Volume 616 Week 51 - Tuesday 16 March 2004 
Volume 616 Week 51 - Tuesday 16 March 2004 
[Volume:616;Page:11627] 
Tuesday 16 March 2004 
Mr Speaker 
 took the Chair at 2 p.m. 
Prayers 
. 
Visitors 
Ireland—Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have much pleasure in informing members that Mr Liam Aylward TD Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture and Food Ireland with responsibility for Animal Health and Customer Services is within the precincts of this Chamber. I am sure that members would wish that he be welcomed and accorded a seat on the left of the Chair. 
Mr Liam Aylward accompanied by the Hon David Carter entered the Chamber and took a seat on the left of the Chair. 
Motions 
Terrorism—Madrid Bombings 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 I move  
That this House condemn the brutal and senseless murder of over 200 people and the injuries inflicted on more than 1500 people in last Thursday’s terrorist train bombings in Madrid and convey our firm solidarity with and deep sympathy for the people and Government of Spain.  
I am sure that all New Zealanders share the sense of horror and disgust that we in Parliament have at what happened in Madrid and would want this House to communicate its great sadness to the Spanish people and to stand in solidarity with them at this time. 
Dr the Hon LOCKWOOD SMITH (National—Rodney) 
: 
 The National Party would like to associate itself with that motion. All decent people in this world must feel very deeply the absolute horror of what took place in Madrid. Terrorism is something that should not be tolerated in any shape or form by decent people in this world and every effort must be made to stamp out that kind of absolutely abhorrent violence. We support the Prime Minister’s motion. 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First endorses the Prime Minister’s comments in their entirety and we pass on our deepest sympathy to the Spanish people. 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 On behalf of the Green Party I totally endorse the Prime Minister’s comments and those of the other members and extend our most heartfelt sympathy to the Spanish people. Green parties around the world are condemning this atrocious act and we totally identify with the comments of the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan who said that the killing of innocent people cannot be justified regardless of the cause. We agree with Mr Annan’s hope that the perpetrators of this despicable bombing will be swiftly brought to justice. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 On behalf of the ACT party I wish to join with the Prime Minister in support of this motion and to say that it is appropriate that we as a Parliament interrupt our business to move this motion of sympathy. It was a horrific act of terrorism against innocent citizens and it is important that we express our solidarity with the Spanish people. 
In our lifetime Spain has gone from being a closed fascist State to being an open democratic one and it is a State that is now playing its full role in the world. As a consequence it has suffered this act of terrorism. We should as one of the world’s oldest democracies express our sympathy to the Spanish people and say to them that we realise what a terrible threat terrorism is to open societies and that we must combat it together. It is appropriate that we pass this message on and I hope Mr Speaker that you will take the opportunity as Speaker to make sure that it is passed on to the people of Spain. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I will do that. 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 On behalf of United Future I want to endorse the comments made by others and also the sentiments of the motion moved by the Prime Minister and express our sympathy to the people of Spain at their sad loss in this horrific tragedy. 
Two points that have arisen from these events need to be made. Firstly as others have mentioned the spirit of freedom around the world in democratic countries like ours can never be quenched by acts of this type. We must stand as firmly as we ever have done to ensure that the democratic tradition lives. Second we must at the same time squash any immediate notion that terrorism has triumphed in this instance because it brought about a change of Government. 
I think there are those amongst us in this wider world who may have that perverse logic and that message has to be debunked as quickly as possible. This is a tragedy for freedom for democracy and for the people of Spain and we certainly stand alongside other parties in this Parliament in upholding the resolution the Prime Minister has moved. 
Motion agreed to. 
Speaker’s Statements 
Chamber Sound System—Microphones 
Mr SPEAKER 
: During the last sitting period I undertook to respond to members’ concerns about the sound system. Action is being taken to refine the sound quality from speakers in the Chamber and in the galleries with some modifications also being made to the equipment in the broadcasting booth. At the beginning of the year members should have received information about operating the new microphones. I am having this information recirculated to members. 
I would just like to repeat two main points. Once I have called the member please pause before you speak to allow the sound technician to switch on your microphone. When speaking members should adjust the microphones so that they are turned towards them. Please speak towards the microphone from about 20 to 30 centimetres away; if you are too close to the microphone sound distortion may result. 
Questions to Ministers 
Treaty of Waitangi—Commission of Inquiry 
1. GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Why is she now reported as saying there will be no announcements this week regarding a commission of inquiry into Treaty of Waitangi matters when on Thursday she was reported to be set to go on an inquiry? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK (Prime Minister) 
: 
 Because I cannot be responsible for newspaper headlines. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Prime Minister confirm that there will be an inquiry into Treaty of Waitangi matters and will the findings of the inquiry into Treaty of Waitangi matters be recommendatory or will they be binding on the Government? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have not heard of an inquiry where the findings would be binding on a Government. I am exploring ideas with a range of people inside and outside this place and I will have something to say in due course. What I do agree with is Mr Brownlee’s statement last Tuesday that “a commission of inquiry is an interesting idea”. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to give the House the balance of that quotation. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought is there any objection? There is. 
Jill Pettis 
: Has she seen any reports on how New Zealand should deal with issues related to race relations and the treaty? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I have seen rather a lot including well-informed editorials. I was taken with one suggestion that we should approach the subject by having what was described as a “rational intelligent mature debate which I am committed to having”—that was Dr Brash on 11 February! 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does the Prime Minister agree that in order to avoid a debate led by sound bites and slogans we need a well-resourced well-informed public dialogue about the role of the treaty relationship in a modern society before we move to any decision-making process? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I think the issues being raised do cut to the heart of New Zealand’s nationhood. They need to be carefully considered and it would be good to see them debated much more widely in the community than they traditionally have been. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: Does the Prime Minister also agree that an inquiry into or a review of the role of the treaty is in itself somewhat limited and that to achieve the wider objectives she has just referred to the inquiry has to have the capacity to cover other issues related to our constitutional structure and framework? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I am aware that the Justice and Electoral Committee was discussing a broader inquiry and indeed unanimously recommended that there should be a broader inquiry of some kind into constitutional issues. What those undertaking such an inquiry would find is that they will at a very early stage run up against the issue of the place of the treaty—whether it has a place in constitutional arrangements. Indeed a constitutional conference in this very building ran slap bang into that around 4 years ago. So these issues around the place of the treaty need to be taken seriously and debated seriously at some point. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why will the Prime Minister not accept responsibility personally as an elected leader in this country to lead the debate on the role of the Treaty of Waitangi and Treaty of Waitangi matters in this country and rather want to abdicate her responsibility to a group of unelected officials who have an interest in the matter. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I intend to be at the forefront of any debate about emerging nationhood in New Zealand. I intend to have the issues taken seriously. I am really surprised that the National Party is so interested in a debate it does not want to take part in. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: Can the Prime Minister explain to us how she can lead the debate when 2 weeks ago she was reported in the news media as ruling out a royal commission then last week saying it was a real possibility and was all ears and yesterday at her select committee closing down the debate; what sort of leadership is that or is the Prime Minister just having another panic attack? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: I do not recall being at a select committee yesterday. What I want to see is the issues that cut to the heart of New Zealand’s nationhood given a proper airing and the most appropriate form for that is still being considered. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is she having difficulty in coming to grips with Dr Brash’s policy because up until now the National Party policy and the Labour Party policy on this issue have been identical? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister can comment with regard to the Labour Party’s policy. 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: What I have observed in recent weeks is that in good faith for the last 20 years Governments of all kinds have got on with building a Crown-Maori dialogue. It now seems that one of those that was party to that debate has decided it does not want to be part of the dialogue any more. 
Hon Peter Dunne 
: What responses has she received from groups or persons from outside the House to the idea of some form of inquiry taking place? 
Rt Hon HELEN CLARK 
: The feedback I am getting is that people feel there is a debate to be had; that probably while in good faith Governments over the past 20 years have got on with developing a Crown-Maori relationship that perhaps that has been seen as peripheral by the general community. I think the general community is now interested in how those issues impact on New Zealand’s developing sense of nationhood and I think we as political leaders owe it to the public to try to bring some rational and reasoned discourse to that. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I seek leave to table a list of all the occasions on which the Prime Minister has refused to debate Dr Don Brash on this issue particularly those dates since her “bring it on” speech. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought. Is there any objection? There is. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a list—a long one—of all the times the National Party has backed separatist race-based legislation. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to table that. Is there any objection? There is. 
Medical Misadventure—Accident Compensation 
2.  
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
 to the  
Minister for ACC 
: What is she doing to make the ACC medical misadventure provisions fairer and more consistent? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister for ACC) 
: 
 Earlier today I was delighted to announce a sweeping revamp of the accident compensation medical misadventure provisions that will simplify and shorten the claims process while creating a strong partnership between the corporation and the health sector that will promote better and safer delivery of medical services in New Zealand. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: How will the changes promote better and safer delivery of medical services? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The changes remove the requirement to find fault of a practitioner thereby removing the disincentive for practitioners to cooperate with the Accident Compensation Corporation in resolving a claim. The new system clears the way for claims on treatment injuries to be dealt with promptly and for practitioners to learn from their mistakes and prevent them happening again. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Why should the taxpayer have any faith in the estimated cost of the new provisions—an extra $8.69 million per year—and can she guarantee there will be no cost blowouts? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: We can all have faith in those figures not only being a well-calculated estimate but also a very conservative estimate. But no like any responsible politician I could not give a guarantee for something over which I have no control. 
Peter Brown 
: Why cannot legislation covering medical misadventure be fast tracked and brought on earlier than February next year? The Minister must recall discussing this issue with myself on behalf of New Zealand First years ago and the heartache and concerns that surround it so why cannot she fast track this type of legislation? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The proposed changes are due to be introduced later this year when the legislation has been prepared and will be referred to a select committee with the proposed implementation date at the beginning of February next year. The select committee may recommend that that be earlier and that would be then a determination of the House. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why does the Minister support a reduction in accident compensation reporting requirements and an increased dependence on the capacity of patients to make formal complaints to the Health and Disability Commissioner in relation to incidents of medical misadventure when situations such as that around Dr Perry in Northland show how difficult it is for injured and desperate individuals to make any impact on entrenched systems? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The reporting procedure is not a lower threshold. It is in fact heightened and further strengthened by the greater number of people who will be covered by the provisions. The first point is through the Health and Disability Commissioner and the second point is that if the Accident Compensation Corporation determines because of the nature of the injury that there is any risk of harm to the public that will be reported to the appropriate authority. 
Hon Mark Gosche 
: How has the health sector responded to the announced change? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Very positively. A number of organisations have welcomed the move including the Medical Council the Medical Association and the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. The Health and Disability Commissioner said it will be good for patients good for health professionals and that more patients will get compensation without compromising accountability and safety. 
Maori Allowance—Specialist Education Services 
3.  
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
 to the  
Minister of Education 
: Why does the collective agreement for Specialist Education Services field staff provide for an extra allowance to be paid to Maori staff members for their skill and knowledge of te reo Maori and tikanga Maori and why does the collective agreement limit the payment of the allowance to Maori staff? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD (Minister of Education) 
: 
 I am glad that the member asked this question. The collective agreement does not limit the payment of the allowance to Maori staff. While the wording of the collective agreement does not make this clear the new criteria for assessing eligibility introduced last October do make it clear that the additional allowance is available on the basis of skills not ethnicity. Under this Government—under this Government I reiterate—it is a policy based on skill not race. 
Katherine Rich 
: If this Government’s policy is based on need not race then how can he explain the clear wording of the contract which states: “where Maori staff members’ skill and knowledge of te reo Maori and tikanga Maori have been assessed by the ministry and the level of attainment set out in the ministry policy has been reached the dollar amounts set out below will be added to the individual’s salary plus $3100”? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I suggest that the member ask the member to her left who was in Cabinet at the time it was put in. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Can I ask the Minister in the interests of sorting out who was responsible for this policy whether he can deny to this House that the Minister who put it in place was a previous National Minister and that his name was Wyatt Creech? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I am advised that the collective employment contract containing this clause operated from 1 June 1998 when Nick Smith and Bill English were both in Cabinet. 
Katherine Rich 
: After three negotiation rounds and entering a fifth year in Government will the Minister change this clause during the next negotiation round to make it clear that it applies to all staff; if so why the sudden U-turn? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The answer is I think that there has been only one Specialist Education Services round in the time. I do not think there has been a Group Special Education round—I stand to be corrected—but this Government will certainly take out the rubbish that the previous Government put in. 
Deborah Coddington 
: Does he agree with the philosophy espoused by the primary teachers union that Maori children are best taught by Maori teachers and should that sentiment be extended to other ethnicities like Dutch South African and Chinese—or does he think that the New Zealand Educational Institute has gone right over the top this time? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: I will answer the first two questions which will save me from giving a third answer. No and no. 
Katherine Rich 
: When the New Zealand Educational Institute initially stated: “Yes you do have to be Maori to qualify for it.” can the Minister explain why the organisation suddenly changed its tune after speaking with his ministry? 
Hon TREVOR MALLARD 
: The institute probably referred back to the October document in which the ministry indicated to it that that was the way the ministry was interpreting the document because under this Government as opposed to the previous Government we do it on skill not on race. 
Tourism Strategy 2010—Reports 
4.  
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
 to the  
Minister of Tourism 
: What reports has he received on the implementation of the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010? 
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Tourism) 
: 
 New Zealand has amazingly two places in the top ten places ranked in the first ever global assessment of sustainable tourism practice which was commissioned by the  
National Geographic  
in conjunction with Leeds Metropolitan University. The South Island has been ranked second in the world with the Bay of Islands placed seventh. A key factor in these rankings was tourism management an issue that the Government and the industry prioritised in our Tourism Strategy 2010. Government tourism and conservation officials are working with the industry as a whole to develop an integrated approach to managing our tourism assets. As can be seen this cooperative approach is working. 
David Parker 
: What do these reports show about the sustainability of our tourism industry? 
Hon MARK BURTON 
: What this shows is the importance of our having developed a long-term tourism strategy in partnership with the industry. For the last 4 years the tourism sector has worked together with this Government to ensure that a strategy is in place to actively promote and manage sustainable tourism. This is in marked contrast to the divisive interference of the last batch of National Ministers of Tourism—a style of working I might add that is now obviously the hallmark of that National Party. 
Foreshore and Seabed—Maori Land Court Ruling 
5.  
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
 to the  
Attorney-General 
: Has she advised Cabinet or the Prime Minister about commenting on a Maori Land Court ruling authorising certain foreshore and seabed claims to proceed; if so what was her advice? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON (Attorney-General) 
: 
 No. 
Stephen Franks 
: How come it was wrong and unconstitutional for me to ask in this House last year whether the Chief Justice’s personal commitment to treaty cases should have disqualified her from the seabed and foreshore case but it was OK for the Prime Minister to directly question the motives of Judge Caren Wickliffe? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: It is a convention that Ministers and members of Parliament do not adversely comment on matters relating to the courts; and like most conventions it is mostly observed but in unusual cases members have been known to comment. In this case the judge made a decision and then recused herself. This could be classified as unusual. 
Russell Fairbrother 
: Is the Minister aware of any other examples of the convention on not criticising the judiciary not being observed? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Unfortunately there have been previous instances of that—including that of Mr Franks’ reported comments that the Chief Justice is obviously biased and activist and he would sack all activist judges. 
Richard Worth 
: Why does the Attorney-General not advise her colleagues and the Prime Minister that the principled process to follow is for the Crown to actively participate in the pending Privy Council appeal on the foreshore and seabed for which a fixture is to be allocated this year and in which the Crown is a party rather than pursuing the present strategies of reversals of position and posturing which do little more than inflame public opinion and unsettle the community? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: In the interests of certainty and also to prevent further litigation the Government decided that it would address the issue through clarifying the law in this House. 
Metiria Turei 
: Does the Attorney-General uphold the constitutional principle of the independence of the judiciary and does she agree that the Prime Minister’s unjust and unwarranted criticisms of Judge Caren Wickliffe and the Maori Land Court are in breach of that fundamental principle? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Of course this House as a whole upholds the principle of the independence of the judiciary. As I said from time to time members of this House have been moved in unusual cases to express themselves freely and have judged in those cases that in the interests of free speech that overrode the convention. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It is very nice of the Attorney-General to decide to answer on behalf of the House but she has no responsibility for this House. She is actually answering in her own capacity as Attorney-General as a first law officer of the nation and possibly as she is a member of Cabinet. I suggest that the answer she gave the House was completely irrelevant. She was actually asked what she as Attorney-General personally thought about the matter and not what the House thinks. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It was a relevant answer. However the member is correct. It should have been given in her capacity as Attorney-General. 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: I am happy to give the assurance that personally I do uphold the independence of the judiciary. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: Has she remonstrated with the Prime Minister for her egregious breach of paragraph 2.117 on page 31 of the  
Cabinet Manual 
 which states: “Ministers should not express any views that are likely to be published where they could be regarded as reflecting adversely on the impartiality personal views or ability of any judge.”; and if she has not checked the Prime Minister does she not think that as Attorney-General it is her duty to do so? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: No. I know that the Prime Minister is quite capable of reading the  
Cabinet Manual 
 and has done so. 
Gerrard Eckhoff 
: What is her view of the opinion of former Australian Commonwealth Attorney-General Sir Anthony Mason that the first duty of an Attorney-General is to uphold the integrity of the judicial system judicial institutions and that such responsibility should not be subordinated to party political considerations? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: Of course I uphold the independence of the judiciary. I uphold the convention and I wish that every member in this House did so as well all the time. 
Stephen Franks 
: In light of the answer to the last question why did the Attorney-General not do what any other Westminster parliamentary system Attorney-General would have done—that is put aside party loyalties uphold what she told me last year was an essential component of the rule of law and defend the judge for simply refusing to delay justice and instead allowing the court to apply existing law in spite of her Government’s threats for more than 6 months of retrospective changes? 
Hon MARGARET WILSON 
: As I said of course we respect the independence of the judiciary and I released a statement at that time. I also pointed out at the time that the judge had recused herself which was of course the cause of the comment. 
Child Youth and Family Services Department—Cases 
6.  
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
 to the  
Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF) 
: Does she stand by her comment that the current crisis of unallocated cases at the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is just a “departmental issue”? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Associate Minister for Social Development and Employment (CYF)) 
: 
 I did not say that it was just a “departmental issue” but the department does have the responsibility to address operational issues including managing notifications. I have confidence that the strategies and actions the department has put and is putting into place will result in cases being dealt with in an appropriate time. 
