ashley River which is all part of—Hon Scott Simpson: How long is that in kilometres?STUART SMITH: Well it's over 20 percent of those coastal kilometres; I don't have that number to hand. So this section in the bill is of great interest. As my colleague sort of outlined before the interests between how this may change things particularly aquaculture in the Marlborough Sounds where there's been quite a number of issues in the Sounds with salmon farming in particular but now there's King Salmon's application for Blue Endeavour which is out in Cook Strait essentially which I assume still comes under the same rules as it did under the previous Resource Management Act (RMA)—and the Minister's nodding her head.But does that constrain in any way future applications—that's already under way and won't be affected by this legislation I would assume. But it seems one of the big concerns that King Salmon had despite being kilometres offshore is that the significant natural area part of the RMA could be triggered by someone who was halfway out to the offshore Blue Endeavour farm they could look towards the coast and see a significant natural area—it wouldn't be possible to see it from the farm itself but it could be seen part of the way out there—and they could turn around and look the other way and see the salmon farm and be offended by that and that was grounds for appeal or against the consent. So I'd like to know if that is still possible. I'd also like to know while I'm on my feet Mr Chair—and I've got five minutes left; that's good—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Stuart Smith.STUART SMITH: Thank you Mr Chair. About offshore wind: now offshore wind applications to date—oh there's no applications in fact but the interest has been outside the 12-mile limit. Why we still call it that I'm not sure; we should go to the metric system but I'm not quite sure off the top of my head what 12 miles is in kilometres but I'll leave that to the Minister. Anyway—Matt Doocey: 18.6. STUART SMITH: 18.6—there you go. While they're outside the area of the RMA or the Natural and Built Environment Bill the cables that have to take the electricity back to shore will of course cross through that 12-mile zone and then go up the coast to the beach essentially to reach a grid injection point—or indeed a large load. So is that being considered in this legislation? Because the RMA didn't consider offshore wind and how that may impact on our planning rules and what impact that might have on the natural environment. So I look forward to that. Thank you.Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Associate Minister for the Environment): As Stuart Smith just said the offshore wind farms are in the exclusive economic zone (EEZ) not the 12-mile coastal marine area and I agree with him asking about why we still use those measurements. But the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment is doing a piece of work to consider how we do consenting for those offshore wind farms in the EEZ. I note that there are some efficiencies in here for aquaculture in terms of how aquaculture areas can be more efficiently made at the plan stage rather than at the consenting stage.