McKelvie Ian; Nash StuartIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I'll just touch on that topic for a second before I get on to another topic I want to raise. One of the things I think—and the Minister in the chair the Hon Stuart Nash can either answer me or not on this but one of the observations I'd make about this process is that it's putting significant cost on fishermen or it could potentially put significant cost on fishermen or fishing people to go and catch fish in much more remote areas with no significant benefit to the fishery or to the marine reserve in fact because you could shift that. I think that's the real challenge they've got with that and I accept that that's an issue.I just want to go back to the last issue as well because I think that the point I raised with respect to that—to the issue of cameras and technology we might use to overcome I guess the doubts about or the credibility of the commercial sector particularly—I think it's most important that we ensure the credibility of our commercial sector which will then get the confidence of our recreational sector in a much better space which I think would take a lot of the friction out of the industry because for some reason there seems to be friction in that area. So my question there is: are we going to actually implement technology to improve the recording and whatever of the commercial sector? The second one is: what is the potential for the sectors to join together? We've got I think it's called Fish South or something like that. There's an attempt that was made in the South Island to get all the sectors operating together—not operating together but working together so Fisheries New Zealand for example has got an entity they can deal with collectively rather than dividing and ruling. I think that's quite important for us. So that's the two issues I want to raise there. I want to get on to a couple of other questions but if the Minister wants to answer those I'll get on to the next one in a minute.Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Fisheries): First of all yes I would agree potentially depending on the final decision on the south-east marine protected area (MPA). It may impact upon fishers. As mentioned no decision has been made but in my view this does show that legislation around creating MPAs is clunky and it does need to be modernised—of that there is absolutely no doubt.In terms of your second question actually it's been compulsory to have electronic position reporting position monitoring and reporting since December last year and so that is already in place. There are a couple of exceptions. So by and large we are moving into the 21st century.In terms of the groups coming together let me give you an example. There is a camera working group that has been formed at the moment working on the issues and that contains officials members from the commercial sector and members from environmental non-governmental organisations. So there are projects where they do work together. The seabird action plan that was released by myself and the Minister of Conservation a couple of months ago—again representatives on that were across all sectors. So there are a number of examples where actually the environmentalists the commercial guys the recreational guys and customary all do work together for common outcomes.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Thank you Madam Chair. My next topic I want to just get on to briefly relates to the COVID restrictions on immigration. The fishing sector has some specialist boats—I suppose fishing boats for want of a better word—quite big ones and bigger than the boat that I go in anyway. They have some specialist fishing boats which generally require crewing by overseas crews. Now they're obviously New Zealand chartered boats because we passed the legislation that ensured that happened some years ago despite the doubtful nature of some of the evidence I saw on that programme on Sunday night around our foreign fishing vessels which clearly aren't operating out of New Zealand—well they shouldn't be under the rules.But the significant challenge is bringing those crews into New Zealand to crew those fishing boats. So we have a number of them potentially—well we have them tied up the moment and potentially tied up for quite some time which is a huge cost to the industry impeding the productivity of the industry as well. I wonder whether the Minister was doing any work on that with respect to those fishing crews because clearly we've had issues in other sectors of our economy which have been fixed up pretty quickly—some and some slowly. But there must be an opportunity to do that. You imagine with the fishing sector there would be a much easier opportunity because you can leave them on the fishing boat turn up—you could quarantine them on the fishing boat because those ships or fishing boats need to be out there from a productivity perspective. So I wonder if the Minister in the chair the Hon Stuart Nash has done any work in that area and whether he was wondering whether there's potential to get that resolved.Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Fisheries): First of all the member is right. Every single fishing boat fishing in New Zealand waters must comply with New Zealand labour laws and that includes wages and salaries. So you know the bad old days where they were slave ships" that's well and truly gone. The second thing I would say is we are well aware of the issue and there are a number of Government departments working on a potential solution. We haven't got there yet but it is more complex than simply bringing people in. But we are well aware of the issue.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I'm getting to the end of my—I've never got up and down so many times in this place. The last issue I want to just get on to quickly was aquaculture and I know that you think the same thing so I'm not questioning your loyalty to the aquaculture sector at all. I think aquaculture is probably the shining star in our food production sector in New Zealand. The challenge we've got is getting it operating in a manner that's sustainable from its perspective and also that allows it to grow in a manner that I think is hugely exciting for the future of New Zealand. I was wondering if the Minister in the chair the Hon Stuart Nash could just give us a quick rundown on where he's at with his aquaculture strategy. Also the other issue that's been raised a number of times is where we're at with the consenting processes which are extraordinarily complex at the moment. Clearly we're in new territory with some of those potential consenting processes because they're asking for something that's never been asked for before in New Zealand. I wonder if the Minister would want to just give us a bit of a rundown on that.Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Fisheries): Sure. I mean I released an aquaculture strategy earlier this year at the aquaculture conference. We have a very very strong vision for aquaculture. My vision for aquaculture is to be acknowledged as the most sustainable and best practice in the world. Very high—but you are right there's huge potential. I mean export value is I think at the moment around $600 million. The vision is to get to $3 billion and so we're doing a lot of work in the space. As the member's probably aware there's been a number of Provincial Growth Fund investments into aquaculture infrastructure. There's work going on at the moment with different organisations consenting—the member is right when he says consenting can be drawn out. There is one in particular that the member is possibly alluding to. Possibly there are other reasons why that has taken longer than may be necessary but one of the things that we are aware of in this space is—I suppose the best analogy I can use even though you know it's not quite right is a land-grab. We don't want to see a grab when we end up with one company for example going out there and putting a holding consent over huge swaths of ocean.I'm a big fan of spatial plans getting out there for the Government to determine where we can actually develop open-water aquaculture for example because I think that is the future of aquaculture—open-water aquaculture where it is appropriate where it isn't and then working with the industry through this to see what the future of open water looks like. We're not quite there yet in terms of technology. They do have some in Scandinavian countries and I'm well aware the member visited—was it Norway?—a couple of years ago.That's the ultimate. I mean we do want to get there and I do believe we will get there. But we are on a little bit of a journey at the moment. We have an incredibly good team in Fisheries New Zealand looking at aquaculture working very closely with the industry. I do believe that the industry has bought into our vision and is supporting everything we're doing around the infrastructure to ensure that this is futureproofed going forward. But everything we're doing in aquaculture from you know physical infrastructure i.e. wharves through to science and research at places like Cawthron to me says that we really—I certainly but I think the Government buys into the potential that aquaculture is and we're doing everything we can and we will continue to work in partnership with the industry to be able to realise our vision in this space.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): I was going to say I told a lie; I didn't quite. I've got one more question. Before the Primary Production Committee for at least the last year—probably the last year and a half and probably not the first time since I've been in this place—there's a petition been discussed around the potential for trout farming in New Zealand. I know it's a touchy subject—has been for a long time but I also—Hon Stuart Nash: Sorry what was that?IAN McKELVIE: Trout farming. But I also have to say that when I did visit Norway the best fish I tasted was sea-farmed trout—much better than sea-farmed salmon I thought. So I guess my question is: has the Minister in the chair the Hon Stuart Nash given any consideration to that petition and is it likely to progress in any way?Hon STUART NASH (Minister of Fisheries): I mean I'm well aware that the petition has been in front of the Primary Production Committee. You've had a number of submitters and my officials have given you an officials' report. At this point in time it's not in my work programme though."