Judy Turner 
: Why then does the Minister continue to ignore the requests of agencies such as the Hamilton-based support service Parentline which has offered assistance for the last 2 years to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services to reduce its unallocated caseload when 99 percent of the 4595 cases unallocated as at 31 January this year were in the lower two criticality levels and could be given timely attention by such community child and family services? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: In direct contradiction to the member’s assertion in her question I do not ignore the calls of community groups. I am delighted that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is continuing to work with organisations such as Parentline to improve the support that those organisations can give us in the delivery of services. 
Dianne Yates 
: Can the Minister outline the strategies and initiatives the department is putting in place to ensure the safety and security of children and young people? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: As part of the $120-million additional investment in the Department of Child Youth and Family Services we have employed 90 additional social workers and a further 56 are to be employed in the coming financial year. The department is also employing administrative assistance in order to enable social workers to concentrate on professional tasks and is developing a demand management strategy and collaborating with the community sector to ensure the safety of our children. 
Katherine Rich 
: Why has the Government not implemented Judge Mick Brown’s December 2000 recommendation “that funding and resources be concentrated on reducing the number of cases unallocated by the time set for response to zero within the next 6 months and that provision be made to ensure that response remains at zero”; and why in March 2004 is the list worse now than it was then? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: There are two points I would like to make in response to that question. The first is that in the December to February period the number of notifications to the department increased by 40 percent—an unprecedented increase and one that was not physically able to be dealt with within the capacity of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services. Secondly as the member will know from the baseline review recommendations it is critical that despite the best efforts of Opposition politicians we must not be distracted from ensuring that the services we deliver are quality services rather than just quantity. 
Sue Bradford 
: Are the 90 extra social workers recently recruited making any impact yet on Department of Child Youth and Family Services caseloads; if not what is holding them up? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No the additional social workers would not have had an immediate effect on the total number of cases that we have referred to in earlier questions because the notification increase has been so significant. But had those 90 social workers not been there of course the picture would be a lot bleaker than it is. 
Dr Muriel Newman 
: From the point of view of the nearly 6000 children who are waiting to see a social worker can the Minister explain to the House exactly what the difference is between “a departmental issue” and abject Government failure? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I would prefer it if the member would at least give the House the courtesy of accurate figures. There are not 6000 unallocated cases at all. There are about 4300 cases that have not been dealt with in the appropriate time. They have been not left in a corner and ignored. They have been referred for regular supervision within their own organisations. The 1000 cases that have been added on—conveniently to make the number up to 6000 as that seemed to be a good round number—have been referred to the regional offices for action. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that the Department of Child Youth and Family Services cannot cope with the pressure placed on it by the current level of notifications and should involve community agencies in working with lower-level cases particularly when half the cases that come to the department are re-notified later and 80 percent of those cases are at the lower criticality levels that could appropriately be dealt with by community agencies; if not why not? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes and I can say again to the House that the department is working with community organisations so that the workload can be shared in cases where the statutory role of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services is not required. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that the New Zealand public expect nothing less than a radical overhaul of the child protection system when the findings of recent investigations into the deaths of children in the care of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services showed that when the department is pressured—as it is with the crisis-level status now—its overworked social workers fail to follow established policies and procedures and children slip through the cracks; if not why not? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The baseline review was such a comprehensive review of the workings of the Department of Child Youth and Family Services and the implementation of the recommendations is what this Minister will be focusing on. 
Judy Turner 
: Does the Minister agree that treating this crisis as a departmental issue only is short-sighted and makes no attempt to deliver the national attitudinal change that Mick Brown in his 2001 review pleaded for which would see all New Zealand families and communities taking responsibility for the safety and well-being of their children rather than leaving it to the Department of Child Youth and Family Services; if not why not? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Yes. 
Catch History Review Committee—Appeals Judge 
7.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Fisheries 
: Which appeals to the Catch History Review Committee did Jacqui Lowe sit on prior to March 2004? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 I am advised that Jacqui Lowe has sat on 23 appeals since January 2001. Information on her involvement in all proceedings since her appointment in 1998 is not immediately available but I will provide it in writing to the honourable member as soon as possible. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Was the Minister aware when Jacqui Lowe was appointed again in September last year that she was a major shareholder in United Fisheries Ltd; if not why were the appropriate checks not made to ensure that she had no potential conflict of interest created by her business dealings? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: No. During February this year it was drawn to the attention of the ministry that Jacqui Lowe was a shareholder in United Fisheries Ltd. Accordingly on 1 March the ministry wrote to Mrs Lowe advising her of this information and requesting that she clarify the position. She has done so. 
Janet Mackey 
: What action has the ministry taken in response to the concerns? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: The chief executive of the ministry has consulted with the Solicitor-General and engaged Crown Law to undertake a review of the ministry’s systems and processes for appointing Catch History Review Committee members including matters relating to conflicts of interest. This review will also provide advice on whether any further action is necessary to ensure the integrity of the committee’s operations. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: How can the Minister expect commercial fishers to have any faith in a process and a Minister where such people are reappointed to a supposedly impartial committee and then make final decisions as to allocation granted to them; and what recourse if any has he planned for those negatively affected by her decisions and how many decisions of such type are there where she had a conflict of interest? 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: I make no presumption of any conflict of interest and it is for that reason that the chief executive of the ministry has engaged Crown Law to undertake the review that I just intimated. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: I seek leave to table a company’s register record showing Mrs Lowe to be a 98 percent shareholder in United Fisheries. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Students—International Study 
8.  
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: What is the Government doing to provide opportunities for New Zealand students to study internationally? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 The Minister of Education and I are today announcing a European Union - New Zealand exchange pilot programme. A consortium of New Zealand and European universities will work together to develop a joint postgraduate study programme for students from New Zealand and European Union countries. This will provide a unique opportunity for New Zealand tertiary education institutions and masters level students to participate in an international exchange programme. 
Lynne Pillay 
: Of what value or cost is this programme to New Zealand? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The programme will build on existing courses offered in both New Zealand and European Union universities and will enable New Zealand students to extend their knowledge by taking postgraduate studies in a university within the union. Both New Zealand and European students will return home after their studies thereby giving us students who have experience in Europe and European students who have a good knowledge of New Zealand. The programme is jointly funded by the Tertiary Education Commission and the European Commission. Proposals are now being sought and I intend to announce those results on 16 July. 
Tertiary Education Strategy—Objectives 
9.  
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) 
: Does he believe taxpayer-funded courses such as the Eastern Institute of Technology’s He Waiata ma te Whanau which offers participants the opportunity to “relax” at home and sing along with songs on the radio and Tairawhiti Polytechnic’s Twilight Golf meet the objectives of the tertiary education strategy? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY (Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education)) 
: 
 Community education courses like these which do not lead to a formal qualification but have been approved by the academic board of the institutions have been funded through classification 5.1 since 1997. However I have acted to limit spending available for this classification as volumes increased dramatically over the last year and we want to focus our resources on higher-priority areas. It is lucky this Government was here when the issue arose because as that member knows his Government had no way of doing anything about it; we do. 
Hon Bill English 
: Does he stand by his statement: “It is very important to ensure our research efforts and student enrolments are concentrated in areas of high performance and high strategic relevance.” and did he contribute to the Tairawhiti Polytechnic advertisement for Twilight Golf that states: “realise your TIGERISH dreams learn to use your WOODS no golfing experience necessary”? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: The answers are “Yes” and “No”. But I do like the sound of that course. Perhaps Mr English and I could take it under 5.1 sometime. 
Helen Duncan 
: What reports has he seen on the proposals to take a more strategic approach to funding tertiary education? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I have seen statements to “trust institutions to run themselves.” and that students “do not need some Minister in charge of tertiary education telling them what they should and should not study.” They came from Nick Smith. But now Bill English tells us exactly the opposite. Clearly confusion reigns on the other side. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: Given that he has no record of pass rates can the Minister assure the House that all students funded for the course He Waiata ma te Whanau have actively participated in the programme and have not simply filled out a form expressing interest in doing a supposedly free course? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: If the member has evidence—as I guess he does if he is asking that question—of people who have enrolled but have not complied with the course requirements then he should make that known to the institution or if he wants to give it to me I will make it known to the institution. 
Bernie Ogilvy 
: Will the Minister act immediately to investigate the projected $115 million blowout in funding for community education this year and does he concede that one of the reasons for this overrun is that per student funding often exceeds the actual cost of running a course thereby resulting in taxpayers’ money paying for the profits of providers? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: That is a good suggestion. It has already been done. 
Hon Bill English 
: What action has the Minister taken to find out whether Tairawhiti Polytechnic has achieved value for money in spending $11 million on the singalong course on which somewhere between 8000 and 10000 people were enrolled—roughly a quarter of the population of Gisborne? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As soon as these kinds of issues are drawn to my attention I act on them. In other words I ask the Tertiary Education Commission and the New Zealand Qualifications Authority to look at all these kinds of courses when I hear these kinds of reports. Once I get information I will know exactly what is going on. 
Hon Brian Donnelly 
: For evidentiary purposes what would the Minister say if he were informed that two members of this House were accosted late one evening in a hamburger bar by a recruiting officer for the Eastern Institute of Technology who offered them a free course and that they filled out forms but were never ever contacted by the Eastern Institute of Technology and never ever did any part of the course? The members happened to be Ron Mark and Edwin Perry. Was the funding of $5500 ever provided for them; if so will the Minister require it to be paid back? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I would be outraged particularly if they did not get their hamburgers. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister was asked a question. I would like him to give a fuller answer please. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: I was asked I think whether I would be outraged by this evidence that the member might give me if he were able to. I would be outraged if the member gave me that evidence; so he should give it to me so that I can be outraged. 
Hon Bill English 
: Can the Minister confirm that the Tertiary Education Commission is auditing the course referred to and others at Tairawhiti Polytechnic; if so can he describe how the Tertiary Education Commission will find out whether 8000 people in Gisborne did listen to their radios in the comfort of their own homes and thereby completed the course given that that was the only requirement of the course? 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: Yes I have asked the Tertiary Education Commission to look at that particular course. The member will know that as a result of those inquiries the institutions concerned have already gone on the public record in defence of the value of those courses. As I say we are continuing to dig deeper. We have capped this funding and I repeat that unlike the previous Government we have dealt with this issue—it never could. It ran a bums-on-seats policy. 
Hon Bill English 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Just a moment. When a point of order is raised only one person is allowed to speak. 
Hon Bill English 
: I asked quite a specific question about how the Tertiary Education Commission would audit whether people who enrolled in the course actually did listen to the radio in the comfort of their own homes. The Minister did not address that question at all. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: If the Minister could briefly come to that particular part of the question as it was asked. 
Hon STEVE MAHAREY 
: As I said in my answer I have asked the Tertiary Education Commission in the form of Max Kerr to look at this. I expect that he will find out the exact answer to the member’s question. But I do not know standing here exactly how the commission will do that. All I know is that it will do it. 
Tuberculosis—Patients North Shore Hospital 
10.  
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: How many people infected with tuberculosis are currently patients at North Shore Hospital and if there are any how many of those patients were born in New Zealand? 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 There are currently no inpatients at North Shore Hospital with tuberculosis. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Has the Minister any plans to calculate the total cost to the health-care system of tuberculosis cases in migrants; if so when does she expect this figure to be made available and if not why not? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I believe that it probably would be possible to get the member the costings of tuberculosis cases—I do not have them with me but I could undertake to get them to the member. I am certain that the district health boards would hold those. 
Dave Hereora 
: What action has the Government taken to ensure that immigrants do not place an unreasonable burden on the health system? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The New Zealand Immigration Service and the Ministry of Health are phasing in new health and disability screening requirements this month. Under the changes tuberculosis screening requirements will apply to students wanting to stay in New Zealand for more than 6 months visitors and workers intending to stay longer than 1 year and all people from high-risk countries. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Why has the Government up to now not taken any action to prevent the $13.6 million in bad debts or recoup the losses from the 6000 foreign patients who get treated in New Zealand hospitals but instead has simply passed the buck to the district health boards? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: District health boards are required to do their utmost to recoup bad debts. However the Government has put in $9.6 million towards those bad debts. There will always be some people who use our health system and do not pay their bills but any hospital’s first obligation is to give health service when a person is in need of urgent health care. I believe that that has been the case under Governments for many years. 
Sue Kedgley 
: How many persons at North Shore Hospital have become infected with hospital-acquired bloodstream infections and with the super bug methicillin-resistant staphylococcus; and why is there not a requirement for all district health boards to report publicly and in a nationally consistent fashion on those sorts of infections and on a range of other adverse events? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: The question was about tuberculosis. I do not have at my fingertips the number of cases of another problem at a hospital. I could not possibly answer that question but I am sure the answer has probably been given in a written form—the member has asked questions on this subject before—and if it has not I am certain we could get it for her. 
Barbara Stewart 
: Is the Minister aware of a strain of tuberculosis now found in New Zealand that cannot be cured by medication currently used—andat best can only be managed—if so what is she planning to do in order to tackle this Third World disease once thought to be eradicated in this country? 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: A lot has been done to tackle tuberculosis in New Zealand. It is unfortunate that we do have sporadic outbreaks of tuberculosis. Obviously treatment regimes are in place and it is controlled very well in New Zealand. It would be good if we did not have any tuberculosis but that is very difficult when there is a population that moves around the world and can easily bring in such disease—not only visitors but New Zealanders themselves. 
Question No. 9 to Minister 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I wish to make a personal statement in relation to the comments made by the Hon Brian Donnelly with regard to the previous question. I want to put it on the record that the incident Mr Donnelly spoke of is a true incident—it did happen. Along with a number of other New Zealand First MPs I was approached at a Rotorua takeaway bar where we were headed to get a meal at approximately 10.30 or 11 o’clock in the evening. As a result of my desire to learn te reo Maori I filled out some forms offering a course of language tuition. At the time I thought my action was more an expression of interest and that the course was free—which I found rather curious especially when I went home and read about who was offering the course. I have subsequently found that the course is costing around $2.5 million and that some 7115 students are involved at a cost of $5500 each. My concern is— 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The member must keep his concerns to things personal to him only. 
RON MARK 
: My concern is that I am now party to the improper funding of an inappropriate course that does not seem to have the right amount of accountability. I would like to think that that was not the case. 
Violence against Women—Resolution 
11.  
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Women's Affairs 
: What is the Government doing to implement its commitment to “reduce the incidence and impact of violence on women”? 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Minister of Women's Affairs) 
: 
 A number of initiatives are being actioned under the Te Rito family violence prevention strategy particularly in relation to the abuse of women by their spouses or partners. The strategy contains the Government’s key goals and objectives for preventing family violence and a 5-year work programme. 
Sue Bradford 
: What steps if any is the Minister taking to ensure that the Help Foundation’s sexual abuse crisis centre in Auckland will be able to survive in a situation where 20 of its staff have just been made redundant and it faces closure in 3 weeks especially in light of the Government’s new commitment to reduce the impact of sexual violence on women? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: The Auckland Sexual Abuse Help Foundation is a well-regarded provider and I am committed to continuing to work with it to resolve the issue of its viability. I am keen to ensure that the three sectors involved in its funding work together with the Help Foundation to look at both its management and future funding. 
Luamanuvao Winnie Laban 
: What specific initiatives are being implemented under the Te Rito strategy to reduce violence on women? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: Work is under way to develop a research and information service to coordinate promote and distribute information on best-practice prevention of family violence. The Department of Child Youth and Family Services has received additional funding to improve access to family violence programmes and services for victims which has been allocated to 68 service providers across the country. 
Katherine Rich 
: When the Ministry of Women’s Affairs has a budget of about $2 for each New Zealand woman and is one of the most invisible ministries can the Minister understand why some women are embarrassed that their concerns are ghettoised in an often-ignored bureaucracy; if not why not? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I can understand the frustration and anger that women felt during the 1990s—a decade in which a National-led Government ignored the advice of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. When that Government came into power in 1990 its very first action was to repeal the pay and employment legislation—a very clear message to New Zealand women. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I ask you to read the  
Hansard  
of the Hon Ruth Dyson’s answer later in the day. That was a straight-out political speech—of very little merit I might add. Nevertheless it should not have been allowed to stand as an answer. We know that the Government clearly has a tactic of returning to the 1990s to try to push its point but it seems to me to be quite inappropriate that a Minister should be able to answer without any reference at all to anything that she has done as Minister. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: It is about six of one and half a dozen of the other. There are political statements that are made in this House by way of question and by way of answer. I think that has always been so in Parliament and I have not observed much change in 38 years. 
Ron Mark 
: Does the Minister believe that she has an obligation to reduce the incidence and impact of violence on women police officers; if so what has she done to get the Minister of Police to cease sending front-line general duties police officers on patrol alone at night in suburban New Zealand—anything or nothing? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I would be happy to work with that member if he has particular concerns about the safety of any police officers in New Zealand and to make appropriate representations to the Minister. 
Sue Bradford 
: Why has it been so difficult to apply a whole-of-Government approach to the funding of an essential agency like the Help Foundation when Ministers including the Minister of Women’s Affairs and the Hon Steve Maharey were evidently aware of the need to find a sustainable funding solution as far back as 2002 and when the Government has a commitment to finding more holistic resourcing methods for groups like this? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: When my colleagues and I met with that organisation in 2002 we adopted what I thought was a very sensible and easy whole-of-Government approach. It was my understanding then that there had been long-term resolution to the funding situation and it was only the week before last that I discovered this was not the case. I recommit myself to continuing to work with that organisation to ensure its long-term viability. 
Sue Bradford 
: Has the Minister considered as part of the Government’s commitment to the reduction of the impact of violence on women and as part of the commitment that the Minister has just made that perhaps New Zealand should take a leaf out of the Australian Government’s book and provide ongoing substantial and sufficient funding to groups working with the victims of sexual violence? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: I do not have in front of me the comparative figures between Australia’s level of funding and New Zealand’s but I would be interested in looking at those. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to table a report dated 8 March 2004 about a policewoman being dispatched to a violent incident alone. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to table a report dated 8 March 2004 showing that attacks on police officers involving firearms knives and other weapons have risen by 47.3 percent over the past 5 years. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Ron Mark 
: I seek leave to request that the Minister of Police table by 2 p.m. on Thursday 18 March a report detailing how many times in the last 2 years the Police have sent police officers on patrol alone at night in suburban New Zealand and that the report detail whether those officers were male or female. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: This is an unusual one. Leave is sought for a Minister to table something by a certain time. Is there any objection? There is. 
