Seymour David: Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSeymour David: Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9676. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. I believe that the purpose behind this bill is a very noble one—a recognition that in New Zealand and our economic zone we have taonga in the form of the natural world that are in many cases unique and worthy of preservation. That is why I am prepared to support this bill in its first reading. However I believe that in our Parliament our process of lawmaking offers much opportunity to improve the quality of public policy through the select committee stage and there are a number of changes that could be made to this particular bill that would greatly enhance the quality because let us be honest it has been a rather rushed policy-making process. Cooked up in time for an international announcement the regulatory impact statement was to say the least rather weak. We need to be concerned not only about environmental protection but also about the livelihood of those who make their living from the fishery.The interesting thing from a conservation point of view is as I asked the Minister Smith in the House only a few weeks ago what change to the total allowable catch in New Zealand’s economic zone is brought about by this bill? Being a very experienced Minister he ducked he dived and completely failed—or succeeded perhaps—to answer the question. That is because the Minister knows that the change in fisheries taken under this bill is zero. What it will do is displace those who do catch fish to catch the same amount of fish elsewhere. From a conservation point of view that is not an improvement; it is a small backwards step in the sense that it will mean more concentrated fisheries elsewhere.The second problem—not only a conservation problem but also a commercial problem—is that $165000 worth of fisheries will be precluded from the area. I will not go into the possibility of the fishing that might have taken place in the future. The idea that is in this bill is that if you are not using a property right at a particular point then you lose it. Just focus on that relatively small value of fishing because the premise we are being asked to buy into is that as long as you are picking on only the little guy or girl that is OK—that no compensation is due as long as the person having their property rights appropriated is small. As a concept I find that abominable and I think that this Parliament ought to do better than that.I will be happy to support this bill at future readings because as I say there is a noble purpose behind protecting New Zealand’s unique and beautiful flora and fauna. It also enhances greatly our international reputation where our conservation efforts have been criticised for the lack of marine reserves. None the less we need to resolve a couple of issues. If this House is going to abrogate the property rights of New Zealanders that are legally held under New Zealand’s quota management system then we ought to compensate them for the losses that they experience. If this House is going to try to preserve the fishery then rather than incentivising people to catch the same amount of fish in a smaller area of ocean we ought to say that we are purchasing a public good and we will buy out the people who previously privately benefited from taking those fish. That is good public policy-making in line with the noble conservation objectives of this bill and it is something that I will be happy to support in future readings. The ACT Party supports this bill in its first reading so that we can debate those changes. Thank you.