Sage EugenieCONSERVATION (INDIGENOUS FRESHWATER FISH) AMENDMENT BILLThird ReadingHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Thank you. I move That the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill will have major benefits for freshwater conservation and for threatened native fish and also for the control of noxious fish like koi carp. It's a small but vital step in the Government's work to give New Zealand's native species a much-needed helping hand. Aotearoa New Zealand has 56 species of indigenous freshwater fish most of them unique to this country. Of them around 70 percent are threatened or at risk of extinction. Populations of native fish have declined markedly over the last decades and I noted Dr Liz Craig's comments last night during the committee stages when she referred to enormous whitebait catches by the kerosene tin back in the 1930s in Taranaki and that reducing to just a cupful in terms of catches in the same rivers in the 1980s. So this bill is part of the Government's action to help prevent extinctions and regional extinctions of our native fish species—species like the giant kōkopu the short-jawed kōkopu the kōaro and the īnanga which are four of the six species in the whitebait catch and which are all threatened or at risk of extinction. Our indigenous fish though they are small are a vital part of our country's natural heritage. They're also important economically culturally and socially. Yet as Minister of Conservation I inherited a very antiquated framework for supporting native fish and for dealing with noxious fish. The freshwater fish regulations had not been reviewed since 1983 so it was a priority for me as a new Minister to update the law. This bill was introduced to improve the fisheries management legislative tool box because without a modern and effective suite of tools managers are prevented from taking the most effective and efficient steps to address the issues facing native fish—whether those are barriers to fish passage and that's particularly important because a lot of our native fish are migratory spend part of their life at sea and need to be able to get down rivers to migrate and then back up them at an early stage in their life—and to deal with issues like the loss of spawning sites and damage to those sites and also to deal with the fact that at the moment native fish are second-class indigenous species because they don't enjoy the same protection on conservation land outside reserves and national parks as all of our other native wildlife do. So the bill makes changes to rectify that and it will enable the Director-General of Conservation in two years' time to close some reaches of rivers or whole rivers to fishing through the authorisation process. There will despite the scaremongering of the Opposition be public consultation before any areas are proposed for closure. That is an important tool in ensuring that there are some waterways throughout New Zealand where native fish can live without the risk of being fished and ending up in a net or a whitebait patty. That is to help protect those native fish populations to enable them to thrive and to ensure that we have a healthy whitebait fishery into the future. So it's changing the law to give our native fish a helping hand for present and future generations. It is a small and technical bill and as I said at an earlier reading it's attracted a remarkable degree of public attention. I think that underlines how much people value native fish and also some of the scaremongering that has occurred. So I acknowledge all of those who are really interested in native fish who made submissions and acknowledge the work of the Environment Committee and the changes it made in response to submissions which clarify provisions in the bill and ensure it is a better piece of law. The committee considered very carefully the issues that were raised in submissions and one of those in particular was the interrelationship between management plans for native fish and those for sports fish. A lot of trout fishers were concerned that clause 5(3) of the bill meant that those native fish management plans would override plans for sports fisheries so that clause has been removed from the bill and that change is supported by the Fish & Game Council. In addition the Government made a further change to ensure that the whitebaiters would not see any changes this season or next in terms of the authorisation provisions and the closures that could be made in relation to conservation land. But contrary to the claims that some have made during recent months this bill doesn't make major changes to the existing arrangements for the management of freshwater fish. What it does do is create tools that can be used after consultation and after good analysis and that's things like ensuring that when councils and others are cleaning out drains to improve the management of water flows after rain they don't end up killing native fish without thinking. There's been a lot of community concern when that has happened and species like eels have been killed. So the bill also recognises from the initial consultation that the Department of Conservation did last year the widespread public support for improving the management of our native fish. That was an overwhelming theme of the submissions that came through under that consultation process. And that is exactly what this bill is about; it's about providing better tools to manage threats to fish whether it's impediments to fish passage or the damage that happens at spawning sites.It's providing greater certainty about where the spawning sites are through the process of the director-general declaring what sites are spawning sites. It's providing more flexibility in terms of the activities that could happen there than the existing law does. And it will help ensure that activities don't impact on the viability of those sites for spawning. I was really pleased in the debate in the committee stage that there was support across the Chamber for better protection of our spawning areas because this Government wants a healthy whitebait fishery. It wants a fishery where whitebaiters can always be assured of getting a decent catch without worrying that they are eating threatened species. We've already started the discussion around how we improve the fishery—that is going to continue later this year with the release of a discussion document with Cabinet's approval. This bill will ensure that the provisions that come out of that can actually be implemented.So I have really welcomed the engagement of passionate people through the different stages of the bill. They're the people who love to get out who go spotlighting at night to see native fish in the streams—fish that can be almost the size of your hand—they're people who chance their luck with a scoop net on rivers and streams across New Zealand.The bill is not just about whitebaiting though that's been the focus of a lot of the debate in here; it is also a bill about ensuring that threatened species like our longfin eel can migrate downstream to make that epic journey to Tonga to spawn. It means there'll be more tools to look after the amphibious Canterbury mudfish which spends half of its life hibernating in a muddy bed of streams. It means that the beautiful banded kōkopu will now have more help to climb to new heights—these fish are incredible climbers and can be found over 500 metres above sea level.So this bill is about part of the work that this Government is doing to improve freshwater management work that Minister Parker is leading with the Essential Freshwater programme work to improve the Resource Management Act to ensure that all of our rivers are swimmable for both humans and fish within a generation. So it's a bill that fixes the issues that we inherited in the Conservation Act the gaps around management for indigenous species it puts them on the same page as our other indigenous wildlife species—our kiwi our kākā our whio. It's a bill about improving the habitat and that can make a critical difference for native fish ensuring that they can spawn safely and that is the basis for improving populations—the work that has been done in areas like the Mawhera and the Grey River shows what a success that can be. So I commend this bill to the House.