Mount Ruapehu—Lahar Flow 
12.  
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
 to the  
Minister of Civil Defence 
: Will the Government indemnify councils from any damage to life or property from the expected 1.4 million cubic metre Mt Ruapehu lahar; if not why not? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS (Minister of Civil Defence) 
: 
 This Government has as recently as last week reconfirmed to the Ruapehu District Council that it will receive financial help over and above what is normally allowed under Part 2 of the National Civil Defence Plan. The Government is working with the Ruapehu District Council and others to minimise their risks. This Government recognises that the Ruapehu District Council faces a unique situation and has a small rating base. This Government has worked well with councils in every civil emergency. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why did he the Prime Minister and 12 of his colleagues dismiss the advice of the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management that said that this risk to life “is above that which society would consider acceptable especially given that practical means of reducing the risk by intervening at the crater rim are available.”; and having rejected that advice of his own ministry who will be responsible for any loss of life when this lahar blows? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The Government has embarked on measures to make sure that there is little danger to life. We have chosen the best option. 
Jill Pettis 
: What measures has the Government taken to reduce the risk to life from the lahar? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: Actions taken so far include first a robust ongoing lahar detection and alarm system. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Which failed. 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: It has not failed yet. We have not had the lahar. Be sensible. Second there is a comprehensive response plan addressing the first 90 minutes of warnings downstream; third bunds protecting State Highway 1 and the Tongariro River; fourth raising the State Highway 49 bridge and approach work at Tangiwai; fifth on State Highway 1 and State Highway 49 signs lights and gates have been put in place; sixth Tranz Rail alarm and response plan; seventh electricity supply protection including banks where appropriate; eighth public and media information and management planning; ninth crater lake monitoring including links to the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I seek leave to table the report that the lahar warning system failed on 20 February. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Is the Minister aware of the technical advice that this lahar is expected to be double the size of the one that killed 151 people in 1953; is he aware that the lahar risk can be removed by just 3 days of work by a bulldozer on the mountain that would cost just $68000; if he is aware of those facts why does he let political correctness over Maori cultural issues and environmental lobbyists—[ 
Interruption 
] That is what the Minister said. [ 
Interruption 
] 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister will stand withdraw and apologise for that comment. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: I withdraw and apologise. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I ask the member now to start his question again and this time there will be no other comments. Please start again. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Is the Minister aware of the technical advice that this lahar is expected to be double the size of the 1953 lahar that killed 151 people and is he aware that the lahar risk could be removed by just 3 days’ work of a bulldozer costing $68000; if he is aware of those facts why does he allow political correctness over Maori cultural sensitivity and over the environmental movement to stop common sense saving lives and people’s property? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: I tell that member that various iwis have various opinions on this matter that are quite different. I also say that that member when he was Minister of Conservation did nothing at all about it. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: In response to the Minister’s claim that I did nothing as Minister I seek leave to table this very comprehensive report dated April 1999 which I asked for as Minister of Conservation. 
Document not tabled. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: I also seek leave to table a minute of the Cabinet policy committee on 18 February when the Government rejected the advice of the Ministry of Civil Defence. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: Can the Minister confirm that the final decision was not based on consideration for political correctness but that the balance of technical advice was that any measures to reduce the lahar would increase the risk in the long term? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: I can confirm that. It is a pity that the former Minister of Conservation does not know did nothing and all he does now is grizzle and moan. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How could the work of removing the 7 metres of ash that was deposited in the 1995 eruption that would stop the lake levels building up and this dangerous lahar possibly increase the risk of a future lahar as claimed by the Deputy Prime Minister who should keep with history? 
Hon GEORGE HAWKINS 
: The engineering advice that this Government has accepted says exactly that by interfering now we will make the future possibility of a lahar greater. 
Hon Ken Shirley 
: I seek leave to table the Government-commissioned engineering report that says no such thing. In fact it says the opposite. 
Document not tabled. 
Question No. 5 to Minister 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I wish to make a personal explanation relating to an answer given by the Attorney-General that attributes to me statements about the Chief Justice. The Attorney-General attributed to me a statement that I believe was to the effect that I had accused the Chief Justice of bias. I have been very careful to avoid that for two reasons. 
 I have no knowledge of whether there was foundation for bias. I have always been concerned about the appearance of bias which is a matter that has been in debate in various English or common law countries around the world. I would not accuse the Chief Justice of bias. That would be a criminal contempt. I would ask regarding the statements attributed to me that if the Attorney-General has such a foundation she draw it to my attention because I would wish to rebut it or to make a correction if they have been wrongly reported. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: As the member has now stated that quite bluntly in this House his word will be accepted. 
Question No. 12 to Minister 
Hon ROGER SOWRY (National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I want to pick up on an issue that has arisen out of the responses from the Minister of Civil Defence to the last question on the Order Paper. The Minister of Civil Defence said two things. One was that the lahar warning system had not failed and then the House gave leave for my colleague the Hon Nick Smith to table documentation showing that it had failed and giving the date that it had failed. Then the Minister went on to say that the Government had not had a report and one of the ACT members sought to table that report. The point I am making is that if the Minister has been getting incorrect advice or giving answers to the House that are not correct will he take the opportunity now to correct them or are we going to wait until tomorrow’s question time? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is debatable material but if the Minister has anything to say later on in the day he can of course make a correction at that time. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Will Dr Nick Smith be tabling evidence that a lahar occurred and that the alarm system did not work when it occurred? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Perhaps I can clarify the situation for the Leader of the House. On 20 February as would be well known in this House there were large amounts of rainfall and flooding and the alarm system went off when there was not a lahar. That was a failure of the alarm system. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is a debatable matter and there is a general debate tomorrow. 
Urgent Debates Declined 
Child Youth and Family Services Department—Unallocated Cases 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have received a letter from Dr Muriel Newman seeking to debate under Standing Order 373 the Department of Child Youth and Family Services’ management of its waiting list of unallocated cases of potential child abuse. As has been ruled on many occasions before a continuing issue such as unemployment figures for example and in this case the management of waiting lists cannot give rise to a debate under Standing Order 373. There being no particular case of recent occurrence this application is declined. 
Pike River—Coalmine Proposal 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have also received a letter from the Hon Ken Shirley seeking to debate the Government’s conditional approval for access arrangements for the Pike River coalmine proposal. This is a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility but I do not think I would be justified in giving priority to a debate on this subject over other business before the House. This application is also declined. 
Appropriation (2002/03 Financial Review) Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Finance) 
: 
 I move  
That the Appropriation (2002/03 Financial Review) Bill be now read a second time 
. 
Bill read a second time. 
Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the motion be agreed to. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 48 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8. 
Motion agreed to. 
In Committee 
Part 1 Preliminary Provisions 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 Members will know from the history of this bill through the House and the select committee that National opposes the bill generally. But we take this opportunity to speak in the part by part debate because there are specific issues that we want to resolve in this bill if the Government insists on ramming it through and further destroying and undermining the aquaculture industry in this country. I will be tabling a number of amendments during the course of this afternoon and this evening on this particular matter and I would like to signal to the Chair that I would like two calls at least on this part. I appreciate that that is at the Chairperson’s discretion but I have quite a number of amendments that I believe would improve the bill. 
First of all I have an amendment to the commencement date which at present is the day after the date on which the bill receives the royal assent. My amendment would mean that the commencement date would be the date following the next general election. The reason I say that is that the National Party will not do it after the next general election. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I am sorry to interrupt my colleague but when we started this debate there were no officials in the Chamber. They have walked in only just now. My view is that the officials come into the Chamber at the time the debate starts not a couple of minutes into it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That is a matter for the Minister. The officials are here. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: In my amendment I propose that this bill comes into force on the day it receives its royal assent rather than at the next general election simply because the National Party has said quite clearly that it would not extend this moratorium. In fact members will recall that over 2 years ago the National Party said it would not support the first moratorium. We would have had some sympathy if the Ministry of Fisheries—and the Minister at that time—had given regional councils enough information about the reforms so that they could plan aquaculture management areas so that Maori could plan their submissions on the reforms and so that other aquaculturalists throughout this nation could plan their markets— 
Hon David Carter 
: Now there is no Minister in the chair! 
Lindsay Tisch 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. We know that the Minister is a new Minister but there must always be a Minister in the chair during the Committee stage. I draw that to your attention— 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Yes he was. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: The Minister was not in the chair. While the Minister is a new Minister— 
Hon David Carter 
: He was introducing himself to the officials. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Yes he was having a chat to his advisers. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: There are two points. One there will be silence during points of order. Three members spoke during that point of order. That is the final warning. Yes Mr Tisch the Minister should be in the chair and he will be. 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: I will also be moving an amendment that replaces the date on which the bill receives the royal assent with the date a bill ensuring Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore has received its royal assent. The reason being of course that a particular issue that has arisen—the seabed and foreshore issue—has contributed to the fact that this moratorium has to be extended. How are aquaculturalists to believe that this moratorium—a further 9 months—will be lifted if the foreshore and seabed issue is not resolved? Are we to understand that the seabed and foreshore issue will be resolved in 9 months? Does anyone believe that? Does anyone believe that the 80 percent of New Zealanders who oppose the Labour Party policy will be won around by the Prime Minister attending church and giving speeches? No they do not. Therefore I will be moving an amendment that this bill comes into effect on the date on which a bill assuring Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore has itself received royal assent. That is my recommendation. We can get surety in the aquaculture industry only when the seabed and foreshore issues are resolved. 
We know that a special select committee has been set up to deal with the seabed and foreshore issue. I am a good keen member of that select committee and I will continue to give advice to the chair of that committee on these issues. On that select committee we know that the Government in dealing with the seabed and foreshore issues is also considering giving Maori a share of the aquaculture industry. This Government will give Maori 10 20 25 or 30 percent of the aquaculture industry—whatever number it plucks out of the air and whatever number it sees as appropriate. That has to be taken into account with the moratorium extension. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First as I stated in the second reading debate reluctantly accepts the purpose andtiming of this bill. We accept it for a second reason: despite what has been said by the previous speaker if the Government were so wise as to accept the New Zealand First position with regard to the foreshore and seabed—namely Crown ownership and customary use—there would be no need for any deviation or for any supposed hold-up. In fact this bill could be seen to run through to 31 December 2004 and on 1 January 2005 those interested in the industry and those who have a vital part to play in the industry could begin to take up their role. But that will not happen unless the Ministry of Fisheries and those involved in this bill get a move on. But before that happens I want to refer to the actual date. 
There is something much more pressing that the Minister should be aware of if this moratorium and marine farming are to be successfully advanced and that is the appalling state of his ministry’s marine permits. Broken frames are floating in the open sea and leases have been left lying for years in various states of disrepair. Abandoned silt areas abandoned frames—a real mess—are all the products of past ministry leases. In our region of Northland and no doubt in others this mess has nothing to do with the future of the industry but is very much a record of past ministries past Ministers and a lack of attention to what should be a pristine environment in which modern marine farming could take place. I want to draw the Minister’s attention to that very issue but before we advance too far upon the future let us look back at where the industry was—and I have some very vivid examples from the Bay of Islands here which the Minister could share—and look to see whether he will be able do a lot better than his predecessors in previous ministries. 
But to come back to the matter in hand the issue for New Zealand First is not further support for the bill. The issue is what we have always stated and that is absolute adherence to a finish date of 31 December 2004. That is so that those who are involved in marine farming—and for the potential that marine farming has for New Zealanders not least for those of us in the rural regions—are able to make informed decisions about the future. For that reason there needs to be much more known than has been evident so far from the ministries involved in this whole issue of marine farming. 
 We have had very little advice as to what the application of clause 3 in Part 1 and clause 4 in Part 2 really mean. We have out there a state of uncertainty and those submitters who came to the select committee said so over and over again. In some ways they were as ambivalent as other parties in the House might be because they realised that they could be and should be able to proceed. But because of the advanced notice and projected nature of what the Government thought it might do and noised around in certain places but not in the wider public area there was uncertainty about how things could proceed. 
The real issue for us in New Zealand First is not really that this legislation should not be passed. We believe that the time has come to push on. What we really want the Minister and his ministry to do is to give confidence and certainty to the many many people who see in that industry a real opportunity—not least Maori and not least those in the regions. I refer most of all to those people who have long seen the changed nature of the industry—particularly in large-scale operations—and one in income and job terms that has a tremendous economic future and potential. 
To that degree we support those clauses and hope that the Minister turns firstly to the matter of past leases and secondly gives clarity from now on until the end of 2004 so that councils people in the industry the ordinary person on the street and people on the coastal margins are given real knowledge of what is intended once this legislation is passed. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I rise to speak against this bill. I point out that greenshell mussels are Marlborough’s biggest income earner. Back in 1989 they raised $25 million for the aquaculture industry. In 2002 they raised $260 million involving the farming of 5500 hectares and the provision of 4000 jobs in New Zealand. What has happened since that time? Well the industry had been growing at 20 percent but it is not growing at all now. Production has fallen because of this Government’s appalling handling of the aquaculture industry. 
I certainly hope the Minister in the chair Mr Benson-Pope pays a bit of attention. He needs to do something about the situation because the previous Minister of Fisheries did not. He was bound up in bureaucracy and did not manage to do a thing. A serious opportunity will be lost to New Zealand if this Government does not stop pandering to bureaucrats and environmentalists. It has to take seriously this amazing opportunity. Extending a moratorium will not do that. This is an opportunity for New Zealand as a whole because industries actually create regional development. 
I do not know how many members have visited the little town of Havelock but 15 years ago that town was dead. There were empty shops and the marina was shut. It was dead. Today Havelock is absolutely thriving. It has Sanford Industries jobs new houses restaurants and an extension to the marina. That all happened because of the farming of greenshell mussels and the people who made it work. 
Jill Pettis 
: And 4 years of a Labour Government. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: It has nothing to do with the Labour Government. All it did was reduce that 20 percent growth rate down to zero as it panders to the bureaucrats. 
Do members know why this moratorium is being extended today? It is mainly because this Government cannot get its act together on this issue or the seabed and foreshore issue in the Marlborough Sounds. This Government does not know what to do. It does not have a clue. It isgoing round and round in circles and doing U-turns as it tries to sort it out. It is easy to puta moratorium on but it is jolly hard to take it off. We predicted that if the Government put a moratorium on it would not take it off at the time it said it would. Many Government speakers said that would not be the case that it just needed a bit of a break that it needed to get the new legislation sorted out. But what has happened? Today we are debating the extension of the moratorium. 
Do we want this country to be wealthy or not? Do we want parts of Northland to be able to get into aquaculture or not? The moratorium is doing nothing to improve growth in New Zealand nothing to increase jobs and nothing to enable this country to do better and make more money. That money could be spent on health and education. The extension of this moratorium will only be damaging. 
Maori too are losing opportunities. We heard a lot about the Sounds and that Maori did not get involved in the aquaculture industry. That is not true. About 17 percent of those employed in the industry consider themselves to be Maori and that is compared with 11 percent across all other industries so a lot of Maori actually own aquaculture farms and are employed. They have not achieved that because of special privilege. They own those farms because they got into the industry and got on with the job. 
This Government is getting in the way of all those rugged individuals who have been developing the aquaculture industry. It is putting a huge amount of cost and bureaucracy on to the industry. It has done nothing but get in the way. The Government has not sorted out anything and to top it off the aquaculture law reform legislation which was touted to make life easier will only make things harder. It is just a mess. The bureaucrats have to start to look at how to help the aquaculture industry develop. 
When the Primary Production Committee went down to the Sounds the members did not realise they had been travelling past marine farms. They thought those things were covering the Sounds and affecting the pristine environment. I grew up in the Sounds and I think that aquaculture is a wonderful addition. Greenshell mussels are the only endemic species that we farm in this country. They are an incredibly healthy product and contain no fat—wonderful! We should be eating an awful lot more of them and a lot less McDonald’s. If New Zealanders did that the nation would be a lot healthier. 
We should be encouraging the industry. We are squandering the opportunity for export earnings to reach $1 billion by 2020. We are squandering the opportunity for new jobs. We must not forget that places like Chile will be in there like a shot. In fact they are already there. We have people in the industry today who have become so fed up they are off to Tasmania Chile or anywhere where they do not have to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare that this industry has become. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 The commencement of the aquaculture industry is capturing the attention of virtually everybody in this country who is interested in industry and especially in the furtherance of a potential multibillion-dollar industry. I repeat: a multibillion-dollar industry. The commencement date is hugely important in terms of when the industry can start to get up to speed yet here we are in the Committee of the whole House debating whether we should continue with the moratorium. As the ACT party and my colleagues in the National Party have said this is a nonsense. 
There are plenty of regional councils that want to get on with the job. For example why does this legislation not allow the Otago Regional Council—Otago is the region the Minister comes from—to get on with it. He knows that Graeme Martin and the people in the Otago Regional Council are up and ready to run. They want to start. But people in the aquaculture industry in the Otago region off the Otago coast or on the foreshore are told they must wait. I look forward to contributions from the Otago members telling us and the aquaculture and marine industries in our region why this legislation will stymie them for many more months to come. 
The commentary on the bill states that the Labour Government has been advised that “only a single extension is envisaged”. The word “envisaged” is very very interesting. The commentary does not state there will be “only a single extension end of story”; it states “envisaged”. So what is the likelihood of another extension to the moratorium occurring when we come close to the period it is supposed to end which is somewhere around the end of December? I suspect that we will be back in the House towards the end of this year close to Christmas time debating whether we should apply yet another extension because of other regional councils such as those in Canterbury and Auckland not having got up to speed. They should have got up to speed but they have not. Yet again this potentially multibillion-dollar industry is being set aside is being held up while the Government and the officials try to catch up. I ask again: why can this bill not allow for those regional councils that so wish to grasp the nettle and act as an indicator of how successful or otherwise they can be? Instead this Government has thrown a driftnet around the industry—it has ensnared the good the bad and the ugly if one likes all in one—and said: “You will do nothing until we say it’s time to move.” 
We note from the commentary that the Government has to resolve the foreshore and seabed issue enact the aquaculture reform legislation and implement plans for aquaculture management areas by regional councils. Does anybody really think that those councils that were slow to move in the past will suddenly rush out in top gear and have their plans ready by December this year? Who in his or her right mind believes we will resolve the foreshore and seabed issue in a few short months? We know how slowly the machinery of Government moves. So I say again that without doubt prior to Christmas we will again be debating whether we should give the moratorium another 6 months or possibly another 6 months after that. 
