Cameron MarkMARK CAMERON (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the third and final reading of the Fisheries Amendment Bill. I think it's incumbent upon all of us as lawmakers to weigh up and reconcile and debate the merits and pitfalls of any piece of legislation that comes before this House to reconcile where possible the problems that we seek to fix and come out with tenable solutions. Questions could be asked whether the bill was put forward in total good faith. I know we've canvassed before and it was canvassed in the committee of the whole House stage that the Minister may have arguably pulled a swiftie with so much of the removal of the pre-set decision rules. Large parts of the legislation were encapsulated by the inclusion of the pre-set decision rules. Now I fully accept that it was tenuous although we had a collegial debate and dialogue in the committee stage. But that was fraught with in and of itself all manner of unknowns especially when the legislation had huge parts that were caught up in the pre-set decision rules and now they're removed. In the select committee process everyone was engaged with the officials in good faith and that was clearly evident with the dialogue. We sat there quite often in recess weeks to try and iron out the kinks with this legislation which was considered to be incredibly technical. Frequently it was offered by officials however that the bill proposes to put the squeeze on industry to innovate. And what I was always trying to ascertain by that statement is what innovation ultimately looked like. Now if I can give an example in my small contribution today when I posed questions at the committee stage to the Minister—what innovation looked like—I had offered a few things about what the industry was currently doing and I gave an example about mid-water fish. In that example I spoke to yellow-eyed mullets and yellow-eyed mullets are often commercially fished for bait fish. But in the same pressure zone in the ocean so are kahawai and inadvertently they are caught as part of bycatch. In that instance as the bill is proposed—and it speaks to 50 more or less fish as being bycatch—there is now a prosecutorial reality to that.Now when I gave that example I spoke to what the industry has actually done to alleviate that. It had gone from a 4-inch mesh to a 5-inch mesh to a 6-inch mesh. It had gone from a square to a diamond. It had changed over the last decade or more the use of cork lines lead lines and pressure zones that these nets—especially set nets—were set on. Now in reply to written parliamentary questions that I asked about how the industry was actually going to innovate to alleviate this potential prosecutorial reality which is quite hefty for 50 more or less fish caught in a 24-hour period the very things that the Minister's officials offered back to me—and I find it a glaring omission because they basically repeated the example that I gave. If I could paraphrase The technologies are available or under development." Well if you're a coastal commercial fisherman trying to reconcile a potential prosecutorial-reality because you have inadvertently caught more than 50 fish as bycatch to the example I have given you can see how this is a hard thing to stomach. And they go on: "Technologies of various stages of development include new nets with different orientation or mesh." Well gracious me that's already been happening over the decades: new technology such as precision seafood harvesting sorting grids coastal commercial fishermen as deep-water blue-water fleet are already doing this sort of innovation this sort of stuff. So I'm trying to reconcile where the Minister is trying to land with us. We all accept that the bill is predicated on preservation and sustainability of New Zealand's fish stocks for a shared interest in recreational commercial and customary. But how do you reconcile that? In this instance when especially we are speaking to a coastal commercial reality which often has multiple fish species that are caught—inadvertently they catch bycatch. And over the instance of the 50 yellow-eyed mullet versus kahawai: how do they alleviate that? I'm still trying to get my head around that as is the ACT Party. Anecdotally multiple people have spoken to me about how onerous this is going to be on the coastal commercial fishery especially those that sell to table-fish markets here in New Zealand. Now the comparison was often made with blue-water fleets. Well that's a very different reality and often the officials spoke to the innovation that had happened in Nordic countries but they offered blue-water examples. They weren't talking about multiple species of finfish caught in a coastal reality. Just very quickly before I close up I want to talk about the ramped-up fine reality and encapsulate that if I can with the 50 more or less fish as bycatch which by the way have to be landed brought home and inadvertently sold to a licenced fish receiver if you have one for a species that's probably cost—30c in a kilo is what you've made out of it and the average snapper might be over a dollar a kilo. But the prosecutorial reality that's attached to this is—and if I can read the departmental disclosure statement out—"The bill will maintain the current maximum penalty [of] ($250000) for the most serious breaches of … landings and discards rules with a new graduated penalty model. Fishers [and] … discard [of] 50 or [more] … fish a day could face up to a $10000 fine." Well if you're a set-net fisherman and you've gone down a harbour or an estuary and you've set your net as your commercial licence and your quota allows you to do and in my example of yellow-eyed mullet with kahawai you inadvertently catch more than 50 fish as bycatch because there's no technology currently at your disposal to alleviate that bycatch you're instantly fined—well potentially caught up in a $10000 fine reality. It also speaks to how fishers that discard over 50 or more fish could face up to a $100000 fine and fishers that offend two or more times in a three-year period could receive a maximum fine of $250000. Now I'm all for as is the ACT Party creating an environment that has tenable solutions that are practical for coastal commercial fishermen as is blue water that speaks to the sustainability of the fishery wherever it is found and by whoever uses it. That's beyond argument. Where the rubber really hits the road is the coastal commercial fishermen who more often than not sell to a table-fish market are asking us as officials as lawmakers to stop pause and use common sense. They have gone to great lengths to innovate their way around this difficulty.Now the bill also speaks to cameras on boats. No umbrage there most in the industry support that by virtue of the cameras on boats realities—they know that there's a science argument to be made; this will help capture data and imagery of what is being caught. It won't speak to the technological advances they've already made and the difficulties they're having in alleviating bycatch currently. Without overplaying my hand here this bill doesn't do that. It simply doesn't do that. It creates a penalty regime for those that have worked exceptionally hard to alleviate bycatch where is possible and I've laid out my example.ACT fundamentally can't support this bill. It will drive up protein that New Zealanders need. We've got a cost of living crisis—this will drive quite often ma and pa fishermen that are in the coastal fleet out of business. They've already got fuel issues they've already got labour issues and now this. ACT does not support this bill as framed. It simply won't work and it will drive productivity down and incur a penalty regime that most commercial fishermen don't deserve. We don't support this bill."