van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. It's a privilege to rise and take my first call in the 53rd Parliament and just in time for the Christmas break—so fantastic to be able to speak here on the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill.Jamie Strange: Nice and short—a short one!TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Nice and short Mr Strange. Well we'll see about that. There's a lot to say on this important bill so we'll see how we go. But look this is an area that I am just getting my head around as the new spokesperson for oceans and fisheries and it's an area that I'm quite excited about because it represents significant opportunity. Whilst the current aquaculture industry at $600 million makes a reasonable contribution it's not massive but it does have massive potential and this particular amendment bill helps to capture some of that potential. So as Minister Whaitiri's just touched on effectively what this change is doing is streamlining the process to give that limited discretionary power to the trustee Te Ohu Kaimoana to allocate those iwi settlement assets. Now since this came into play this Act back in 2004 there have been some challenges in terms of allocating those iwi assets on a settlement basis depending on of course the different claims to that within different iwi groups. And of course the requirements within the Act are such that every iwi who has a potential claim must be involved and no decision can be made around the distribution of those assets without the unanimous agreement of all those participants. That is the fundamental issue that we've had here—that in some instances there hasn't been unanimous agreement. And if that can't be obtained then effectively it's tying up the ability for the iwi groups to access their entitlement and to just get on with business. Ultimately what is trying to be achieved here is to promote the timely distribution of those allocations and therefore enable them those stakeholders to get on and do business and thrive as a result of their allocation of aquaculture assets.As the Minister mentioned the current industry around $600 million—there's an ambitious aquaculture strategy to take that from 3000 people involved now up to about more than 6000 and a contribution of over $3 billion by 2035. Now that's ambitious but actually I think that's quite achievable. And when we look—Todd Muller: With a National Government.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: —at aquaculture globally there are some fantastic opportunities with it. And it's a very good point Mr Muller. It probably needs an ambitious National Government to help solidify some of that opportunity of course. But that aside there's still potential delivered from this particular bill to enable those iwi groups to get on and make some progress despite the legislative challenges faced by them through the current Government. That said we need to be targeting in particular here how we can grow aquaculture. When we look at aquaculture as a food source fish are the most rapid converters of food to protein. You can look at any other land-based farming systems—beef sheep for example—the feed conversion ratio of aquaculture is something like 1:1.4. It's massive right? So you give them 1.4 of feed and they're converting it to a kilogram of protein. That is phenomenal. It far exceeds any other protein source we have. So this is some of the opportunity we have. And alongside that of course you look at New Zealand as a country an island surrounded by a significant amount of water and the potential for aquaculture is nearly limitless. At the moment we're targeting that around the inshore space but actually over time I think we need to be looking at deep-water options. I know there are currently some entities looking at that at the moment but actually one of the fundamental issues around that is the Resource Management Act (RMA). This is a problem that we have cropping up in just about every piece of legislation we're talking about at the moment actually—the RMA holding up the process—and it's no different under the Maori Commercial Aquaculture Claims Settlement Amendment Bill that we're debating here today as well. Until we can get this RMA sorted we're not going to be able to capture the productivity gains in as timely and efficient a manner as we should be able to. So that needs to be a big focus and it's great to see the Government now have come around to National's way of thinking and are prepared to look at reviewing the RMA and getting some better rules in place to deliver that opportunity for us. But coming back to this specific bill those discretionary powers are going to be reasonably limited but will enable the ability to get on and capture some of that benefit for those iwi. Now as I mentioned earlier on the issue is that it's been tied up in a number of cases through disagreement by one particular group or it could even be down to an individual level—one person—and so the ability for one person to tie up the entire distribution process of iwi aquaculture settlement claims for a particular region or harbour is absolutely disproportionate. So this bill does enable a partial solution to that enabling the trustee to make an allocation based on their determination around the proportions claimed by different iwi groups. Now that's one of the key aspects here and when looking at the bill the bulk of it is under new section 49 set out in clause 7. That's where the key aspects of this change are coming in. And new section 49B(2) specifies that a transfer of settlement assets … must be made in proportion to the length of coastline of the relevant iwi who agree on a partial allocation and that the trustee is satisfied is unlikely to be disputed." Right so giving this limited discretionary power to the trustee doesn't mean they can just go out carte blanche and allocate the entitlements as they see fit on any given day to whomever they wish. They actually still have to follow a pretty structured process to minimise the chance of dispute. Hon Simon Bridges: That's right.TIM VAN DE MOLEN: Thank you Mr Bridges—and to ensure that people can get on and still have a way forward to enable them to see what in their view is their appropriate allocation whilst enabling or still having the disputes process for those who feel they have not yet been allocated the proportion they would expect to be under this particular bill. So once that allocation occurs then there's a requirement of course for notification to happen and disputes can still then be lodged off the back of that allocation. Now of course as I just mentioned reading out that subsection it's the expectation that the trustee makes a partial allocation where it's unlikely to be disputed but if it is disputed well there is still a process for that under new section 49E(2) and so that's appropriate to then link into the existing part—I think it's sections 52 through to 55 of the 2004 Act—which outlines the current disputes process. So those aspects will still provide some comfort I hope for those who are concerned that this power may see their potential claim overridden by the ability of the trustee to allocate assets. Indeed that shouldn't be the case and the dispute process still clearly enables anyone who is concerned to raise a dispute. And of course that can then go back to the Māori Land Court as well depending on the progress they make through the disputes process. Hearing from the Minister—I was interested to hear it is going to the Māori Affairs Committee rather than the Primary Production Committee the fisheries portfolio. That's fine. The reality is submitters I hope will take the opportunity to have their voices heard on that regardless and in particular those iwi groups who have experienced some difficulties in this space. I think that would be really key—to get firsthand feedback from them on the challenges they had and why that might have arisen and the value then of being able to allocate at least partial distributions under this amendment as I said with the view to enabling those iwi groups to get on and capture some of that benefit to the wider aquaculture industry. As I mentioned that aquaculture strategy as well is a key part of wanting to grow the industry. One of the aspects I was quite interested to see under this Act was that for any new aquaculture space 20 percent is automatically allocated to iwi settlement claims. So indeed it makes absolute sense the Minister's claim that we can't capture the value of the aquaculture industry until iwi have accessed those entitlements. Of course that would be the case otherwise we would only be able to capture up to 80 percent of the value without that. So it is important that we do look to expedite this where possible acknowledging of course that there has been a clear process and pace but sometimes disputes can arise and unfortunately where they haven't been able to be remedied it has been challenging and has slowed up the ability to access that economic potential which then impacts on those regions. When we're talking about the different allocations under this bill it really is impacting on regional New Zealand and so that's one of the key areas where personally I'd like to see a lot more focus on economic growth under this Government and so hopefully this will help to achieve that for those groups within that region. So on the basis of that we do support this bill. I look forward to seeing it progress through the House and we'll be following it closely through the remaining stages. Thank you."