I spoke to a member of the Parliamentary Service who informed me of having just recently invested in aquaculture in Australia shifting resources money and desire to be involved in this industry to Australia. The reason is that that person cannot wait. 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party supports the bill but we do not do so uncritically. We bear in mind of course that a couple of years ago the then Minister of Fisheries gave a categorical undertaking that the moratorium when it was initially put in place would be the only moratorium and that there would be no extension. I have yet to hear an apology from him or from his successor. 
There is no doubt that aquaculture is a very complex issue. It takes place in public open space. People who own marine farms seem to have the idea that in some way they own the public space in which they operate. They do not. But having said that marine farming is an important industry it is a good one for New Zealand and those people who have marine farms have the right to some certainty of tenure. They need to know that the investment they put into their marine farm will give them some financial return in the medium term certainly in the long term. On the other hand it is very clear that marine farming operates within biophysical limits. Mussels do not grow just because there is an enclosed area of water in which to grow them. They need a food supply. They need a nutrient supply. If we try to put more mussels into an area than the nutrient available to them then obviously those mussels will grow more slowly. The nutrient supply depends on both phytoplankton and zooplankton—in other words plant life and animal life in the sea. Some marine farms are advantaged in being upstream in tidal terms; others are disadvantaged by being downstream in tidal terms or by having big farms next door to them. It is clear therefore that there has to be a very clear plan for having aquaculture in our inshore waters that is of benefit to all farmers and to recreational users. 
So there is a conflict a creative tension going on all the time. We need to know for instance that all the farms will operate at least reasonably successfully. That is the whole idea of having aquaculture management areas. The regional councils have been tasked with the project of establishing aquaculture management areas— 
Phil Heatley 
: An impossible job. 
IAN EWEN-STREET 
: It is an impossible job. It is a very difficult job but one that has to be done. We have to make some headway at least. We are trying to balance the tension between the certainty that marine farmers require for tenure in their marine farms with the availability of food supply the ecological sustainability of what is going on and the conflicting use from recreational users like boaties and recreational fisher people. 
It is very clear that the ecological impacts of marine farming are poorly understood. It is also clear that in the short term underneath the marine farm we get faeces and pseudo-faeces that accumulate on the seabed killing almost all other marine life. We do not know the long-term effects. If a marine farm subsequently is taken away what happens to the seabed? Does it recover without any problem? We simply do not know. Research needs to be done. It should be being done at the moment and I believe that some is. We need to know exactly what effects marine farms have on the marine environment. 
The Green Party supports the extension of the moratorium. In some ways it is good because it will enable research to be undertaken. Having said that I do feel a considerable degree of sympathy for those marine farmers who entered the industry in good faith but who are finding that the certainty they require for their industry is being questioned over and over again. As a number of other members have said the foreshore and seabed claims which are subject to public debate at the moment obviously have a great bearing on the future of the aquaculture industry as well. I do not think that regional councils will be very successful in terms of getting aquaculture management areas up and running in the time allotted. I rather suspect that before the end of this year as I think Gerry Eckhoff mentioned we will probably be back in the House debating a further extension to the moratorium legislation. 
Dr ASHRAF CHOUDHARY (Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 This bill extends the current 2-year-plus moratorium for another 9 months. In essence it is an extension to the extension bill. It is symptomatic of a Government that just cannot get things done and certainly that cannot make a decision. The Government is becoming paralysed. This paralysis is causing regional councils to lose momentum also. Regional councils are crying out for leadership but are they getting it under this Government? No they are not. What is the answer? The Government’s answer is to extend things a little bit longer and hope that nothing comes of it. Regional councils want direction so they can develop aquaculture areas but they will not get that direction from this Government. To be fair some regional councils are hiding behind the Government’s inertia because in effect they have not done too much either. But that is no excuse to exacerbate this type of behaviour. 
I know that the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope wants to take a call. I know he wants to get to his feet and demonstrate that he has the capacity to do the job and has an understanding of this portfolio because for years he has been stuck as the senior Government whip confined to making snide remarks about every other speaker. Now the Minister has his chance to get to his feet to demonstrate that he does have the capacity to be the Minister and understand this portfolio so that other people in this Chamber and in the industry generally can have some confidence in him. People on this side of the Chamber are waiting with bated breath. 
The real purpose for this delaying tactic on behalf of the Government is not about managing or seeking time to manage aquaculture at all; it is about the Government trying to find a way to extricate itself from the fiasco it has got itself into regarding the foreshore and seabed. Because of its inability to deal with this issue the Government has got itself into an unholy mess. Who believes that another 9 months will enable it to sort out its warring factions? 
Lindsay Tisch 
: No one! 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Mr Tisch is right no one believes that. On the one hand we have the Maori caucus that wants to annexe the whole lot and on the other hand we have poll-driven Government members saying: “Oh dear National’s going up in the polls. We must have got our strategy wrong. Let’s rethink this. Oh my God National was right and we were wrong!” and all the while an industry that has the potential to be one of our biggest export earners waits. It waits while this Government fiddles and the growth of one of our most important industries stagnates. 
My colleague Linda Scott estimated industry revenues of about $260 million now. The aquaculture industry has the potential to be a multibillion-dollar industry but what is happening? It is going backwards all because this Government is fiddling. Rather than sort out the difficulties around Marlborough and Tasman the Government has taken the too-hard-basket approach. Why not just say: “We’ll maintain some momentum where we can and sort out Marlborough and Tasman at our leisure”? 
The do-nothing option is just not good enough. This is where the Minister can take a call to demonstrate that he has heard what members are saying and that he has the capacity to say: “We the Government have rethought our strategy.” The Minister should not sit there like a lemon. He should take a call and say: “Our strategy now is a b c and d. We’ve heard you we know you’re right and this is what we’re going to do.” But will he do that? No he will not. Do members know why he will not do it? The reason is that he does not have a plan other than a do-nothing plan to extend the moratorium for another 9 months. Who believes that will bring it to a conclusion? No one of course. But my good friend and colleague Mr Heatley knows. The people of this country cannot wait for a change of Government because when it happens Mr Heatley will stand up and tell the House what the plan is. He will have the confidence of the industry. The industry is relying on some good strong leadership and Mr Heatley will provide it. 
National opposes this legislation wholeheartedly. It is not just National rambling on. I have done a bit of research and this is what I found: “Marine farmers are enraged by the Government’s proposals on aquaculture law reform which they say will suck millions of dollars out of the industry and hinder its enormous potential for growth.” That came from the industry leaders themselves. 
DAVID PARKER (Labour—Otago) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I want to ask the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope four simple questions and I hope he will take the opportunity to answer them to demonstrate to this side of the Chamber that he now understands the portfolio. Firstly the Prime Minister is on the record as saying that her Government is intent on lifting New Zealand back into the top half of the OECD by 2011. I want the Minister to stand and tell us how the imposition of a moratorium on a potential billion-dollar industry assists in the aim of his Government to achieve growth to get us back into the top half of the OECD. That is a simple question for the Minister to answer. Can he tell us how this helps New Zealand’s growth? 
Secondly what consultation has specifically taken place with Maori and Maori interest groups in formulating this legislation and to what extent have Maori signed up to this moratorium bill? I ask that question because we all know that the Minister’s predecessor the sacked Minister of Fisheries was fired because he was unable to progress this issue. To be fair to him it is because the Prime Minister and other Government members are not able to resolve the seabed and foreshore issue. So my second question simply asks the Minister to tell us to what extent Maori have signed up to the legislation that is before the Committee today. 
My third question relates to the commencement which is due to take place after this legislation receives the royal assent. I want the Minister to take a call to tell the Committee today what back-up plans he has if this legislation does not receive the royal assent before the expiry of the current moratorium which as we know occurs on 25 March this year. So in 9 days’ time if we are still here debating the Committee clauses—and that is National’s intention—then I want to know what the Minister proposes to do in the intervening time created when the current moratorium that exists under legislation expires before this bill is enacted. It is that Minister’s fault that this bill has been sitting on the Order Paper for too long. 
My fourth question asks for a simple assurance from the new Minister of Fisheries that the moratorium we are now debating is according to the legislation before the Committee due to expire by 31 December this year. I want an absolute guarantee from the Minister that this will be the last moratorium required—in other words that the issues will be resolved by the balance of this calendar year. We know that the Minister’s predecessor the Hon Pete Hodgson rose in the House during the debate on the first moratorium legislation and guaranteed that an extension would not be required. We know how good that Minister was at keeping his word—that is why we are here now further extending a moratorium. 
I do not believe that this issue will be tidied up by 31 December. The Minister should have confidence in his name being on the bill and that we will find that all matters relating to the seabed and foreshore are resolved by the end of the year. Therefore this is a simple request for the Minister not to sit blindly through the Committee stage but to stand and take the opportunity to show some leadership. The reason the Minister gets a ministerial house a car and a considerable increase in salary is so he can show leadership and say to both the Committee and the industry that he has absolute confidence that the issues for needing a further extension of the moratorium will be resolved before 31 December this year. 
Those are four simple questions for the Minister to answer. I am quite prepared to take another call to list them all again for him if he has missed any. He has a duty during the Committee stage to take the opportunity to answer these questions. That is what the industry wants to hear. 
DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 One of the great concerns I have about this bill relates to land-based aquaculture. I ask that the Minister in the chair the Hon David Benson-Pope—albeit a new Minister but I am sure he has his head around this legislation and is competent to take a call; I would certainly hope so—assure those who are interested in land-based aquaculture that they will not be entangled in this legislation. I say to him without any hesitation that those who are involved in land-based aquaculture have no feeling of confidence at all that they will not be subjected to a continuance of procrastination when they wish to get on with their particular industry. I ask the Minister to stand as Mr Carter has just done and to give the Committee and indeed the public of this country the benefit of his knowledge on this bill to tell us that this is the case or that is the case and to give us an absolute assurance that this will happen or that that will happen. That is the least he can do. 
The other aspect I have huge concerns about in relation to this bill is the role of the Department of Conservation. The Primary Production Committee did agree to extend the period of time the Minister of Conservation had to make recommendations to 40 days. 
Phil Heatley 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chair. This matter is addressed in Part 2 I think you will find it in clause 6. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I do not think that was a reason to interrupt the member’s speech. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: The committee agreed to extend the ability of the Department of Conservation to make significant input into the Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill. The role of the department is a very very important one. It is well known that the department wants to extend its sphere of influence over at least 10 percent of inshore and indeed offshore potential marine farming areas. So it seems to me that the department wants to have first bite of this particular cherry. It is now formulating its desires of where it wants its marine reserves to be then the industry can have what is left. 
I have not the slightest doubt that the Minister of Conservation’s influence over this particular bill is profound as is the influence of somebody like Kevin Smith his chief adviser. It is well known that at least 10 percent of our potential marine areas are wanted by the Department of Conservation. I ask the Minister to give the Committee and those listening to the debate an absolute assurance that the role of the Department of Conservation will be limited to the provisions of this bill and that this period of extension of the moratorium does not give it a window of opportunity to extend its sphere of influence to such a degree as to take out vast areas of our coastline and offshore waters to achieve its goal of ensuring that at least 10 percent of our fishing resource is potentially locked away for the use of conservation rather than for industry. That is one of the huge concerns that many in the industry and in this country have. 
The point was made earlier about the self-determination Maori wish to have over what is a traditional industry for Maori. Their determination to get totally involved is yet again being set aside and it does not help the concept of race relations. Maori see again the procrastination of this Government. It is something that has to be seen to be believed. It is struggling. 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I tabled amendments to Part 1 earlier and I had the opportunity to speak and I appreciate that on two of them. I would now like to address the other three. I am particularly addressing clause 3. In clause 3(a) the purpose of the bill is: “to extend to 31 December 2004 the moratorium on the granting of coastal permits for aquaculture activities;”. I would replace that date with 1 April 2004. If the Government insists—if it really must if it is desperate to do it if it really wants to steamroller the aquaculture industry put on the handbrakes and do everything else to ankle tap the industry—it should extend the moratorium only until 1 April 2004. 
My reasoning is simple. There is a new Minister of Fisheries who barely understands the issues but I am sure that in the next couple of weeks he is quite able—if he sits down and concentrates only on this fisheries issue—to get his brain around everything affecting aquaculturists at the moment. So I think 1 April 2004 is the extension that the National Party is willing to live with but that is it—and certainly we would not be supporting any further extension. 
Also in Part 1 clause 3 there are a number of purpose propositions in paragraphs (a) (b) and (c) after the words: “The purpose of this Act is—”. I have two more. It does not say it in the legislation at the moment but I think it should include new paragraph (d): “to provide the Government with further time to resolve the seabed and foreshore policies;”. 
I found it interesting when the first moratorium bill was introduced a few years ago that every single Maori group that came to the Primary Production Committee opposed the moratorium. There were 143 submissions in all and a fair proportion of them were from Maori. They opposed it at that time. They said that the moratorium had a negative impact on Maori development—and nothing has changed. They said that the water within their rohe was of concern—it still is. They said that there were adverse effects on existing treaty settlements—clearly there still are in their view. Nothing has changed. There had been a lack of consultation by the Crown—there still is. The Government has not resolved the seabed and foreshore issue and that is partly what this bill is all about. 
I propose another amendment to the purpose clause. In new paragraph (e) the purpose of the Act is: “to provide regional councils further time to collate and understand information for designating aquaculture management areas.” That extra time is essential given that regional councils have told us this. 
I tabled papers in Parliament last year from the Taranaki Regional Council and Local Government New Zealand stating that all regional councils have been struggling to develop aquaculture management areas in the absence of essential fisheries-related information held by the Ministry of Fisheries and that there are also gaps in that information. It is inadequate. In other words the regional councils are saying they want to map out aquaculture management areas but the Ministry of Fisheries is not giving them any information and the information it does give them is inadequate. There has been no information sharing and when the ministry has been coerced to share information it has been inadequate. On the whole regional councils have not been given a chance to succeed. 
I believe that the Minister in the chair should be honest and say that this moratorium has been put in place—and it does not currently say it in the purpose clause—for two reasons. They are to resolve the seabed and foreshore issue—and the Government thinks it will do it in 9 months—and to provide regional councils with enough time. 
Hon CHRIS CARTER (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I speak to the amendments that were raised by Mr Heatley. I want to assure that member in the Committee that not all regional councils are in the position that he has enunciated—particularly he mentioned Taranaki and other councils—because the issue in Northland is not like that. Unlike other councils the Northland Regional Council took the then Minister at his word. It went out and is now into its third round of consultation with the wider community about where the aquaculture management areas should be. It accepted that the zones for potential marine farming were likely to be contentious and needed the maximum amount of consultation and discussion. In Northland in the past week there have been two very well-attended meetings of over 200 people at Kerikeri and Paihia where people were very very concerned about the potential impact of such marine farming zones upon tourism and all the other amenity values that they see in the Bay of Islands. 
 I believe that many regional councils have been derelict in not picking up the challenge that was laid down when the moratorium was set out. Also most of the regional coastal plans were put together in a day and an age when it was not envisaged that there would be 4000 5000 6000 or 8000 hectares of offshore farming being proposed as a legitimate way of farming in particular mussels. Most of our regional coastal plans do not envisage that at all. They look at establishing small protected areas. To go back to the issue raised by the member for Whangarei if his amendment were to be passed I say there would be chaos because people in the industry would be able to apply for marine farms under the Resource Management Act under a regional coastal plan that had very few prohibited areas and there would be widespread disquiet and concern in the community. 
The issue is not therefore about what regional councils have or have not done; I believe that some councils could have done more. In Northland we are on to the third round of consultation and that has been done deliberately because we want the community to be aware of the consequences of marine farming. Really the issue is whether by 31 December this year those people who have taken the challenge up and as in the case of the Northland Regional Council have reached a broad consensus of opinion in the community about where marine farming should be—about all the pluses and minuses of this valuable resource and the potential that it has those issues having been analysed and known widely in the community—can at that point in time proceed. That is the issue and there must be absolute assurance. If the Minister cannot give that guarantee then he ought to say so now. 
That brings me to the last issue which is not about the part of the regional councils but about what work has been done with regard to the structure of marine farming under the proposed new regime’s space and tendering all the matters we have not yet had addressed that were the cause of concern for some submitters who came to the Primary Production Committee. The committee looked in particular at the fact that there were issues that were not part of the so-called bill: tenure the definition of the areas and most of all what right the existing permit holders would have with regard to the regimes of the future. Those are the other parts of the structure that the Minister needs to address urgently if the aquaculture industry is to take off on 1 January 2005. 
LYNNE PILLAY (Labour—Waitakere) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 2 be agreed to: 
to omit the words “date on which it receives the Royal assent” and substitute the words “next General Election”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 2 be agreed to: 
to omit the words “date on which it receives the Royal assent” and substitute the words “date a bill ensuring Crown ownership of the seabed and foreshore has received Royal assent”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to omit from paragraph 3(a) the words “31 December 2004” and substitute the words “1 April 2004”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to add the following new paragraph: 
(d)provide the Government with further time to resolve its seabed and foreshore policies. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to add the following new paragraph: 
(e)provide Regional Councils further time to collate and understand information for designating Aquaculture Management Areas. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 1 agreed to. 
Part 2 Amendments to principal Act 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 Part 2 of this bill is quite technical. It makes a number of changes to the Resource Management Act that to the uninitiated seem somewhat complex. It is however a marvellous opportunity for the new Minister to strut his stuff. I say that because I was in Dunedin the other day and I heard a report about why it was that Chris Carter had been appointed as the Minister. He had frankly confessed to the person who had interviewed him that he brought two cards to the table: the first was that he was born under the sign of Pisces; the second was that he loved prawns. So here we are in this setting with an opportunity for the Minister to stand and explain. Will he take that opportunity? I hope so but I fear he will not. 
I would like to start with the first clause in Part 2 clause 4. Section 125 of the principal Act is being changed by that particular clause. There is a discussion in the commentary on the bill under the heading “Reviving certain lapsed coastal permits” that explains why that provision has been put in place. It is an interesting commentary because it contains in fact a number of factual errors. It starts by explaining why a marine farmer must have two consents to develop an area. One is a coastal permit as defined in section 87 of the Resource Management Act and the other is either a marine-farming permit or a spat-catching permit under the Fisheries Act 1983. Section 125 of the Resource Management Act provides for the lapsing of consents unless they are implemented within a particular time frame or unless substantial progress is being made towards implementing them. I draw the attention of members to the third paragraph on page 3 of the commentary where the following sentence occurs: “Under the Resource Management Act resource consents lapse if they are not ‘given effect to’ within 2 years of being granted.” Well that certainly was the law but it is no longer the law today. That 2-year period is now 5 years under section 125 of the Act. I think that demonstrates the need for care by the ministry officials who have apparently been advising the Primary Production Committee on the merit or otherwise of this legislation. 
