Heatley Phil: Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Heatley Phil: Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 14 December 2004. Volume:622;Page:17787. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I too would like to extend my thanks to the officials from the Ministry for the Environment. I have certainly appreciated their input and their sincere response to the many questions that we have asked. As may be seen some of those questions came out of left field but all arose from genuine concerns. The officials always responded freely frankly and with a lot of consideration. We thank them for taking our ideas back to their Ministers and their ministry and thinking them through. 
I also thank the Ministry of Fisheries officials. The Ministry of Fisheries has had a big year. We know that because the Primary Production Committee which considered this legislation has dealt with five significant fisheries matters this year the Aquaculture Reform Bill being the last. The Ministry of Fisheries officials also went away and thought through some of the ideas of the select committee members and came back with resolutions. We appreciate that. 
And of course I thank the Department of Conservation officials who probably got the most flak from committee members because of the concern obviously about how much say the Department of Conservation wanted in the whole process. We as a committee were generally very wary about that. But the officials stood up for their points of view and we appreciate that. So I thank those officials. 
I also thank all the submitters both those from the commercial-fishing sector and those from the marine-farming sector who put forward their views to the select committee as we travelled across the country. I acknowledge them. 
I acknowledge my colleagues on the committee. I would like of course to commend those on my own side—the Opposition members—but on the Government side I would particularly like to commend Jacket Mackey. I have enjoyed working with her particularly over the— 
Government Members 
: Ooh! 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: Yes and I will be asking her out to dinner at some later date. I would like to commend her for her very rational and pragmatic approach to the problems that often we raised. Although a member of an opposing party she was willing to hear us out. She did not agree with all our points every time but she certainly took them into account understood them and took them back to her Minister and we saw changes in many many cases. I acknowledge her for that and I thank her for her pragmatic approach. 
The National Party as a team drove through significant changes to this legislation because when it was first introduced—as everyone knows now—it was seriously and fatally flawed. People from the industry who came to us were very concerned that this legislation would affect their businesses and that they would have to lay off staff and shift overseas. They begged for changes. We acknowledge that the select committee process has seen significant changes in this legislation and when it is enacted we will be glad that those changes are now part of it. But we still oppose this legislation because of outstanding issues that in our view have not been resolved. 
The issue of horse-trading with Maori on the seabed and foreshore legislation is a prime example. The Government is giving aquaculture space for free to iwi to buy their support for the seabed and foreshore legislation. In the future up to 40 percent of new marine-farming space will be set aside for Maori to address what is referred to as the unfinished business of the 1992 fisheries settlement. We called for historical documentary evidence that proves there was such unfinished business but we still have not received any despite assurances that such evidence exists. With the reforms in this legislation marine-farming applications that have been put on hold for 2 years and 9 months—it will be close to 3 years—by the moratorium are to be used by the Crown to settle contemporary Maori claims. The National Party feels that the fact that an applicant’s space can be reallocated to someone else is unfair and that a settlement of one grievance should not generate and create another grievance which is exactly what is happening here. 
Most Maori submitters do not acknowledge this action as a settlement at all. They do not want to be played off against others in the industry. There was no negotiation and with this legislation—unlike the 1992 fisheries settlement—there is no deed of settlement to point to. Many Maori who came to the select committee were dissatisfied. They foresee themselves receiving space they would not have chosen they see themselves receiving random patches of space of no economic value and they see themselves being played off against the industry and in their view it is not over yet. 
National sees the treaty settlement approach taken with Ngai Tahu Ngati Tama Ngati Awa Ngati Ruanui and Nga Rauru Kitahi which gave preferential tendering rights for aquaculture space as a satisfactory full and final way to address aquaculture claims that have merit. We do not see the broad blanket approach of a 20 percent give-away right across the country as a way to address a genuine claim. Genuine settlements with iwi should be addressed on a case by case basis should be solely between the Crown and Maori and should not involve or interfere with the operations of current or future marine farmers. That is where the National Party sits on this quid pro quo horse-trading deal with Maori that the Labour Government is pushing through. 
We still have some unanswered questions on how aquacultural interests will be balanced with commercial-fishing interests. We support interaction between those two sectors and we want to give them a timely fully transparent and cost-effective process to follow. We do not know how the regional councils will be able to quantify and qualify aquaculture’s effects on fishing when they look at things such as the effect on spawning and stock development. We believe that problems may arise in the future and we will be watching that with interest. 
Probably the biggest win for National Party MPs on the committee was getting the right of first refusal for incumbent marine farmers. We are glad we got that win. We are concerned that there are still a couple of fishhooks in the legislation whereby the incumbents to gain renewal have to manage their farms according to what the Government calls industry-good practice—a term that it has not defined that is vague and subjective and that will change as technology changes. We are also concerned that the Government has a fishhook whereby regional councils may re-tender occupied space out from underneath an incumbent marine farmer if they deem it “necessary”. We are not sure what “necessary” means there but we do know that it is subject to Government policy changes. 
National supports this industry. We wish that aquaculture would grow. It is good for New Zealand and there is no doubt about that. We do not want New Zealand marine farmers shifting overseas and taking their business elsewhere. We want them in this country. We wish them well. We will be watching the way that these reforms affect their industry into the future and when we are in Government after the election next year we will be more than prepared to make changes to this legislation if we see aquaculture continuing to struggle under this new legislative environment.