SpeechHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green) (remote): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. Thank you. There have been a series of in-depth and really well-researched reports from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment the Rt Hon Simon Upton in recent months. They've highlighted the shortcomings in our environmental research system and funding for environmental research how well our biosecurity system deals with native ecosystem weeds and the fate of chemicals in the environment. Today the parliamentary Finance and Expenditure Committee and Environment Committee had a joint briefing from the Parliamentary Commissioner on a report he's released on wellbeing Budgets and the environment. That report looks at the way the environment has or hasn't been included in the process of constructing wellbeing Budgets. It was published last year and it looks at how and why the environment has or hasn't been well integrated into the formation of Budget packages. In Budget 2021 we saw that the oceans really missed out in terms of funding. There was no extra funding for oceans no changes in the fisheries appropriations in Budget 2021 no new policies or outputs for the oceans and no additional funding for fisheries research. That needs to change in Budget 2022. It's long been recognised that we've got a huge information gap in terms of fisheries management and big gaps in our information about fish stocks and about species bycatch and the ecosystem impacts of fisheries and the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor Dr Juliet Gerrard highlighted this in her report about commercial fisheries management in March last year. She highlighted that more resource is needed so that the regulator the Ministry for Primary Industries can keep pace with ever-changing stocks and that we need to make that data more accessible.We've got about 30 percent of the fish that we catch and commercially it's some 228 stocks—we don't have stock assessments for those. It's not good enough to be doing this extraction in the absence of information and in Budget 2022 we need to recognise the importance of the oceans for the climate for biodiversity for our economy and for providing food for millions and in buffering us from the worst impacts of climate change because of course it's been the oceans that have absorbed 90 percent of the extra heat associated with global warming and a third of the carbon dioxide. We've seen with increasing sea surface temperatures major changes to weather patterns more extreme weather events melting sea ice kelp forest decline and ocean acidification from excess carbon dioxide causing the collapse of our coral reefs and real problems for shellfish. So we're in the process of losing much of our marine biomass and biodiversity across the world. Now the Parliamentary Commissioner this morning highlighted that we could improve the Budget process by identifying some key long-run environmental issues and challenges and developing investment priorities to systematically address them to better mitigate future risks and to identify and address tipping points. The declining health of oceans and our fisheries should be one of those key issues. We really need to recognise their value and we need a much greater sense of urgency around policies and programmes for oceans and fisheries because after all with the fourth-biggest exclusive economic zone in the world and with 85 percent of our indigenous wildlife being in the sea and yet with so many of those species threatened with extinction—90 percent of our seabirds birds like albatross and mollymawks; 80 percent of our shore birds and 22 percent of our marine mammals—we need to safeguard their future and ours. At the moment we're seeing really ponderous policy work around the oceans. Consultation started on marine protected areas on the south-east Otago coast back in 2016-17. We still have no marine protected areas. Similarly with Revitalising the Gulf work was well under way last term in terms of responding to the Sea Change process and yet the Minister has said we won't see legislation to establish new marine protected areas until 2025. That is too late. We need urgency and we need much greater investment in the oceans. They are protecting us from the worst effects of climate change and they are a rich storehouse for a number of taonga species. We need to invest in them and we need to protect them. Thank you.