Of course National opposes this legislation. Although we can see some merit in trying to protect property rights which clause 4 is all about we believe that the balance of Part 2 has nothing to commend it. There is no doubt about it—aquaculture is a hugely significant industry with millions of dollars deployed and the potential for even greater money to be earned. I understand that aquaculture-generated sales of around $340 million were recorded in 2002 with export earnings of nearly $260 million. If we look ahead at the industry forecast then we see that the New Zealand Aquaculture Council in 2001 estimated that with managed expansion the industry could achieve export earnings of $1 billion by 2020 from 17000 hectares of aquaculture farms. 
It may be important to protect property rights but if that is to be done it should be done on a thorough and thoughtful basis. I would like to ask the new Minister in the chair Mr Chris Carter—it seemingly being the case that the “old” Minister who is in fact “new” has fled from the Chamber—why it is that only those coastal permits issued in the period from 1 June 1995 to 1 August 2003 have been continued. That is what new section 150G inserted by clause 7 proposes. Lapsing provisions are always difficult but I suggest there was a real need for care when the Government’s advisers contemplated what the relevant periods should be and in this case the exercise of that duty of care has been lamentable. Those were the issues that I wished to speak about in the context of Part 2 and the amendments made to the principal Act by this bill. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 In speaking to Part 2 I want to draw the Committee’s attention to clauses 4 and 5 which give further definition to the term moratorium. There are major issues within that moratorium. We know that the moratorium proposed in this bill comes on top of the existing one that has been in place for many months and that there are other types of regional aquaculture moratoriums around the country. In fact I understand that one has been in existence since 1992. Therefore the moratorium provided for in clauses 4 and 5 must be so—and this is the realistic understanding of New Zealand First—only up to the achievement date of 31 December 2004. I say to the new Minister in the chair that he has inherited a very very large job. When we take this bill in the context of the other aspects of and relevant issues in terms of marine reform—the overarching oceans policy that is not here in any form but must be recognised within this bill the marine reserves already alluded to that sought to have 10 percent and the uncertainty over the Maori Fisheries Commission allocations—we see they all impact upon this bill and particularly upon the industry. 
The aquaculture industry is one that as has already been stated is fast growing. In fact aquaculture has been providing up to 20 percent of our national total fisheries’ value. In Northland we have heard about rather grand schemes from some people who say that we have in this country within the next 3 or 4 decades the potential to provide 45 or 50 percent of the worldwide seafood production from aquaculture and that thereby would come tremendous economic value jobs and income. But that is all dependent upon access to the right water spaces upon access to a sustainable regime and I want to say again most of all upon the ministry’s framework being one that gives certainty. So to come back to clauses 4 and 5 I say New Zealand First supports them realistically but we see them in the context of the immense amount of work that the Minister must do if on 1 January 2005 the legislation is to come into force. 
Lastly I say there should be no more talk in this Chamber about the matter of Maori involvement in this industry. New Zealand First has very firmly stated that the Crown position is acceptable with regard to the seabed and foreshore and with acknowledgment of Maori customary use that position could not be seen as an obstacle to aquaculture development in the future. The Government should heed that go ahead now accepting that position and I say again work within that framework to give certainty. So we give support to Part 2 on the understanding that this date will be the absolute end of the moratorium. I recall that Minister Hodgson over there on the Government benches said that not so very long ago and I hope that the Minister before the end of this debate will stand and acknowledge his absolute determination that on 1 January 2005 the aquaculture industry will have the ability to get back into gear. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I have done some work on three amendments to Part 2 over the weekend and in the weeks leading up to today. I think they are smart amendments. I will jump to the third amendment which is to clause 6(2) in Part 2. I was quite interested that the Minister of Conservation was at one stage the Minister in the chair. Interestingly my amendment affected him. I think he saw the amendment and got out of the hot seat and he was replaced by the new Minister of Fisheries who has not contributed one thing to this debate. I do not know whether he is allowed to speak; all I know is that he has not. 
My suggestion in my amendment is to delete the expression “40” in clause 6(2) and to insert “30 days” instead. For the Minister’s benefit I will explain what this is all about. The Minister had included in the original bill that was tabled in the select committee that when a local authority wanted to lift this moratorium early because it had got into gear done the work consulted with landowners and talked to marine farmers Maori and everyone else who was affected and having done so had sorted out an aquaculture management area and applied to have the moratorium lifted in a specific area it they would go to the Minister of Conservation for his thumbs up and go-ahead. At one stage he had 30 working-days to reply but at that stage the Minister of Fisheries decided that the Minister of Conservation his mate should have no time period in which to reply. In fact it could sit on his desk for months collecting dust. In effect there was a pseudo-moratorium. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Who suggested that? 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: I do not know who suggested that but the Minister considered it a flagship policy in the aquaculture industry that not only was there a moratorium but also that those who wanted to lift the moratorium early had to go cap in hand to the Minister of Conservation and ask for his say-so. He could sit on his hands for months and months and months creating a pseudo-moratorium. So we came back and said that we would not drop it from 20 days to no days—where he could have as long as he wanted. Instead we doubled it. We said that he could have 40 days but there had better be an answer within 40 days. 
I think National was far too lenient so my amendment states that the Minister can have 30 days. Anybody who enters the public arena or makes a press release to say that Phil Heatley is far too tough too mean and too heavy-handed will need to know this: that after the 30 days the Minister can come back and request another 30. Whatever number of days is stated in the bill can be doubled. In changing this to 30 days in effect the Minister can stretch it out to 60. In other words if we stuck with 40 days he could have 80 days. Even the Minister can do the maths—that is 2½ to 3 months. That is far too long. We have said 30 days and if the Minister drags the chain he can stretch it out to 60. That is 2 months and that is long enough. That is what my amendment to clause 6(2) in Part 2 is all about. 
I would also like the opportunity to speak about my amendments in Part 2 to clause 5 and clause 6 (1) where I have changed the dates from 31 December 2004 to 1 April 2004. I probably will not get time to do so in this 5 minutes so I will look to the Committee to grant me another call later on to stress the issues about that. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I may be mistaken but I thought we were in a debating chamber. This is where one side of the Chamber puts forward a proposition—a point of view—then after the member from this side has spoken the Government stands up and refutes what was said and gives the reasons for that. All we get from Government members is “I move that the question be now put.” We have been asking for the Minister. We have a Minister of Conservation in the Chamber who is directly affected and has had no doubt a huge input into Part 2. He sits in the Chamber and says absolutely nothing. Why? Perhaps I am mistaken. Perhaps a member might inform me that I have it totally wrong but we are not having a debate. The Government is shutting down this whole question. It is refusing to elaborate the various points and answer the perfectly legitimate questions being put forward by ACT and National members that ask why these sorts of things are taking place. We are getting no response. 
Part 2 is of course a very important one because it does something quite sensible in ensuring that the coastal permits some marine farmers have will not lapse over the extension of this moratorium period. Yet again I say to the Committee that this extension will apply well after 31 December. I would just about stake my left arm on that point—[ 
Interruption 
]. I see the member across the Chamber is laughing. I am perfectly certain that this moratorium will be extended so it is right and proper that these permits do not lapse during the extension of the moratorium. 
The previous speaker alluded as I had earlier to the role of the Department of Conservation in this debate. As I said earlier the department has its beady little eyes or very big eyes on at least 10 percent of our coastal waters for marine reserves. The Minister of Conservation—he is in the Chamber at this time and I would encourage him to stay and listen—wants all the time in the world to make his decision as to whether one permit can go ahead or another permit should cease. 
We in the select committee have given—I think probably with some reluctance—an extension of time to the Minister to get through this whole process. I say again as I have said many times in this Chamber in debates where the Department of Conservation is involved that its role in all of our legislation that pertains to the environment is just getting excessive. We have to downsize the role of the Department of Conservation whether or not we are talking about the Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill. It does not really matter because the concept of having this power of veto which is essentially what the Minister has is hugely excessive. Giving the Department of Conservation this role of advocacy in the wider environment—whether it is in the marine environment or land-based it does not really matter—ensures that nothing happens. We constantly run into a brick wall whereby industry players that are breaking their necks to take this country of ours into the top half of the OECD want to develop this industry into a multi-billion dollar industry but the Government says no. It tells industry to slow down while it has another cup of tea. We have seen this for years. How long has this Government been in power? It is about 5 years. 
Hon Richard Prebble 
: It seems like 50. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: Mr Prebble is absolutely right—it seems much longer. But when it comes down to a real business decision-making process that this Government should be making it just does not have the expertise amongst its ranks to follow these concepts through. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 In debating Part 2 I want to bring to the attention of the House the way that this moratorium bill is having an incredibly negative impact on my community in Nelson. Yesterday I was with the next Prime Minister of New Zealand Don Brash. [ 
Interruption 
] The member opposite should listen and he might learn something. We met the Mayor of Tasman District and I want to recite for the benefit of the House just how bad things have become in the process of dealing with aquaculture. I would be happy to table a written note from the mayor of our district so that members opposite might learn that. 
They notified their plan for dealing with aquaculture way back in October 1998. Six appeals were lodged with the Environment Court and they were dealt with between July and November 2000. We had the first interim decision in April 2001. We had a second Environment Court hearing back in February 2002. We had a second decision in March 2003. We had High Court appeals in 2003 and now with this moratorium bill we are no further ahead. Do members know how much this is costing my community? The Tasman District Council says it is costing $45 million a year. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: How much? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is $45 million a year because of Labour Ministers procrastinating in making decisions in the area of aquaculture. That means $150000 every single day for just part of the community I represent. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: How many jobs? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: We are looking at about 450 jobs in the Nelson region. I have to tell the Minister that every single person in my area who works in the fishing industry right now is nervous of redundancies. All sorts of rumours are going around. [ 
Interruption 
] The sad part—and Mr Peck can laugh—is that if Ministers opposite had got off their butts and provided some opportunities for aquaculture those people would have job security. [ 
Interruption 
] That member there who is pecking up from Invercargill has no job security because of his Government’s failure in this particular area. I will bet him anything he likes that he will be on his ear at the next election because of the way the Government has let down the people of New Zealand in that regard. 
I can only agree with what the  
New Zealand Herald  
editorial said in its opening line: “This Government’s lack of business experience is nowhere more apparent than in its review of marine farming.” 
Mark Peck 
: That member wouldn’t know business. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I have been a director of more businesses in the construction industry than that member would ever know. But that is not the issue. [ 
Interruption 
] It is interesting how those members do not want to take a call. They do not want to have a constructive debate; they just want to chip in everywhere because they can give no reason why my community is losing $45 million of wealth jobs and opportunity. The mayors of my districts of Nelson and Tasman are desperate for there to be a change of Government so that we can get better than the moratorium extension proposed in this bill. 
I will put exactly the words of Mayor John Hurley who said: “Don this type of thing must be stopped if New Zealand’s economy is to survive.” That is from a mayor of a district. Now mayors are pretty apolitical and do not get angry very often. But when we put up with the nonsense of this sort of bill we can only agree with the mayor—this sort of nonsense must be stopped. The only way it will be stopped will be a change of Government so that we do not see nonsense legislation of this sort. 
The last section I want to bring to the attention of the House is the last one of part 6 of the Resource Management Act—150F “No compensation”. I ask the Minister: given all the delays that his Government has put in place how about some compensation for districts like mine that have lost so much in job opportunities and wealth because he has been sitting on his hands as have his predecessors. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 As we debate Part 2 of this bill I want to make two points. I want the Minister to listen because he needs to know this in the portfolio he has now accepted as the new Minister of Fisheries. I say to that Minister that when the Government does not have the answers the easiest thing in the world is to impose a moratorium and buy time. That is exactly what has happened with this industry. Speaker after speaker from the National Party has risen and described to the Minister the potential this industry has and the Minister’s answer is to support a moratorium to stop further development of what is potentially a billion-dollar industry. 
I remember the debate when the first moratorium was opposed a couple of years ago. Everybody said then that the Minister would be unable to develop the answers required from the moratorium and we were assured by the Government of the day that that would not be the case. Sadly we are now being proven right by this extension of the moratorium. 
Secondly I say to the new Minister of Fisheries David Benson-Pope that when we come to the Committee stage the easiest thing to do to gain the confidence of the industry—which will be listening to this debate today and reading the  
Hansard 
 with interest—is to stand and answer a few of the simple questions raised through this debate rather than sitting there stifled and unable or unwilling to make a contribution. The questions asked have been simple questions the industry wants the answers to those questions but to sit there like a stunned mullet and not deliver any answers gives the industry no confidence in that Minister at all. 
I start also by saying that although I will be voting against this moratorium extension bill one aspect that I think the industry has found very rewarding are the issues around clause 7 relating to new section 150G which extends the time for the Ministry of Fisheries to grant permits after a coastal permit has been given. That is a very important part and the industry wholeheartedly supports it. 
I want the Minister to rise and assure the House that he has come to grips with the issues facing the Ministry of Fisheries. I want him to assure the Committee today that having been given this extension of time the Ministry of Fisheries will be able to satisfactorily progress the hundreds of applications for fishing permits that are before it to date. I know of people throughout the aquaculture areas Banks Peninsula and the Marlborough Sounds who having obtained a coastal permit from the local regional council have not been able to get under way because their application for a fisheries permit sits on a ministry official’s desk and is not being progressed. 
The second issue I specifically want to concentrate on is the time constraint that the Minister of Conservation has to consider any application from a council to be excluded from the moratorium because that particular council has made progress and resolved issues regarding aquaculture management areas. I was aghast when it was presented to the select committee that the Minister of Conservation should have no time constraints at all. 
 One of the good things that the select committee was able to come up with—and it was done by all parties represented on that select committee—was an acknowledgment that it was totally unreasonable for the Minister of Conservation—particularly the current Minister of Conservation—to have no time constraints imposed whatsoever. The committee was able to work through that issue and instead of having no time constraints we agreed to extend the current time constraint of 20 working days to 40 working days. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I am very pleased to take a call on this part of the bill and certainly about the lapsed coastal permits. It is a very important issue that demonstrates the difficulty that marine farmers have had and the ridiculousness of the bureaucracy that they have been facing in the last few years. Today’s marine farmers are absolutely enmeshed in a quagmire of treaty settlements seabed claims Resource Management Act issues Environment Court sittings coastal pollution from third parties navigation by-laws community consultation algae blooms port authorities and a moratorium that has been extended. 
In Part 2 I am very pleased to see that lapsed permits have been extended because for the people of my electorate in Marlborough what happened was an absolute travesty. What had happened was that they had only 2 years after Resource Management Act consents were given for those consentsto be able to take effect. I know quite a few people in the marine farming industry and some of those consents are for very small extensions. But the Ministry of Fisheries in Nelson 2 years down the track had not processed their applications through no fault of their own—absolutely none. After they had had to pay out all that money for those resource consents they would then have to go through the process again. Can members imagine how frustrating that is! 
To add insult to injury the Ministry of Fisheries said that if people ring up to find out where their consents are at the ministry will charge them $200 an hour to answer their questions. Well it certainly worked—it stopped it answering those questions. Three years ago in my first term as a member of Parliament for the Kaikoura electorate I was writing to the Ministry of Fisheries about the time delays. At that time the ministry told the Minister it did not need more staff and that it would get the situation under control. Well it did not. It did need more staff and it did need to be able to move to get those permits through. It has made no allocation for those that are just small extensions as opposed to major. It is taking them in the order in which they came in but they have not progressed. 
The rugged individuals the men and women out there who make the marine farming industry the multimillion-dollar industry it is today are frustrated to the hilt—absolutely to the hilt. Terry Schwass who is one of those pioneers a great guy has been really instrumental in setting up the aquaculture course at Queen Charlotte College. It is a wonderful course for kids and many of them are children who would have really not seen much future for themselves in Marlborough. They are now doing their boat master certificates their diving certificates and getting out and learning about aquaculture. 
That is the future. If we could just progress this industry and allow it to develop its potential! But the terrible amount of bureaucracy that has surrounded the whole development now—all the things I listed before—mean that this industry has ground to a halt. An industry that could be worth a billion dollars by 2020 has been ground to a halt. It has gone from 20 percent growth to zero. 
If we look just at mussels we see that the export volumes peaked in 1998 and have actually reduced since then. This is an industry that was booming creating regional development giving jobs and giving our children real hope for the future. I am talking about children who do not want to become academics. They want to go into an industry where they can work outside stay in the area they were born in and develop really good job opportunities. But now we see through the Government’s inability to deal with the issues in a way that will progress this industry in this country that we have an extension of the moratorium. 
JANET MACKEY (Labour—East Coast) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I wish to advise honourable members that the amendment to clause 5 and the amendment to clause 61 in the name of the honourable member Phil Heatley are out of order because they are inconsistent with the previous decision of the Committee. In the debate on Part 1 the Committee rejected an amendment to extend the moratorium only until 1 April 2004. The proposed amendments seek to insert a 1 April 2006 extension in the definitions in a later section in the principal Act. This is not consistent with the Committee’s earlier decision. However there is another amendment in the name of the honourable member Phil Heatley to clause 6(2). 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 6 be agreed to: 
to amend subclause (2) by omitting the expression “40” and substituting the expression “30”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 be agreed to. 
Ayes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 2 agreed to. 
Clause 1 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 Again I will be making some attempt to improve this bill. As I have said the Government seems hell-bent on ramming it through this Parliament and ignoring the plight of marine farmers throughout the country—Maori and non-Maori alike. I have two amendments to suggest for the title. The first amendment is that the title of “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act” be deleted and the words “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Further Extension) Amendment Act” be inserted. I do that simply because this extension although the first extension to the initial moratorium— 
Hon David Carter 
: A once-only! 
PHIL HEATLEY 
: —which was a once-only apparently at the time is actually one of many moratoriums that have been put on the aquaculture industry over the last 5 to 10 years. The thought that this is the only extension or one of only two moratoriums is false. There have been a number of moratoriums. It is time the handbrakes were taken off the aquaculture industry and that those businesses were allowed to get on with the job. 
