Scott Lynda: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Scott Lynda: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:11748] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 National will not be supporting the extension to the moratorium. Listening to John Tamihere I have to say that he reminded me of the Norah Jones’ song “Sunrise Sunset”. The marine farming and aquaculture industry used to be a sunrise industry but this Government has done its absolute best to turn it into a sunset industry—just like the Norah Jones song. That is what it has done to this industry. The reason the moratorium is not expiring on 25 March and is being extended for 9 months is that the Government could not get its act together. It could not get the aquaculture law reform legislation into any shape or form. 
We have to remember that Marlborough is an area where Mahara Okeroa said Maori could not get involved in marine farming. That is completely incorrect. Maori own 30 percent of marine farms in Marlborough; 17 percent of those employed in the industry are Maori compared with 11 percent in all other industries. Maori are more involved in this industry than in any other. It is not because they have had handouts or special privileges; it is because they have got in there and footed it with everybody else and they have done extremely well. This Government’s patronising attitude to Maori has to stop. It tells Maori they are sick; it tells Maori they cannot do things without special privileges. I say they can and this is a very good example of how they can do it. Maori own 30 percent of the marine farms in Marlborough and they did not need a patronising Government to get them into the farms. 
Aquaculture law reform has become totally and utterly bogged down. This business creates regional development. If we want to get this country going and have jobs for the people then we want marine farming. I agree it used to be a race for space because a whole lot of people wanted to get into it. But now this Government is going to pass the management of aquaculture areas down to the regional councils. That is like everything else it does. It passed health on to the district health boards and washed its hands of it. Sorting out aquaculture management areas will be passed on to the regional councils. 
I do not believe that the Government has got itself into a position to handle the new aquaculture law reform. I believe we will see another extension to this moratorium because this Government has not been able to manage this issue. Havelock in my electorate was full of empty shops and empty hopes 15 years ago and now it is the thriving heart of the greenshell mussel industry. We will not see that happen around the rest of the country in places like Opotiki and in all those other areas that could be thriving with this sort of industry. But in Havelock we have work we have new homes we have an expanding marina we have restaurants and we have a sense of vibrancy—all because of an industry that was growing at 20 percent per annum. However it is now stalled at the starting gates of the 21st century. It is stalled because this Government is bogged down by bureaucracy by this moratorium that is now being extended because of the seabed and foreshore issues by Environment Court hearings by consultation by the Resource Management Act—and the list goes on. 
We heard Ian Ewen-Street talking before about how we do not know what the environmental effects are. Greenshell mussels are the only endemic species we farm and we have had reports from Scotland and Tasmania showing that although there is a minor effect under the farm outside the farm area there is very little effect. Let me give members an example of what this industry is facing. The latest extremely expensive imposition on the industry is the Fisheries Resource Impact Assessment otherwise known as a “FRIA” to investigate the impact of marine farming on the environment. It cost the industry $170000 to do that for just one bay and basically it told us nothing more than what we knew from the Australian and Scottish reports. That was $170000 imposed on the industry. I wish the Minister for Small Business had talked about some of those impositions and costs on businesses in New Zealand. The men and women who forged this industry—people like Jim Jessop who went out and forged it into a sunrise not sunset industry—have absolutely had enough of the bureaucracy surrounding it today. Marine farmers are enmeshed in these treaty settlement obligations. 
My friend Phil Heatley the MP for Whangarei—and who will be the Minister of Fisheries in the next National Government—talked about the “space for race” because that is one of the issues that is bogging down aquaculture law reform. This Government has not been able to deal to the foreshore and seabed issue of how much space will be allocated to Maori in aquaculture management areas. That “space for race” issue has not been sorted out and it is one of the major reasons that aquaculture law reform is being held up and why this moratorium has been extended. Then we get to the resource consents process—and thank goodness for this is the only part of the bill I would support because it would allow consents to be grandparented and to go through. Can members imagine what people in the industry who have a small marine farm have to go through with all the complicated problems involved in getting resource consent? The Minister when he took a call said that the process had blown out a bit. Blown out a bit? Marine farmers have only 2 years before their resource consents lapse and the Ministry of Fisheries cannot manage to get around to giving them a fisheries permit. Can members imagine the frustration of those people who have gone through the resource management consent process and are waiting to get their permit? Two hundred people are waiting for fisheries permits. Of those 100 have expired resource consents because they have been waiting for over 2 years. 
To add insult to injury what do Ministry of Fisheries officials do? If people ring up to ask why their livelihood is going down the gurgler they are charged 200 bucks an hour for the privilege. That is how this Government works. It does not understand the needs of people in the industry. Marine farming had export earnings of only $25 million in 1989 but earned $260 million in 2002. We have 900 farms occupying 5500 hectares and that has produced 4000 jobs. This industry—of which greenshell mussels make up 65 percent with national sales of $220 million—could earn $1 billion by 2020. That is $1 billion for New Zealand but we have had 5 years of a Labour Government that has sat on its hands and has not organised the aquaculture law reform legislation. So tonight we are debating yet again another extension to the moratorium because the Government has not managed to get the new law reform in place. 
The industry really wants this aquaculture law reform. It wants the process simplified; it does not want the two-consent process. But it can no longer support the tortuous convoluted process that has been proposed as the development of aquaculture management areas has become a bureaucratic nightmare. The only way we could actually see a change is to have a change of Government and a change of Minister to someone who understands the industry and can sort this mess out because 5 years of Labour Government has not done that. 
Hon Mark Burton 
: We haven’t had 5 years yet. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: Well it is getting close—it feels much longer than that. It has been 5 long years and it has been so boring. We are turning a sunrise industry into a sunset industry as Australia and Chile get out there and capture our markets. 
A member opposite said: “Oh boring” but I say to him that it is not boring to the men and women of New Zealand who have put their livelihoods and functions into this industry. Terry Schwass from the New Zealand Marine Farming Association who helped set up Queen Charlotte College’s course in marine farming—a great guy—said: “Well done politicians and bureaucrats. You have brought a once viable and vibrant industry to a standstill.” That is what this Government has done. Under National the industry was thriving vibrant and moving forward with 20 percent growth in the 1990s. Now it has 0 percent growth and this Government cannot deny that. If it wants the unemployment rate—which during the 1990s continued to decrease—to stay down and if it wants jobs then it has to do something about this industry instead of having a moratorium that stops its development.