Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Mr Chair. Well what a load of rubbish. What we've seen here tonight and heard from these people on the other side of the Chamber is all the hope. They've got all this hope about Things will be fine. Just trust me we know what we're doing." Well I'm sorry Minister Sage but we don't trust you because we are seeing the slow creep—the slow creep—of loss of property rights the slow creep of the loss of our ability to go out and catch our whitebait. There are incremental steps being taken to ensure that the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand is shut down and we are seeing that with significant natural areas (SNAs). Leaked documents from the Minister's own department—SNAs which will take 35 percent of private property off the Coast. So no wonder we're a little bit nervous when you say "Trust me we will do the best for the whitebait." Well I'm going to speak to Supplementary Order Paper 391 in the name of Sarah Dowie. What this does in clause 16(3A) is it replaces the new section 48A(1) with new wording: "Before making any recommendation under subsection (1) the Minister must—(a) consult any person or organisation that the Minister considers is likely to be substantially affected by or will be representative of the interests of people likely to be substantially affected by the regulations; and (b) take into account any scientific and quantitative evidence available." We have never in the course of the passage of this bill had any scientific or quantitative evidence made available. In fact the only scientific evidence that I can recall is the presentation that I did in a former reading of this bill from a fish biologist. I'm going to argue that there is sufficient concern over the details and powers afforded to the Director-General of Conservation and the Minister in this bill that 3000 people submitted on it. The irony that I've heard tonight is that the only submission that made any change—which was to clause 5 of this bill—was made by Fish & Game through the advocacy of the National Party. We've already heard in the committee tonight that we shouldn't take any notice of Fish & Game yet they're the only ones that were listened to by this Government when they made the only alteration to this bill as it passed through this House. So who do we listen to? "Trust me." we are told. What this bill does is it proves that this is not based on science or quantitative evidence but let me tell you the only data that showed any long-term trend in the whitebait catches was done between 1934 and 1974 on the West Coast. Sarah Dowie: Interesting. MAUREEN PUGH: Very interesting Ms Dowie because what it actually showed was incremental increase in the stock numbers of whitebait—increase in the numbers. Now that is quantitative data and evidence that we need to be using when we pass legislation in this House. A fish biologist and whitebaiter has been researching whitebait on the West Coast and around the country for the past 15 years—so a scientist who has the qualifications to comment. He is telling us that including the habitat restoration changes in populations in each of the five species as they returned to rivers etc. etc.—that's what he's been studying. He said whitebait larvae produced on the West Coast washed out to sea and followed the currents around the bottom of the South Island and back up to the Canterbury rivers. So what he is telling us—this scientist providing scientific evidence and quantitative data—is we are not catching an endangered species. We are not catching an endangered species but habitat was vital. As a consequence the West Coast of the South Island is the only part of the country that has closed rivers for that very purpose. It already has 61 West Coast creeks and rivers that are closed."