Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look there's no doubt that aquaculture plays an important role in New Zealand and around the world. I agreed with the comments that Hamish Campbell made that increasingly the world is reliant on aquaculture for fisheries output both shellfish and finfish and that most of the additional production is coming from farmed fish and that's not a bad thing. There's also no doubt that New Zealand can accommodate some more aquaculture in New Zealand and that's a good thing.There's also no doubt that the planning restrictions around increased aquaculture have been problematic in some parts of the country. In my own opinion the answer to that lies in more spatial planning rather than relying on individual consents. We need to have high-level spatial plans delineating the areas which are suitable for more aquaculture and then finer-level decisions as to what might be the rules for uses of those plans. Indeed as a country we've already made some progress around a minor part of that where we have a national environment standard that we didn't used to have that helps in that space. But the spatial planning part of that is still not well activated in New Zealand and it's a sadness for me that that Spatial Planning Act that was part of the suite of reforms that we had in the last Government has been ditched. I hope that it will come back in some form because I think that's actually the essential point of the puzzle when it comes to more aquaculture.But that's actually not what we're debating today. We're actually debating the terms of existing aquaculture and in that I think some of the criticisms that we've heard from other speakers today are justified. How can you say that you have had thorough consultation with councils if you have consultation with them that goes from a period of 26 February to 4 March? It really is pretty inadequate particularly when you're taking away their ability to charge for the services that they provide to the industry. I don't think that many people listening to this debate would think that that is reasonable—similarly the truncated select committee process which prevented those councils and others from coming to the select committee and presenting their concerns.Now one of the things that I have a problem with the Government on in terms of their attitude to environmental issues is that they over-interpret private property rights. We heard from Hamish Campbell saying Why would people invest if they didn't have a longer period of consent?" Well the first point is they already have invested. We're actually not talking about new consents; we're talking about renewals.Dr Hamish Campbell: New innovation in technology.Hon DAVID PARKER: But we're—well that's fair; you do need security of tenure in order to innovate but the idea that you would confer an additional private owner-occupier of the marine space—which is not their space; they have a licence to occupy it. The idea that we would just in a universal sense extend that for another 20 years and take away councils' right to charge for proper environmental oversight seems to me to be wrong both from an environmental perspective but I also have a problem about the privatisation of the public commons. Now there will be a debate within Māoridom as to what share of that commons should be used by them and what share should be used by other participants in aquaculture and that's a proper debate to have but it ought not to get in the way of a proper recompense of the public for the use of that public space.Now since the Resource Management Act was passed in 1981 there has been the ability to have a resource rental charge for the use of coastal space but it's never been done and now what the Government is doing is effectively preventing that happening in respect of these areas for another 20 years. I personally think that that is wrong that you would take a decision now that would effectively forestall a proper charging regime for the use of that space. Now people would say "Well what would you do if this was your private land?" If this was my private land and people were leasing it for an agriculture thing I would charge for it and if I'm the Government holding that resource on behalf of the public I think they should charge for it. They should extract a fair rental. Now that will encourage competition and innovation. We hear the other side saying that they want productivity and innovation. Well if you want efficient use of that resource you should have a market mechanism that allocates that space in a way that is more efficient.In respect of the issue that was raised by Hamish Campbell—again a fair point—in respect of greenhouse gas emissions of aquaculture compared with other forms of protein production that's exactly the reason why we should actually have an open debate in New Zealand about whether we should be pricing these externalities because we want to be driving the capital into the areas that produce protein with the lowest greenhouse gas emissions not the highest greenhouse gas emissions. We have that signal—Grant McCallum: More farming—more farming. More farming in New Zealand then.Hon DAVID PARKER: More farming in New Zealand? Well that might be the eventual outcome but in terms of the question as to whether we should have more aquaculture farming or whether we should have more dairy farming that is a proper question for New Zealand that should involve an economic question as to the cost of greenhouse gas emissions. At the moment the Government on the other side has again pushed that off for ever in the pricing of greenhouse gas emissions and the 50 percent of our emissions that come from agriculture. The rest of our economy pays a price. The rest of our economy allocates capital as between a greenhouse gas - producing electricity production facility like a coal-fired station or gas-fired station compared with renewables. The transport sector—you know all the other sectors of the economy face a rational price signal and yet we haven't got this rational price signal that would encourage more capital into agriculture rather than more into dairying if the only difference was the greenhouse gas emissions. So you know the paucity of economic logic carried forward by the National Party worries me at times.So for those reasons—I won't recount all of the other issues that have been raised by other people before me except to reinforce that I do think that it is unfair on ratepayers that they have to subsidise their councils in respect of this class of activity. I can't see a rationale for treating this particular activity different from any other activity that councils have to monitor. Why should this one get a free pass at the cost of ratepayers that effectively passes the cost on to other ratepayers and to other productive ratepayers other businesses in the district? That is wrong and cannot be justified and for those reasons the Labour Party will be opposing this bill."