Heatley Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10407] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 Thank you Mr Chairperson—[ 
Interruption 
] It is interesting that the Minister Pete Hodgson who passed the hospital pass to other fisheries Ministers after him in the aquaculture arena is the first member to heckle mock and make light of this fisheries report in the Committee today. I would remind the former Minister of Fisheries Pete Hodgson of what happened with the aquaculture reforms. Under this Labour Government there have been a fair few former Ministers of Fisheries and I will count them. We had Minister Pete Hodgson who complicated the proposed aquaculture reforms; then we had Minister David Benson-Pope who further complicated the actual aquaculture reforms; and now we have Jim Anderton who is running around the country apologising for the aquaculture reforms. But it was Pete Hodgson who started it all so I am intrigued that he is the first one to try to disrupt me in this Chamber. 
I would make a mention to this Committee of the intriguing section of this fisheries report on aquaculture. Although I raise it with the Committee members may recall 2½ years ago when the Labour Government passed the aquaculture reforms through this Parliament. In those reforms the Government stated that it would create aquaculture management areas up and down the coastline of this country. It would create large-scale areas off the coastline where aquaculture could occur. In the 2½ years since that time the Labour Government has created zero aquaculture management areas up and down the coastline of this country. There have been zero new aquaculture management areas created in 2½ years. 
Are there any aquaculture management areas? Yes. What the Minister has done is to draw a pencil around all the existing marine farms in the country and call them aquaculture management areas but in terms of new areas where new aquaculture can move in not a single square metre has been created in New Zealand in the last 2½ years. That is fascinating in the sense that recently the Minister paid $65000 of taxpayer money to brag to the country that he would back growing of the aquaculture industry into a billion-dollar industry in 2025. He used $65000 of taxpayers’ money to promote growing the aquaculture industry into a billion-dollar industry in 2025 after he announced his wonderful reforms. What he did not know was that the industry had decided before his reforms that it would be a billion-dollar industry in 2020. Before the reforms a billion-dollar industry in 2020; after the reforms a billion-dollar industry in 2025! The taxpayer paid $65000 to inform the public that we have slipped back 5 years after the Minister’s reforms. That is very sad news for aquaculture indeed. 
What is doubly worrying is that tied to the aquaculture law reform that happened 2½ years ago Maori were promised 20 percent of existing aquaculture space. What is more they were promised 20 percent of all new aquaculture space. There has been no new aquaculture space; therefore there has been no granting of space to Maori whatsoever. In other words 2½ years ago Parekura Horomia ran up and down marae all over this country talking about the wonderful aquaculture settlement but Parekura Horomia has not delivered a single square metre to any iwi anywhere in the country. He has gone along to marae he has accepted a feed he has eaten pipi and had a good boil-up but he has not delivered a single square metre of aquaculture space to any iwi in the country. 
According to Ministry of Fisheries figures of course Parekura Horomia has actually promised iwi right throughout the country—and this is on the ministry’s website—1949 hectares. That is what Parekura Horomia promised iwi 2½ years ago when he was running up and down the country and going on marae having a boil-up and eating pipi and cockles. That is what he promised them—1949 hectares. Today 2½ years later Parekura Horomia visits iwi on marae up and down the country but he has not delivered one single square metre of new marine space to any iwi anywhere and he should be ashamed of that—absolutely ashamed of leading his own people up the garden path.