The other amendment I will be tabling is a change from the title of the “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act” to the “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium—Seabed and Foreshore) Amendment Act” because we all know in this Parliament—and we are under no illusions—that this is all to do with the fact that the Government has been unable to resolve the seabed and foreshore issues quickly and properly. The Government has controversy in its ranks. It has controversy in the provinces in the cities and throughout New Zealand on this issue mainly because it has never stuck to its guns on any single policy. It keeps doing U-turns. I have counted five U-turns. I sleep at nights and there could have been some U-turns in the dead of night. But I have counted five U-turns so far during waking hours. No wonder there has been controversy! No one knows where the Government is going next and no one knows where it is heading or why. This bill should be called the Resource Management Aquaculture Moratorium (Seabed and Foreshore) Amendment Bill. 
I say that the Government should get on with making public the aquaculture reforms so that regional councils are not flying in the dark when trying to develop aquaculture management areas. Although the Government says that the intention of this delay is to enable more clarity around the foreshore and seabed issue and I have alluded to that it is not the only intention. The reality is that regional councils also need more time to establish aquaculture management areas and to date only four regions have made any progress or come close at all. We have no confidence on this side of the Chamber that an additional time frame of 9 months will be sufficient to resolve the foreshore and seabed issue and enact the aquaculture reform legislation which actually has not seen the light of day yet and we have no confidence that 9 months will help regional councils plan for aquaculture management areas. 
It is somewhat of a joke to restrict this title to just the aquaculture moratorium extension. There is a lot more to it than that. There is a lot more that has been swept under the carpet and there is a lot more to come to light. What are the reforms for the aquaculture industry? What is the Government tossing Maori? What bone is the Government throwing Maori so they will accept its seabed and foreshore policy? Is it 10 20 30 or 40 percent of aquaculture management areas to Maori? All these questions have to be resolved. Nine months is certainly not long enough to enact the reform legislation if the Ministry of Fisheries is not sharing information with regional councils throughout this country. We unashamedly oppose this bill; we always have and we continue to do so. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I rise during the title debate to support the two excellent amendments that have been moved by my colleague Phil Heatley. But I want the Committee to also note that whilst the new Minister David Benson-Pope has not answered one question throughout this debate— 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: He’s a quick learner! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Well the Deputy Prime Minister has now arrived and says that David Benson-Pope is a quick learner. If he thinks it is the purpose of us standing here during the Committee stage to ask questions of a Minister unable to answer the questions and refusing to answer the questions then I suggest that the Deputy Prime Minister needs to look at the Standing Orders and figure out for himself the purpose of the Committee stage of the whole House. We have got used to the fact that more recently as we debate the Committee stage of bills Labour Ministers do not answer questions. That is far from satisfactory even though the Deputy Prime Minister Michael Cullen obviously thinks it is a very satisfactory state of affairs. 
The point I was going to make before he interrupted was that whilst we note that the new Minister of Fisheries has not taken a call the other thing that the Committee ought to note is that not one Maori Labour member of Parliament has taken a call. Not one Maori Labour member of Parliament has taken a call supporting this legislation which probably means that the suggestions we have been making are not tidy with this legislation because it is associated with the seabed and foreshore issue—and we all know that the Prime Minister herself does not have a policy because she keeps coming into the Chamber at question time and gives us a different answer every day to the questions— 
Phil Heatley 
: She’s got five policies! 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Phil Heatley tells me there are five policies. I want the Committee to note that not one Labour member of Parliament has bothered to take a call and express any support at all for the Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill. There has not been one call from any of them. It is all very well for people like Mr Tamihere to roar like a lion when he is outside Wellington but he should come into Parliament particularly under the nose of Helen Clark the Prime Minister and make in this Chamber the sorts of statements he makes outside Wellington. 
Jill Pettis 
: What’s this got to do with the title? 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Phil Heatley has moved an excellent amendment that the words “seabed and foreshore” need to be included in the title. I know that we have to explain things two or three times to get through to Jill Pettis but we all know that the reason this moratorium extension legislation is being further extended is that Helen Clark and Dr Michael Cullen cannot get the seabed and foreshore policy tidy within the caucus. Jill Pettis knows that. She knows that the caucus they had today went on long after 1 o’clock because they were debating this difficult issue that the Government has struck. That is why the words “seabed and foreshore” certainly need to be included in the title. 
But the first amendment that Mr Heatley moved is also one worthy of consideration by the Committee today; the word “further” needs to be included in the title of the bill. The “Resource Management (Aquaculture Further Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill” is a very sensible suggestion from Mr Heatley because anybody picking up this legislation will think this is a new measure that the Government has come up with because it has no answers for aquaculture. Mr Benson-Pope says that the Government has not got the answers so it imposes a moratorium. But the title ought to point out to people—and certainly the industry is well aware of it—that this is a further extension to an earlier moratorium we opposed 2 years ago. At that time the then now fired Minister of Fisheries Pete Hodgson guaranteed to the House that we would not be back debating this sort of legislation. He guaranteed he would have the answers. Now to be fair to Pete Hodgson that was prior to the seabed and foreshore issue rearing its head and Helen Clark having difficulty with the Maori caucus. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Just before I call the next member and this is no reflection on the members who have spoken there has been a change in the Standing Orders regarding the particular debate that we are on now. For clarification I shall let members know. The Standing Orders Committee considers that when debating the preliminary clauses at the end members should have some latitude to summarise and make concluding remarks about the issues they have raised during the Committee’s consideration of the bill. So it is not quite as tight as it used to be. It allows members a little bit of latitude but they need to stick to the Standing Order. 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I wonder what level of intellectual debate we can have in this House and in this country in 2004 when a member of the party on my right can say: “What bone are you throwing Maori?”. The member for Whangarei—Northland—of all places with a 35 to 40 percent Maori population should never ever descend to that level here or elsewhere in serious debate on those matters. I tell that member that I personally find it offensive. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Can the member sit down. I just say to the member on my left that interjections of back-bench members on each other are totally out of order. I am asking members to recognise that the Standing Orders and Speakers’ rulings have been crafted from well over 100 years of parliamentary democracy in this country. If members interject on members while they are in very close proximity it muffles the microphone. I would urge members to use restraint and to offer courtesy to other members. What goes around comes around. 
JIM PETERS 
: I have aired the matter sufficiently and I look to the member to think intensely about what he said. We have come to the end of the debate with regard to the title issues. I merely want to say very quickly to the Minister that the issues we have raised and our reluctant agreement to this extension are absolute. As has already been stated by the previous speaker moratoriums have been in existence in the industry since 1992. Some regional moratoriums are still in existence. So this moratorium for a further extension nationally is not unusual. However the Aquaculture Council and other bodies came to the select committee and said absolutely that this matter should have come to an end. 
In particular they had regard to the fact that the Minister’s Government said in 2000 with regard to the title that the greatest possible benefit could be obtained from the coastal space and should be so “without undermining the rights of existing fishers or allowing undue adverse impacts on the aquatic environment.” We will reach that desirable state in the future only if the Minister turns his mind absolutely first of all to the initial issues that I have already outlined on behalf of New Zealand First—that is the need to have a firm understanding of the sustainability of the fisheries resource and the impacts on fishing not just on marine farming but other fishing impacts as well. 
That leads on to the need for development of the appropriate methodologies and mechanisms of which we heard precious little out in the wider world particularly at regional council level with special regard to space and tendering. 
Last of all until we have that the intrusive impact of what marine farming might mean upon the everyday harbour dweller and coastal dweller is not known. It ought to be known. There are multiple levels of certainty that need to be given to the industry. Therefore 1 January 2005 is the absolute date. If that is the end of the moratorium a far-sighted regional council such as the Northland Regional Council which has gone ahead and done its work aided by the thinking of the Minister and his ministry will then lead to the next stage that in itself will be of some length—namely the variations and changes in the regional coastal plan where we would in our case and in the case of other regional councils have to legally define the areas. Then in accordance with the framework of the Government how should that space be allocated in a regional sense and last of all how could their uses be monitored? So there is a vast area of work for the industry and for councils to work to in a not altogether understanding environment in regard to ratepayers and particularly those who have baches and houses on the coast. However there is a task to be done if this industry is to be maximised and potential for income and long-term employment is to be gained. With that we support the title clause. We support the speedy work of the bill with an absolute certainty of 31 December 2004. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I would like to take a relatively short call on this particular clause the title clause. Perhaps I could ask in a rhetorical way: “What’s in a name?”. Is the title actually important? Well I think it is very important because people listening to the debate who have just tuned in want to understand from the title of this bill exactly what the bill encompasses. From the title “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act 2003” it is reasonable to assume that the extension will go from March to December but the title does not actually and accurately reflect the reality of this bill. It does not reflect the fact that the Department of Conservation has had a huge influence over this bill and is seeking before anything goes ahead in terms of aquaculture 10 percent of our waters. That is a huge part and I do not see it reflected anywhere in the title. 
The title does not reflect the absolute frustration that is felt. Many speakers in this Chamber have alluded to that already in the debate this afternoon. They have talked constantly about the opportunity cost to the industry as well as to the country not just in dollar terms but in jobs and opportunity that seem to be going begging. I know of one employee of this establishment who is investing in Australia because that person knows as do most of those who either listen to or are interested in this debate that the moratorium will go well past 31 December this year. That is a racecourse certainty in my view. 
We have heard—and it is certainly not reflected in the title—the frustration of Maori over this extension. This industry is very much part of the Maori way of being their lifestyle. The foreshore and seabed are hugely important to them yet we have not heard from the Maori caucus on this issue. Those members have not spoken on whether they feel this bill is good or indifferent. I think of  
Once Were Warriors 
 the musical that has just been put on around the country; I think of the Maori caucus in that light. Those members are here as the voice of Maoridom in this House yet they have not spoken on this hugely important issue for their people. I suspect that many Maori will see their representatives in this House in that light—in the context that perhaps they once were warriors but are no more because they are not standing up for the issues. They are not standing up and speaking on this bill or even on the title of this bill—a bill that is so important to Maoridom. 
The reality is that—and I think Mr Phil Heatley is absolutely correct—the title does not reflect the truth of the matter. We should be calling the bill something like the “Foreshore and Seabed Problem Bill”. That is the truth of the matter. That is why this extension is being carried forward after assurances from the previous Minister of Fisheries when the moratorium was first put on for a couple of years that it would be lifted sometime in March—I do not have the exact date. Now we have an extension right through until Christmas. 
There is nothing in the title that reflects the truth of this matter. We stand and debate this question—those of us from this side of the Chamber do anyway—and we wait in vain for the Minister to take a call and explain his particular point of view or the Government’s point of view. It does not happen. One of the frustrations of the democratic process is when members on one side of the Chamber speak and expect the Minister at least to represent his Government’s point of view but it does not happen. So many times when we stand and speak we end up with that result. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 The title of the bill “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill” actually covers the two aspects of the reason this moratorium has been extended. The whole point was that aquaculture law reform was supposed to be brought in. We had the moratorium we were told so that we could get aquaculture law reform. It was touted as making life easier. But the industry no longer supports the tortuous convoluted process proposed as the development of aquaculture management areas has become a bureaucratic nightmare. This industry has gone from 20 percent growth to zero percent growth. It is going backwards. This country will not become wealthy unless we support industries such as this. What we have now is a moratorium so that we can develop aquaculture law reform but that has not happened. 
One of the reasons it has not happened is the seabed issue. I quote Mr Hodgson when he was the Minister of Fisheries. He said the foreshore and seabed issue had delayed the development of aquaculture reform legislation which also would deal with the use of coastal space. He said he had alerted the marine farming industry earlier this year that an extension to the moratorium could be necessary given the unexpected complications of the foreshore and seabed issue. Well there did not need to be unexpected complications. They could have been sorted. The Government could have legislated put the seabed straight into Crown ownership and made the position absolutely clear to all New Zealanders. We would not need the moratorium that we have now. We would not need this bill tonight. We would not have seen the rugged individuals who forged the aquaculture industry becoming angry and frustrated. 
I sum it up by quoting Marine Farming Association member Terry Schwass who wrote recently in a farming magazine: “Well done politicians and bureaucrats! You have brought a once viable and vibrant industry to a standstill.” That is what has happened. This Government can blame nobody else but itself for this industry being brought to a standstill. I will quote another person from Marlborough the Mussel Industry Council Executive Officer Paul Lupi: “Looming law reforms the 2-year moratorium on aquaculture development trouble processing permits the rising costs in New Zealand were making it hard to do well in a softening international market.” These people have had enough. Paul Lupi is leaving. He has had enough. Terry Schwass has said: “Bye-bye I’m off to Chile.” I do not actually think he is going but a lot of people are. I hope he does not go because he is one of the founders of the industry. 
New Zealand has to realise that we have to change the focus back on to making New Zealand a wealthy and prosperous country. We heard Michael Cullen laughing before but why does he not take a call? That is what I would like to know. He should take a call and explain why this industry has gone from 20 percent growth to zero percent growth. Maybe he does not care at all about this. I tell members that the people of Marlborough care because this industry was our biggest income earner but what do we have now? We have zero growth. 
The Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope has not taken one call. He is the new Minister of Fisheries. The fisheries people would much rather see Phil Heatley because they know that at least he has been out there and knows the industry. This Minister has not taken a single solitary call on his first bill. 
Jill Pettis 
: Told him he has to sit down. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: The chief Labour whip tells me he has been told to sit down and keep quiet. Oh well that is par for the course from this Government. It is telling everyone to sit down keep quiet and do U-turns whilst trying to change the poll results. It has not made any difference whatsoever because people are fed up with the Government. They are sick of it. I say that politics may be the problem but it is also the solution. We must have a new law that gets away from the two levels of consent that we see in the legislation whereby people have to go through the Resource Management Act process then have to get a fisheries permit. We have seen how complicated those two processes are. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 It says volumes about the arrogance of the Labour Government and its United Future party doormat that not one of their members has contributed a single 5-minute speech to this debate about an industry that earns hundreds of millions of dollars for New Zealand but which they want to shut down for a further 9 months. 
Jill Pettis 
: What about the title? Mention the title! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Jill Pettis wants to interject. Why does she not give a speech? She is probably like those who are referred to in the  
New Zealand Herald  
editorial as not knowing anything about wealth creation or business in New Zealand which has so much been brought to attention by this bill. 
National’s spokesperson on fisheries the very competent Phil Heatley has moved some very sound amendments in respect of the title to put into perspective just what this bill is all about. It is an anti-growth bill. It is a bill that is all about the foreshore and seabed issue—about which Dr Cullen who is in the Chamber has been all over the paddock during the last 9 months—and a complete lack of leadership. I would like to hear from Dr Cullen. Perhaps he would like to give a speech and tell the people of New Zealand what the Government’s policy on the foreshore and seabed is. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: We would all like to know. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: We would all like to know because we have had five different versions. We have had so many promises of legislation being introduced. The reason it is so relevant is that this legislation is a promise that the moratorium will be extended for only 9 months but that relies of course on the Prime Minister’s commitment that the bill on the foreshore and seabed will be introduced this month. Already this week we have been told that that bill will be further delayed— 
Phil Heatley 
: Is that before or after the inquiry? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: My colleague Phil Heatley asks me whether that will be before or after the royal commission. Do members remember the Royal Commission on Social Policy? I think Dr Cullen was about then. It was the most expensive doorstop ever produced in the history of this Parliament. The architect of it was Dr Michael Cullen. It was an enormous failure. [ 
Interruption 
] That was the Minister of Social Welfare of the time—the Minister of the royal commission. Now Dr Cullen believes he can pull the same trick again and have a royal commission on some of the treaty foreshore and seabed issues that are holding back key industries like aquaculture. 
I pointed out during the Committee stage that this issue is no laughing matter. It is a $45 million a year issue for just the community of Tasman. Tasman is just a small fraction of New Zealand. This industry is worth $45 million a year for Tasman. There are losses of $150000 per day for the district of Tasman. That is almost as much as the Minister’s salary. Mr Benson-Pope should earn it by fixing this problem and not further kicking it for touch. If we could resolve these issues rather than have further delay then we would be far better off—not just in Tasman but all over New Zealand. That is the sort of leadership that is so sadly lacking from this Government. 
All sorts of positive amendments were put forward by Mr Heatley that would make a positive difference to this bill and provide some discipline for the Government to resolve the issue by year’s end and not further kick for touch. Perhaps Mr Heatley’s amendments should have been called the “Resource Management (Aquaculture Kick for Touch) Amendment Bill”. I know the member used that language earlier. All that this legislation means is that when one does not have a policy the easiest thing is to have a moratorium. We saw that with the Government in respect of genetic engineering. We also saw it in respect of a whole number of areas where the issue was just too hard. 
Simon Power 
: A moratorium on school closures? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: My colleague the member for Rangitikei says the Government is in trouble so it will have a moratorium on school closures. 
Phil Heatley 
: We should have a moratorium on going to the seabed and foreshore. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: That at least would be more lawful than what the Prime Minister did by trying to heavy the Maori Land Court. 
JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the question be now put. 
Ayes 71 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 49 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit the words “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act” and substitute the words “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Further Extension) Amendment Act”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 1 be agreed to: 
to omit the words “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Act” and substitute the words “Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Seabed and Foreshore) Amendment Act”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That clause 1 be agreed to. 
Ayes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Clause 1 agreed to. 
Bill reported without amendment. 
Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill 
Procedure 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 I seek leave for the Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill to be taken through all its stages and for there to be a single debate taken at the second reading stage. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Is there any objection to that course being followed? There appears to be none. 
First Reading 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 I move  
That the Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill be now read a first time 
. 
Bill read a first time. 
Second Reading 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Minister of Revenue) 
: 
 I move  
That the Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill be now read a second time 
. I want to thank all members and all parties for their cooperation in dealing with this bill expeditiously. I think members understand the necessity to get this bill through the House quickly. 
The bill is very specific in its focus. It gives the Inland Revenue Department greater legislative flexibility to deal with business taxpayers who were badly affected by last month’s severe weather and who as a result may be having problems in meeting their tax deadlines. The taxation Acts already provide a number of discretions that can be applied when taxpayers are involved in adverse events. The Inland Revenue Department has said that it will use the full flexibility that the legislation allows if tax obligations remain outstanding as a result of the floods and will remit penalties as appropriate to the extent that the law allows. However the floods and high winds that occurred in February were so extreme that it is necessary to legislate to provide flexibility beyond the norm. We are not speaking here of adverse events that may occur every few years which the present taxation rules cater for pretty well but of events that are predicted not to repeat themselves again for 100 years—though having said that I am conscious that 100-year events have a tendency to come back after a couple of years and then not to appear for a long time thereafter. We saw that with the Clutha flooding not so long ago. 
