SpeechHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thanks Mr Speaker. Well I can tell you why you got that many people at a meeting and that is because of the wilful misinformation disinformation malinformation dirty politics campaign that is being run by the National Party on a number of issues including this one and it is actually telling untruths to the community about the impact of this piece of legislation. That's why and we're seeing the ugly dirty politics tactics coming out again which is what the National Party does.Interestingly I'm sitting on another select committee at the moment which is looking at misinformation disinformation malinformation being waged during election campaigns and having what feels like a sensible discussion about some measures that we can do in this country to address that. In the meantime the National Party is out there spreading those—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! I want to ask the member to come to the bill. It's been nearly 1½ minutes.Hon CLARE CURRAN: Sure. Well what I've heard during this debate tells me that the members have been either deliberately or refusing or just had their fingers in the ears while the Minister of Conservation was speaking about the impact of this bill on the whitebait fisheries. I'm going to remind them. Actually I'm going to suggest that they all pay a visit to their GP to get the wax removed from their ears because I think that's a bit of a problem. The Minister clearly said that the bill does not change the general controls on whitebaiting or prevent commercial fishing of whitebait. Now I wonder which part of that is not clear.What the bill does is ensure that we can better tackle threats to whitebait populations particularly the loss of spawning sites which is what David Parker talked about. So gee that means more whitebait not less whitebait. It's actually about growing the whitebait population about managing the whitebait population and looking at providing some protection within protected areas requiring that any fishing in a protected area needs permission—in a protected area. Now I know that is apparently a huge encroachment on private property rights. What I find extraordinary is that the spokesperson the National Party spokesperson on conservation studied ecology and not only that she worked for the Department of Conservation. She said that we needed to take a science approach but she appears to be oblivious to the actual science around this particular issue which is around the threat to the 57 indigenous freshwater fish more than half of which live nowhere else in the world. I haven't heard one National Party speaker this afternoon in this debate which is about a bill that's called the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill talk about the protection of indigenous fish. Now why is that? Is that just something that is just being wilfully ignored? And of course whitebait is there as are various species of eels. The conservation status of freshwater fish was reassessed in 2017. This information was provided to the Environment Committee and I know Maureen Pugh that you sat on that select committee a few times so you did have access to the papers and you could have actually read some of the information that was provided where it said that 22 species are now listed as threatened and 17 as at risk and that 70 percent of our native freshwater fish are classified as threatened or at risk.Maureen Pugh: So where's the data?Hon CLARE CURRAN: Is she challenging the data—is she challenging the data? Well in that case get up and give us the alternative data that the National Party has access to because this is about protecting and growing our indigenous freshwater fisheries that have significantly declined over the last century and about broadening the protections for that. Now you can't really dispute—well it's really hard to know what the argument is that disputes that.I do want to make a couple of comments about the removal of clause 5(3) and the claims that have been made by the National Party speakers that somehow that's all because of their work. I want to give a shout-out to Fish & Game New Zealand who are our pre-eminent respected organisation in this country that does the hard yards around the recreational activities in fishing and game hunting but is also concerned about protection of habitat. Now they came to the select committee and they brought one of the most pre-eminent lawyers and previous legislators in the country Sir Geoffrey Palmer who had done a lot of work on looking at the impact that clause 5(3) might have. There was a lot of discussion about that in terms of whether or not a freshwater management plan would have—what impact that would have on the sports fisheries plan. In the end it was decided and as I recall the committee agreed—Angie Warren-Clark: I recall that too.Hon CLARE CURRAN: And that was everyone on the committee if I recall correctly who agreed with the advice that it be removed. In fact we ourselves suggested that the officials go back to Fish & Game and talk to them about that and come back and report to us in the committee. That was the whole committee and they did. We agreed that that was the best course of action and I really do want to commend Fish & Game for the approach that they took with us. They didn't go out and run a misinformation campaign. They came to the committee and gave a well-reasoned argument which the committee listened to and acted upon. As a result Fish & Game have said that they felt that that dealt with their biggest concern around this piece of legislation. So that kind of undercut to be honest the National Party's misinformation campaign because they didn't have the backing—Brett Hudson: No more whitebaiting.Hon CLARE CURRAN: —of Fish & Game. So therefore they've had to just rely on their No more whitebaiting." even though what this bill does is actually increase the whitebait population in this country and protect it.You know when all of those submitters those individual submitters that came with their pro forma submissions to the select committee worried that somehow they weren't going to be able to do whitebaiting again because the likes of Maureen Pugh had been out there telling them that and they were asked by me and other members of the committee that if their concerns were to be alleviated did they support the management of our indigenous fish species. What did they all say? They all said yes. And guess what? That's what's this bill does. So you know do your worst. Get up spout off more misinformation and your dirty politics tactics but in the end what this bill does is responsible. It's about the long term. It's looking forward by generations for our freshwater indigenous species. It's the right thing to do. It will be done well and it's what a good Government does."