Woolerton R Doug: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Woolerton R Doug: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
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R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 Believe it or not because it is relatively new in New Zealand the cost recovery regime and matters relating to any sort of tax or levy—or whatever it is called—on individual fishers are still seen by them as a huge imposition and something to be challenged every step of the way. We are dealing with a very litigious industry here. 
The cost recovery regime as we heard from previous speakers is an unders-and-overs one. It is not an exact science and it has been challenged and fought against numerous times. It is true that this particular cost recovery or payback was rather large and quite a bit more than what should have been levied on these people so paying back that levy in light of the reduction of future levies has become somewhat controversial. 
Earlier on in this saga retrospective legislation was passed through this House that made some of the previous levies legal. There were challenges to that. There were all sorts of arguments and some of our colleagues on the select committee were quite strong in their views about whether collecting levies at that time was legal. Even after the retrospective legislation was passed there were arguments over whether it was legal now. The majority of the committee members thought it was and we have heard previous speakers say that we intend to proceed as the bill was put to us with a few minor amendments. 
I will speak for a moment about the work that was done in respect of these levies. In this case some of it was not done but we will not go into that. It has been the view of fishers throughout history that they are the ones who buy the boats take the risks and go out and find the fisheries. That is all true but as we move into more modern times there are also issues surrounding quota and an understanding that one cannot continuously take whatever one wants from the sea. There is an understanding that what was once considered to be an infinite food source is no longer infinite. 
We have ships the likes of which the early fishers could not have contemplated even in their wildest dreams—bigger than any waka we have ever seen and with fishing techniques that could be related to hoovering the sea floor and sucking up vast tonnages of fish. This has meant that through the Government industry organisations have had to come about and because that has had to happen they have obviously had to be levied. 
I wanted to cover that because even though fishing has gone on since before the time of Christ and beyond and is one of the oldest industries known to humans— 
Hon David Carter 
: What do the Greens want to do? 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: What the Greens want to do does not bear thinking about. I want to congratulate Mr Carter on working through some very tricky issues on that select committee. 
Hon David Carter 
: I couldn’t have done it without the member’s help. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: There we go—we are being too kind to each other. 
Fishing is an old industry but in the current context it is relatively new and certainly the quota management system is quite new and quite unique. It is being copied by other regimes throughout the world and in the long term it will be very successful. Fish is not an infinite resource; it is a finite resource. Therefore we have to get into quotas; therefore we have to get into levies to administer those things. Therein lies the problem and it has been resolved in this case by paying forward and taking the cost recovery off future levies. 
I commend this bill and New Zealand First will be voting for it.