The bill not only relates specifically to the recent events but also covers similar natural disasters in the future. It allows the Inland Revenue Department to remit use-of-money interest on tax payments that are late as a result of the flooding and bad weather whether that is because taxpayers’ records have been destroyed or because they cannot gain access to their records or did not have time to pay their taxes because of higher priorities created by the emergency. The change is necessary because under current law the Inland Revenue Department does not have clear authority to remit use-of-money interest in those cases although clearly it can remit penalties arising from the late filing of returns and from late payments. The bill also allows the Inland Revenue Department to accept estimates of provisional tax that are late because of the floods. The problem with business taxpayers here is that they want early refunds of overpaid provisional tax. They had to re-estimate their income for the year and file that information by the due date of their third instalment for the year which was 7 March for most taxpayers. The bill will also amend the law to allow the Inland Revenue Department to accept verbal applications for remittance as well as written ones. 
In relation to future disasters of this sort the bill specifies several criteria for qualifying for relief. First a state of civil defence emergency must be declared in relation to the event. That does not mean however that the relief will be limited to those who live in the emergency area; all significantly affected taxpayers will qualify. Second the Governor-General must specify by Order in Council that the event is significant enough to justify invoking relief. Third the taxpayers concerned must be significantly affected by the event. Finally the taxpayers concerned must apply for the relief. That may seem overly bureaucratic but I am sure members will be aware that even in such extreme circumstances some people sometimes find loopholes in the law to exploit even when they should not be qualifying for this kind of relief. The qualifying hurdle has been set high because use-of-money interest is a very important concept in the administration of taxation law. 
Just as there was a great deal of cooperation and coordination on a national level when the disaster occurred so we have had significant cooperation from several agencies in preparing this urgent legislation. In particular I want to thank the Institute of Chartered Accountants of New Zealand and Federated Farmers of New Zealand who helped to form a quick tax response to the disaster. I acknowledge that a tax response is for the present of relatively low importance to people who may have lost their livelihoods and are more concerned about immediate problems. However the measures introduced in the bill will help to reduce some of the worries that people will face in the coming weeks and months as they deal with the situation that has occurred to them. 
I also acknowledge that I have received a specific set of recommendations and requests in relation to these sorts of issues from Mr Gerry Eckhoff. In acknowledging that they are issues that do not need to be dealt with immediately in this particular bill I undertake that I will refer those matters to my officials for consideration as to whether we should try to introduce them by means of the next major tax bill due to be introduced soon and passed by the end of this year. 
Again I thank all members for their cooperation. I also want to apologise to the member following me; I have to leave the Chamber for a somewhat delayed meeting. I commend the bill to the House. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 While the Minister remains in the House—I say that at the risk of breaching the Standing Orders—I thank him for the introduction of this Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill. It will bring some aid to the many people in the lower North Island who are feeling as the Minister put it substantial pressure in several areas. The flexibility afforded to the Inland Revenue Department by this bill will go some way towards assisting those people as constituents of mine have told me at various meetings around the electorate over the last 2 weeks. The bill is a helpful step in the right direction and the National Party will certainly be supporting its speedy passage through the House. 
At the risk of trying the patience of the Speaker I wish to say a few quick words about the scope of the disaster in my first opportunity to do so in the House when referring directly to the bill. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I have talked to the member about this and I have agreed that this may be the case. If any other speaker wants to talk about the scope of the disaster that will be fine. 
SIMON POWER 
: The local people of Horowhenua Rangitikei Wanganui and the surrounding districts have responded with extreme selflessness and dedication to fellow members of their communities. The agency relief and flexibility afforded to those members by the Government has been excellent in terms of the way in which local people have carried it out. Federated Farmers have done an outstanding job in the districts of organising particularly the collation of information from various farming districts and farms throughout the region. Federated Farmers as I say deserve the thanks of the House as does the Defence Force which did a very good job in the initial stages. 
It is worth taking up the point that the Minister made about the scale of this disaster. It ranges from severe crop damage on the flats of Horowhenua through to the Manawatu area to some of the most vicious scarring of the hill country in areas like the Turakina Valley and Whangaehu that I am sure members who have viewed that damage will ever see in a lifetime. It has been interesting to watch the reaction of members of the community who have acted in a dedicated and supportive way towards each other. I am aware of visits from members of Parliament from across all parties in this House to the disaster-affected areas. It is worth saying this to members. In case they have not seen one particular area of Whangaehu I will take a moment to describe to them what it is like. The best way to describe that area is to say that it is like a moonscape of mud. It is simply kilometres and long stretches of nothing but brown cracked mud over what was previously lush green farmland. 
The people in that area of Whangaehu are holding up well but the damage to their crops and stock is difficult to describe due to its quantum. I have seen reports in the local media of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s first indications of the extent of the damage when it indicated 5000 sheep had been lost. One farmer I spoke to last week lost 3000 sheep himself so those first best-guess estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry are way off the extent of the damage that is being felt in the district. Another farmer I spoke to had had several hundred lambs drowned as he tried to move them from the paddocks where peril was looming into the woolshed. They were freshly shorn lambs and several hundred of them drowned. So to say at this early stage there were only 5000 sheep lost is I can assure the House way off the mark. The crop damage that has been done particularly to the younger farmers in the area who have all their capital invested in those crops is horrendous. Various stories that have emerged of several big chunks of herds of cows being swept out to sea and then having to be shot from a helicopter 2 days later as they were still swimming 2 kilometres from the shore will give members of this House some idea of the scope of the disaster we are dealing with. So it is fair to say that a qualifying event under this bill must be extreme as the Minister pointed out. I think that is fair enough but let me say to any members of the House who may doubt it that this disaster has been extreme in every sense of the word. 
There have been offers of assistance from all over New Zealand. Southland farmers have phoned to say they remember how people from the district helped them in 1984. They are very keen to help and have asked what they can do. Those types of offers show something of the spirit of New Zealanders. The warehouses in Feilding are full of donated goods. Pallets and pallets of brand new goods are being deposited there every day and there is a whole warehouse full of clothes and other household items. That just goes to show a fraction of the generosity that is being shown from throughout the country. 
Like my colleagues across the House on the Government benches who have had a lot to do with meeting local people during this disaster I do worry that now the initial adrenalin rush has worn off we are entering into a very difficult phase in this disaster indeed. We are entering a phase where people are now beginning to appreciate the actual long-term impact of what has occurred rather than just working through the initial adrenalin rush to save families and homes. Now we see grief and concern for the economic viability of some of the affected farms and properties pouring out at public meetings throughout the Horowhenua Rangitikei and Wanganui districts. I know my Government colleagues have attended a number of those meetings and I know they will be experiencing the same outpouring of concern that I am experiencing. 
This bill does go some way towards assisting the affected farmers. Even though the Minister himself acknowledged it was a small token gesture frankly the fact that those people have one less thing to worry about is a very positive thing. I am delighted that all parties in this House will be supporting the speedy passage of this bill. I hope that the bill will go some way towards dealing with issues of use-of-money interest remittance for fines and the like that the Inland Revenue Department could otherwise impose. I notice in a late letter from the Minister of Revenue that in the circumstances the Inland Revenue Department will accept verbal applications as well as written ones. I think that is important as many people do not have access to fax machines and the like. Frankly some of the people in some parts of my district have only recently had their telephones reconnected and at this point they have more important things on their minds than providing estimates of provisional tax. 
It is left to me to say one thing further and that is to thank all those members of Parliament from across the House who have extended to me as a representative of the people of Rangitikei their good wishes and offers of help. Many members from all parties have done that and I wish to put it on the record that I truly appreciate that as we enter this difficult time in the recovery process. The heavy grieving begins quite frankly and I look forward to the Government’s substantive response by way of an aid package to be announced in the next few days I understand—I hope. 
I commend this bill in the spirit in which it was brought to the House and I ask members as they make a contribution or listen to the contributions of other members to the debate on this bill to take some time to think of the people who have suffered huge financial and emotional losses during the last month. 
JILL PETTIS (Labour—Whanganui) 
: 
 I want to take a brief call because we are approaching the dinner hour and I do not want to cause the interruption of the next speech. I commend this bill to the House. The Government has responded very carefully and wisely and with a long-term view to this disaster. I think the use of the word “disaster” is entirely appropriate. It is not being used in an emotive sense at all because anybody who has visited the huge geographical area that has been so adversely affected could not help but use such a description. 
This bill will provide practical relief for the businesses that have been so adversely affected. As one of the MPs who represent the affected area I am delighted at the flexibility that the Government and its many agencies have applied. As the agencies and organisations are now moving into the next stage of recovery I am pleased at the comments that have been made by people as I have moved around not only my electorate but other electorates in close proximity. People have expressed their appreciation of the tremendous assistance they have received from Government agencies. Their praise makes one feel very humble. When we look at the dreadful situation that they are living in and will have to live with for a long time it is humbling that they still have enough heart and compassion to commend agencies for the support that has been given to them. 
I want to place on the record my appreciation of the outstanding service that all the Government agencies have provided to people. A resolution to that effect was passed at the regional chiefs meeting in Feilding on Friday—a meeting of mayors and chief executive officers in the central district. All of their areas have been affected by the recent floods and their resolution was to the effect that they commended the Government for its outstanding response to this disaster. I was very pleased and humbled to hear that passed while I was at the meeting. 
One of the other aspects I have been pleased to see is that we have looked outside the square a little in our response to this disaster. We are acknowledging openly perhaps for the first time that a degree of psychological support will be required for people in the long term as they come to grips with the enormity of the situation. Dr Gordon a post-disaster specialist has come over from Australia and is assisting people to cope in the long term as they learn to live with the magnitude of their loss. If I have heard the term “flexibility” once I have heard it a hundred times in the last month as the Government has encouraged all its agencies to be flexible in their response to this situation. The recruiting of people like Dr Gordon is an example of the flexibility that has been applied. 
The amount of assistance required is huge and it will be ongoing for a long time. I am very pleased to support this bill and welcome the universal support for it in the House. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 Likewise New Zealand First supports this bill. We are pleased to do so because we have an understanding of farming and of people in the provinces. They are hardy people and they will recover from this catastrophe as all people do but that is not to say that they can recover without some help and understanding from the Government and in particular from Government agencies. 
New Zealand First—and this is not to make political capital—has always believed that help can be provided to different industries through the taxation system. We have seen—and any farmer will tell us—that it is an inequity that when people face periods of drought flood pestilence or anything else and have to divest themselves of stock or plant or both in the short term the money they receive shows up as a huge increase in their income for that year making it very difficult to even out their taxation. They may well get the tax back a couple of years later but that does not help them in times of crisis. I can see from my farming colleagues’ nods that even if they have not been in that situation themselves they certainly understand it. So I think it is great that in this instance we are seeing some understanding in terms of taxation and are seeing instructions from the Prime Minister down that people in the departments should use their initiative and be flexible. Above all else that is what needs to happen. 
My leader will berate me when I say these next words but I have not been to the disaster area. That has been deliberate because I think that the time immediately after disaster strikes is a time when Government members Ministers and people directly involved in departments should go to that area. The last thing people need is a person like myself trundling around. But I will go and I will take a great interest in this area because I do realise as other speakers have outlined that resowing replanting rebuilding and all of those things have to be done. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: I have taken on board the words of a local member Simon Power who said that once the initial heartbreak and grief of the local people and the outpourings of sympathy and the donation of some millions of dollars from the rest of New Zealand were over a period of grieving—I forget the exact words Mr Power used—would set in and the real grief the sense of real loss would come to pass. I said earlier that I had deliberately not been to the area while people were in emergency mode but I will certainly be visiting in future to see the replanting of pastures and crops and to pass on to people the sympathies of my party and myself. I think that is the appropriate thing to do. 
I understand what Mr Power is saying. He gave a warning to the Government and I think that is fair. The Government whether or not it needs the warning certainly understands that it cannot sit back now. As far as farms go and businesses and people’s lives they need to be rebuilt they need to be made productive again and the hurt and the tragedies that have been experienced need to be put right. So the Government’s job really is just beginning and it is great to see the House across parties endorse the help that is being extended to whatever degree with this bill. 
Millions of dollars will be needed—not only in the lower North Island but in other parts of the country. In the break I was talking to my colleague Gerrard Eckhoff about the situation in Otago where people have just finished experiencing their worst drought in maybe history—certainly in living memory. To then have other parts of the country some not so far from that Otago area itself hit by floods is rather ironic. It is a weather pattern we expect to see in our dry neighbour Australia. 
I endorse Mr Power’s comments and say that the Government’s work is just beginning. I want to put on record that I will be visiting the area on behalf of New Zealand First and out of my own interest to pass on our sympathies to people there and to watch the rebuilding and whatever steps the Government takes to put money and resources into the area to get it back to how it was previously. We endorse and support that wholeheartedly. I do not think there is much more I can constructively say except that it is right to bring this bill to the House. New Zealand First has supported taxation incentives since its inception. This legislation is not seen as an incentive yet that is what it is. It is help that is sorely needed and we support it wholeheartedly. 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party is very pleased to support this bill. We extend our sympathy—our deepest sympathy in fact—to all of the victims of the flooding both in Picton and in the lower North Island. We are very conscious of the personal devastation suffered by many people particularly farmers and we applaud what the Government is doing. It is not nearly enough for a lot of people I know but it is something and it is something constructive. The Government’s move is to reduce the financial pain by deferring taxation such as provisional tax and other penalties that other members have already detailed. 
As a farmer myself I am very aware of the relationship that exists between farmers and their land. It can be a very moving experience to realise the dependence one has on the land one farms. In particular livestock farmers have a very deep relationship with their animals and awareness of a mutual interdependence between their animals and themselves. The loss of any animal can be quite devastating for a farmer and can cause grief—sometimes quite profound grief. That is particularly true for dairy farmers though I am not one myself and never have been. I say that because they come into contact with their cows twice a day for most of the year and they establish very close relationships even when there are large numbers of cows. 
From my own personal experience I can still recall the pangs of grief guilt and self-criticism I felt some years ago when I lost about half a dozen prime cows to milk fever. It was a preventable thing I suppose. Had I been a better farmer they would have not have been lost but they were in magnificent condition one day and dead the next morning. So I can only empathise with farmers who have lost entire herds of cattle or flocks of sheep. I express my sincerest sympathy to them. 
The emotional cost of an event like this is really enormous but it is not just an emotional cost—there is a financial cost as well and I am pleased to see that the Government is aware of the short-term costs that build into long-term problems for farmers. It may not be immediately obvious to urban dwellers but the impact on farmers of natural disasters can take many years to work through. It is not just a matter of getting the insurance company to come and replace the carpets of tidying up the mud from the lounge or of spending hours fixing the fences. It is a loss of a source of income as well as a monetary loss in the short term. 
I am particularly aware that in places like the Manawatu many farms have very high-quality pasture covered by many centimetres of pretty infertile mud. That in itself will take a long time to work around. Obviously in the very short term there is no immediate feed for farmers’ stock. In the longer term there is no feed to be made into hay or silage for winter feed for that stock. So the floods had a dramatic cost and impact on farmers. 
But I guess it is the plight of dairy farmers that again I particularly want to refer to. I find their loss really most poignant. I am very aware of the story related by Landcare Research. The Primary Production Committee had cause to have dinner with the Landcare group just recently and its members related the story of how many of their quite extensive herds of dairy cattle were simply swept away. Water came up and cows in water are basically like 44-gallon drums with legs. Although they can swim quite well they also float extremely well so they were just picked up and carried away. 
In Landcare’s case the short-term grief was at least mollified to a degree because a lot of the cows swam to shore and were not swept out to sea but I am very conscious of other farmers whose entire herds were washed out to sea. One of my colleagues talked earlier about how the animals were shot out at sea because there was no way of saving them. As a farmer I can only grieve in thinking about stories like that. 
Replacing a dairy herd is a slow process. Replacing any kind of cattle or flock of sheep is a slow process as well. It is not just a matter of identifying and buying new stock. Cows in particular are extremely social animals and they take time to settle in if they have been brought to a new property. They tend to be much rougher on fences on properties they do not know. If a farmer were bringing cows from a variety of sources—as would be the case if a big herd of cows in the Manawatu were being replaced—there would be social conflicts within the various subgroups of the herd. 
Anybody who knows about dairy cattle will know that cows have a pecking order and that they always go into the milking shed in a particular order and come out in a particular order. There is a very strictly regimented regime within the social hierarchy of those cows. They not only take time to adapt to their new social environment they also take time to settle down physically and start producing milk. 
After a disaster such as the one we have had in the lower North Island and around Picton farmers have not only lost their houses but a lot of their possessions stock pasture and fences have gone. They are really up against it. I have not noticed too many of the banks holding back on their mortgages in the way the Government is trying to help at the moment. We would live in a much happier country if the banks could do that. At the end of the day a bank is rather like a partner on a farm—it does none of the work but is always there with its hand out first when the money is being given away. 
It is not just the fact that short-term income is affected so is capital stock. One can probably afford to lose one’s profit for the year—the stock that is in effect harvested such as the culled cows and prime steers that have got to a certain point before being sent to the market. Farmers can afford to lose a year’s income but if they lose their capital stock as well then it will take a very long time to recover. They are not only losing their profit they are losing their cash flow. 
Most people will be aware that provisional tax payments are made for the year ahead in which no income has been earned. Provisional tax is based on the past year so in a disaster situation like we have at the moment income for the past year might be quite healthy but income might be zero—or even more likely negative—for the coming year. If farmers have to pay provisional tax on the basis of a good income for the last year and are paying from a negative income for the coming year then they are in a very tight spot. I applaud the Government for intervening in that scenario and saying it would taihoa on provisional tax. I guess at some stage it will be paid but in the short term let us forget about it. We really do support that initiative. 
I would also like to take the opportunity to commend Federated Farmers. Their behaviour and performance in the lower North Island is very reminiscent of the way they behaved during the Boxing Day fires in Marlborough a couple of years ago. Their support for the farming community there was exemplary. I resigned from Federated Farmers some years ago because of their attitude to genetic engineering and I still cannot bring myself to rejoin. That said I cannot help being impressed by the way the organisation gets in behind the farming community at times like this. 
Without wishing in any way to diminish the pain farmers are feeling I want to give one very gentle message to the Government. Actually there are two. The first is that inappropriate land use exacerbates the problem of flooding. In clear-felled forests for instance the rainwater runs off more quickly. It erodes more and is more turbid so there are greater floods. We need to think about appropriate land use and not clearing too much at any one time. 
The second point is that the unseasonality and severity of the storms we suffered last month are a stark reminder that global warming is a reality. It is something that we have to address upfront and stop pretending that it is not happening because it really is. It is something that we have to address now. 
