Peters Jim: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Peters Jim: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:616;Page:11654] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I speak to the amendments that were raised by Mr Heatley. I want to assure that member in the Committee that not all regional councils are in the position that he has enunciated—particularly he mentioned Taranaki and other councils—because the issue in Northland is not like that. Unlike other councils the Northland Regional Council took the then Minister at his word. It went out and is now into its third round of consultation with the wider community about where the aquaculture management areas should be. It accepted that the zones for potential marine farming were likely to be contentious and needed the maximum amount of consultation and discussion. In Northland in the past week there have been two very well-attended meetings of over 200 people at Kerikeri and Paihia where people were very very concerned about the potential impact of such marine farming zones upon tourism and all the other amenity values that they see in the Bay of Islands. 
 I believe that many regional councils have been derelict in not picking up the challenge that was laid down when the moratorium was set out. Also most of the regional coastal plans were put together in a day and an age when it was not envisaged that there would be 4000 5000 6000 or 8000 hectares of offshore farming being proposed as a legitimate way of farming in particular mussels. Most of our regional coastal plans do not envisage that at all. They look at establishing small protected areas. To go back to the issue raised by the member for Whangarei if his amendment were to be passed I say there would be chaos because people in the industry would be able to apply for marine farms under the Resource Management Act under a regional coastal plan that had very few prohibited areas and there would be widespread disquiet and concern in the community. 
The issue is not therefore about what regional councils have or have not done; I believe that some councils could have done more. In Northland we are on to the third round of consultation and that has been done deliberately because we want the community to be aware of the consequences of marine farming. Really the issue is whether by 31 December this year those people who have taken the challenge up and as in the case of the Northland Regional Council have reached a broad consensus of opinion in the community about where marine farming should be—about all the pluses and minuses of this valuable resource and the potential that it has those issues having been analysed and known widely in the community—can at that point in time proceed. That is the issue and there must be absolute assurance. If the Minister cannot give that guarantee then he ought to say so now. 
That brings me to the last issue which is not about the part of the regional councils but about what work has been done with regard to the structure of marine farming under the proposed new regime’s space and tendering all the matters we have not yet had addressed that were the cause of concern for some submitters who came to the Primary Production Committee. The committee looked in particular at the fact that there were issues that were not part of the so-called bill: tenure the definition of the areas and most of all what right the existing permit holders would have with regard to the regimes of the future. Those are the other parts of the structure that the Minister needs to address urgently if the aquaculture industry is to take off on 1 January 2005.