In closing I would like to reiterate my sympathy that of my Green colleagues and I am sure of all members of the Chamber. The sympathy and good wishes of the Green Party go out to the affected farmers and their families. I want to let them know that our thoughts are with them. Like Doug Woolerton I have not been there but I will go in the very near future. The Green Party has great pleasure in supporting the passage of this bill. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 In the quiet moments I have in Parliament—they are few but occasionally they happen—I sometimes reflect on whether one can have some impact or make some sort of difference or on why one comes to Parliament. Thinking to myself about this after talking and listening to the very wise words of all the speakers I have heard so far I realise it is important that we make a contribution. 
Certainly as a rural person I believe that the voice of rural New Zealand is not heard as much as it should be so it is very gratifying to hear members from all parties speak with real understanding of the issues that are out there for so many who have been affected by this rather catastrophic event in the lower North Island. 
As a farmer of 30-odd years thinking closely about the impact the floods have had on the communities in the lower North Island I start to think back on my own experience of going through one in 200-year floods a year apart in Southland. We have gone through numerous droughts and many of us in Roxburgh would say that the last drought was probably the worst in living memory. Now it has all changed and the grass is growing again which is fantastic. 
I cannot help but reflect on a neighbour whose property was totally burnt out back in 1999 and the impact it had on just a handful of farmers. It was not a disaster in a regional sense—although it could have been—but it affected those farming families immensely and one particular family no longer farms because of that fire. I also think of those in isolated areas who lost 200 to 300 cows smothered in snowfalls. That does not make the headlines in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 or in the North Island newspapers but the impact on individual farmers and families is huge.  
If I might come back to the bill—which is perhaps rather unusual—the impact of taxation over the next few years on affected farmers in the North Island and those who have gone through significant capital loss and expenditure is very profound. I know for example that when stock that has been lost is replaced—whether it be cows sheep or a market garden—the costs are huge. The impact of the Inland Revenue Department and its legitimate—nobody doubts that—requirements can be very deleterious. I say to Dr Cullen and the Labour Government: thank you for hearing the pleas of so many.  
Not just rural or provincial New Zealand but the whole of the New Zealand community recognised the devastating impact of the floods on so many of our families and knew full well that they could be next. That is why some of us—I donated a cow or cow equivalent—helped just in a small way to make things a little easier especially for sharemilkers who have all their capital tied up in a breeding herd.  
Doug Woolerton and Ian Ewen-Street have referred to the enormous loss caused by the floods—not just in a financial sense but in a personal sense. Farmers do not just lose a source of income when they lose stock but almost part of the family. I guess one needs to be a rural person to understand that in any very real way.  
I wrote to Dr Cullen today and expressed some concern that the bill as it stands does not go far enough. I do not want to sound churlish or ungrateful but there are other elements that we need to think about. I suggest that the Inland Revenue Department—and indeed the Minister—needs to think about the anomalies that those sorts of situations throw up when cash donations are made or in kind such as hay. We need to think about whether those sorts of deductions are tax deductible. 
I hasten to add that my comments do not relate to my personal contribution but more to the longer-term impacts on those who generously give very substantial sums of money in some cases. We need to understand exactly what the implications are. We know of situations where culverts sheds etc. that are depreciating on an annual basis over a 20-year period have been washed down the river and totally lost and we need a system that allows people to write those off immediately and start again. 
There are some real issues there and I am very grateful to the Minister Dr Cullen for his indication that there will be legislation addressing that issue—in the not too distant future one would hope. I fully accept that the immediacy of this bill in terms of payments to the Inland Revenue Department—whether it be GST provisional tax or whatever—is necessary. Hence the House I am delighted to say has set aside a time in which to address this very important issue. 
It would also be fair and reasonable for me to say “Thank you” on behalf of Federated Farmers who have been hoping for almost 10 years that a Government no matter whether that Government be National Labour or ACT—and an ACT Government is not too far away—will address that issue. We appreciate the fact that that is now being done. 
Hon Dr Michael Cullen 
: It is a one-in-100-year event. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: I will just carry on. Sadly it does sometimes take catastrophic events to get the Government to hear the pleas of the people out there in the provinces. The catastrophe of the last flood has been so grievous for so many. Mr Woolerton referred to the “scarring of the hillsides”. The reality of that is brought into stark focus whether one is flying over the area or driving through it. We know it will take some time for the country to recover—but recover it will as will our families. 
I believe it was Mr Woolerton again who pointed out that after the immediacy of the event—with the television cameras the Iroquois helicopters flying over and everybody saying: “Gosh isn’t this dreadful? Look at all this silt on the flats”—it will be over the next 3 to 7 months or even the next year that understanding of the situation and help will be needed. I also pay homage to the job that Federated Farmers have done over this time. 
If members will forgive me I would like to finish on what I think is quite a nice note. I have no wish at all to be flippant but this is a nice little story of a dairy farmer who woke to find 80 bucket-reared heifers marooned. He did not know how to get them across the water so he tapped the bucket and started calling to them and one by one they leapt into the water and came to him. He got them on to some high ground and thought he had saved them. 
A couple of hours later the farmer was mortified to see an Iroquois coming down—the pilot had apparently thought the group of heifers was a group of people huddled together—and the heifers plunging straight into the river again. He thought: “Oh my God I’ve gone from saving them to losing them again.” Two hours later he got a ring from a fellow down on the coast who said: “I think I’ve got some heifers of yours. They’ve got your earmark on them. There’s a dozen or 15—hang on there might be 20—no looks like about 40 actually.” He rang the farmer back about half an hour later to say that there were 80 of his heifers on the farm right on the beachfront. The whole lot were safe. 
If I might be forgiven for adding a positive note some positive elements have come out of these disasters and rather than dwelling on the huge difficulties I thought that was quite a nice little story for members to think about—which is certainly not to undermine the huge difficulties that have grievously affected not just farmers but so many people in small provincial towns. I thank the Government and my colleagues for their contributions and I look forward to the passage of this bill. 
GORDON COPELAND (United Future) 
: 
 February of 2004 will be registered forever in the memory of the farmers and the other inhabitants of the lower North Island. I am as not as young as I used to be and in my lifetime I cannot remember a February quite like the February that we have just experienced in this part of the world. For many parts of the lower North Island the rainfall that we had during the month of February broke all records since records were first kept way back into the 1860s and 1850s. By any stretch of the imagination this has been a truly disastrous time for people in the lower North Island. A flood is always a devastating experience for people who have their homes their possessions and indeed the very soil of their farms slip away into the ocean but on this occasion it was made so much worse because some individual areas and farms had not one not two but three floods during the month of February. It is the cumulative effect of that on people’s finances and aspirations—seeing their dreams swept down the river—that has been so completely devastating. 
Like the other parties United Future would like to record its sympathy tonight for the many families that were involved in those events. We recognise the traumatic nature of those events. We wish those families very well in the months ahead and a speedy recovery from those unfortunate events. 
The other side of the coin of course is the way in which the New Zealand community has reacted—the tremendous generosity of people that expressed itself immediately in things like the Television One appeal which received $3 million and in many donations given to many other organisations and charities such as the mayoral relief funds. 
The members of United Future went to the Minister of Revenue and asked whether we could not have special legislation tabled in Parliament that recognised the event and that would allow people to deduct more than the usual stingy $1900 per annum in donations for tax purposes recognising the fact that anybody who gives money for flood relief should get a tax deduction for that. We were delighted that that eventually evolved as officials worked with the Government to a dollar-for-dollar matching subsidy from the consolidated account to each of those funds that have been driven by the generosity of New Zealanders. 
Simon Power and others have mentioned the great outpouring of goods and services that have flowed into places throughout the lower North Island replenishing all kinds of things—from clothing to food to farm supplies and so on and so forth. Gerrard Eckhoff and others have also mentioned that cows and other animals have been donated which I had not realised until tonight. Again that is an expression of the tremendous sense of generosity that lives in the hearts of Kiwis. 
The other thing that is always an amazing example to all of us is the farmer-to-farmer solidarity that emerges on these occasions not just on this occasion but on so many other occasions be they drought flood or fire. The farming community of this country has an amazing ability to rise to the occasion and to help out fellow-farmers and we have seen that happen again on this occasion. 
We need to recognise as others have that in spite of our best efforts there will be very serious financial and other losses for many farmers. Many of the landslips and landslides and the silt that has covered paddocks are not covered by any form of insurance. There is no piggy bank that can be called on to offset those losses. Ian Ewen-Street picked up on the fact that here we are in Parliament putting through a bill—which United Future totally supports—that will give some much-needed relief in terms of provisional tax and interest rates. Ian mentioned that it would be good if the banks were to follow suit and it reminded me— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member will refer to members by their full names. 
GORDON COPELAND 
: Yes—Ian Ewen-Street. Members will remember the telethons we used to have where people would make a donation and challenge other people to do the same. Maybe here in Parliament tonight when passing this bill with I think the unanimous support of all parties we should actually be saying to the banks: “We now challenge you to do the same.” Maybe the banks can look at a bit of interest write-off for these hard-pressed families. With those remarks I am happy to signify United Future’s wholehearted support for the Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill. 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I rise to give my very strong support to the second reading of the Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill introduced by the Hon Dr Michael Cullen and I do so as a member of Parliament for the Horowhenua district which has been adversely affected by the floods. I know this bill will be welcomed as one of a range of measures the Government is taking to try to respond to the floods in many different ways. This bill is only one thing but of course because it is being debated in Parliament we have the opportunity to put on record the sympathy we feel towards victims of the floods and also to recognise the huge community contribution from around New Zealand that has been made to support people through these difficult times. 
On the Tuesday night of the floods I travelled to Levin where the civil defence headquarters was set up and I saw the photographs that were coming in from the civil defence people from the helicopter early on. The photos showed water right up at the level of the Whirokino Bridge in between Levin and Foxton and those who know that bridge where the spillway is know that it is a huge area and to see it all filled up with water is something I never thought I would see having grown up in that area as a boy. When I saw all the water at that level I knew we were in for a very difficult few days as that water had to go somewhere and as the days went on more and more people were affected across the Horowhenua district. It is only now that we get to turn to looking at some of the structural things we can do to make a difference in that regard. 
This bill will allow the Inland Revenue Department to remit the use-of-money interest on tax payments that are late as a result of the flooding and that could be because records have been destroyed. I have visited milking sheds where the little office the farmer had where all the records were kept had been washed away. There are many other priorities that are difficult for farmers to have to deal with as well as the requirements of the Inland Revenue Department so this bill does give that flexibility which we have been saying all along is what Government agencies have to do. Local members of Parliament from around the district have been very grateful for the way Government departments really have made the extra effort to see what they can do to be of assistance and not just have a straightjacket rule-book approach. 
The support the community has been able to give has been huge. Manawatu College in Foxton was set up as a place for people around the Motua district to use as a relief centre. A whole army of people came to help out those farmers in the Motua area who had to abandon their homes because they were submerged in water. People came together from all walks of life right across the community to see what they could do. They were led by amazing women like Rora Batt who managed to cook breakfast lunch and dinner for farmers. 
I went out one day to deliver lunches to farm workers around the district who did not have time to prepare meals. People like that just got on with it—cooking meals making sandwiches and providing a place where people could go and talk at the end of the day. It really does bring out that strong community spirit. 
Members of the Horowhenua District Council have done a very good job coordinating civil defence and I am grateful to them for the leadership they have shown. I am grateful also to Federated Farmers. Shelley Dew-Hopkins I know has assisted in the Rangitikei Whanganui and Horowhenua areas and has been a very good source of information and support. She has jollied people along when they needed it but has also been a good face and voice in the media for the needs of the farming and rural community. 
In Shannon Geoff Kane has done a good job working in with Richmond Ltd the fellmongery the largest employer in Shannon. It provides 100 jobs in a low-income town. Two-thirds was submerged in water which of course put those people out of work temporarily. Richmond came to the party and kept the workers on the payroll so they could help with the clean-up. I guess when we see corporations doing things like that it shows why it is important for the Government and Parliament to enact this legislation to allow the Inland Revenue Department to be equally flexible. 
Some individual farmers have been hugely affected and that is why I stress that this bill can only be one of a range of measures we need to do. I know that at the moment there are discussions about what assistance can be made available financially in terms of which farms can be made economically viable again. A lot of attention has been given to cattle and dairy farmers with a lot of stock and initially there was huge concern as stock was seen floating down the Manawatu River and so on and so forth. As they have been able to be rescued our attention now must turn to the crop farmers who of course were rather missed out in the initial stages when we were worried about making sure that cows could get milked. A lot of those crop farmers have lost all their economic value. I think of Ian Easton in Shannon who has lost half a million dollars in spuds $400000 in squash and $400000 in onions—all gone. It is very hard to try to find that kind of money—over a million dollars—out of one’s back pocket and those are the kinds of people we need to try to help name. Through no fault of their own they have had their farms totally submerged in water and are facing very difficult times as a result. 
I am grateful for the work that the local members of Parliament have done in each of their electorates: Mrs Pettis in Whanganui Mr Power in Rangitikei and Mrs Turia in her electorate as well particularly around the Ratana community. As Mr Power notes she did a very good job there early on when Ratana was under pressure. The Prime Minister visited many parts of the district on a couple of occasions. I accompanied her to Scots Ferry which was a devastating scene and also across to Feilding. In my own electorate the Minister for Social Development and Employment Steve Maharey the Minister of Civil Defence George Hawkins and the Minister of Agriculture Jim Sutton all made visits to different parts of the area and they were very welcome as well. 
I am grateful for the way the business community has come together. I think of bigger companies like Telecom State Insurance and Wrightson who have all come in with some big donations and also of the smaller companies in the towns like our apparel and textile businesses who have donated a lot of clothing for outdoor workers. Because people need to have treats as well RJ’s Licorice a very successful liquorice exporting company has made lots of lollies available as well and that has been very welcome. It has been a difficult time and that is why it is appropriate that we come together as a Parliament and I welcome the fact that all parties will be supporting this bill. Agriculture is the backbone of our economy and in rural and provincial seats like the ones that electorate members hail from and have spoken about we know how important it is not only to our economy but to the rural fabric of our electorates and our communities. That is why I am grateful to members of Parliament for their support for this bill which is just one measure in the Government’s range of responses to the disastrous floods of February 2004. I support the bill. 
JOHN KEY (National—Helensville) 
: 
 I have not had a personal opportunity to visit the flood zones but I want to reflect on the disaster as it unfolded from my position in my own electorate in Auckland. Two initial thoughts struck me as the floods took place and then some time later a third one. The first of those was the enormity of the devastation in the tragedy that took place. It was not just a small tract of New Zealand rural land. It was an enormous piece. We have just heard from Mr Hughes the number of electorates that it passed over. So it was really a very large disaster and obviously extremely severe. 
The second reflection is the bizarreness of the event in that it occurred in February the heart of a New Zealand summer. In fact the first day that floods struck the middle of the North Island up in Auckland just a few hours away it was a beautiful fine day. It seemed quite bizarre to see what was unfolding on nationwide television in terms of the disaster and for that to be occurring in February. I think Mr Ewen-Street made some valuable comments when he said that there are some unusual things happening in our weather patterns and I will leave that for another debate. 
The third reflection that struck me some time after the disaster was that in many countries when a tragedy of this sort occurs when a natural disaster occurs we see the best and the worst brought out in a society. So often when we watch the evening news and see a similar kind of event happening in another country what we notice as well as all the great deeds taking place are a lot of very unfortunate things occurring like looting and the kinds of things we would not expect to occur when there has been a natural disaster in a community. It is one of the things that I think we can all as New Zealanders reflect on—just how good a society fundamentally we have. When we have a disaster in our own backyard we do not see the best and the worst coming out in New Zealanders in their efforts we see only the best. 
One thing that is worth reflecting on is the success of the mini-telethon that Paul Holmes undertook on nationwide television. Paul Holmes did a tremendous job of galvanising support and making all of us understand the severity of the situation. I think that telethon—that binding together of financial support from New Zealanders from all walks of life—played in its own way a role in making all members of Parliament come together and understand the severity of this situation. 
One of the reasons we are here tonight discussing the Taxation(Disaster Relief) Bill is that New Zealanders do understand that whether they are in Parliament whether they are living in the Rangitikei the Horowhenua or some other part of New Zealand. Paul Holmes should take some personal satisfaction that he has played an important role and all New Zealanders can take some satisfaction that they have been part of a process that will see as best as can be the case some relief delivered for those New Zealanders who have suffered as a result of this tragedy. 
The last comment I would like to make in that regard at least is that just as it brought out the best in New Zealanders I do believe it has brought the best out in our Parliament. It is not very often that we all agree on supporting one bill. In fact it is virtually unheard of. When I first came here 18 months ago I considered that a lot more legislation would travel through this House on a unanimous basis. It does not. The fact that this bill has been unanimously supported and I might add without a great deal of politics serves our communities well. It shows the people of New Zealand that Parliament can come together when it is reflecting on a situation like this when it really needs to. Parliament itself can take a bow and be proud of the way it has reflected this situation. 
Finally Dr Cullen does deserve some credit for understanding the need for this legislation. There was some discussion that he would be able to administer this relief through section 6A of the Tax Administration Act and that he might be able to doctor the original legislation. I do not believe that was possible. He tookthe proactive step of encouraging the Inland Revenue Department to look at the situation and he has done a good job in this regard. 
I want to reflect on some of the specifics of the bill for a moment—not many people have but I will take a second to put my finance hat on and reflect on one or two specifics and then call it a night so to speak. Those who read the bill will notice immediately that the wording about who can enjoy this legislation is quite broad in one sense. They are defined as those affected by extreme natural events. That is a broad definition. I want to dwell on why that might be the case in a moment. 
But it is also worth recording for  
Hansard  
that the Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill is not a specific piece of legislation for the floods that took place in February of 2004. It will obviously serve to help the people affected in those floods but it is a generic piece of legislation. It could help anyone who is covered under that definition of an extreme natural event. By that we could mean another similar flood somewhere in the country an earthquake an outbreak of food-and-mouth disease— 
Darren Hughes 
: In Helensville! 
JOHN KEY 
: Yes in Helensville or anywhere should New Zealand be struck by that particular tragedy. It is also worth noting what the bill will not cover. It will not cover for instance an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease spread by terrorists in New Zealand. That is worth reflecting on—that is not an extreme natural event; it is an eco-terrorist event. It would not affect somebody who suffered loss through a plane hitting a building as happened on 9/11 in the United States of America. That would not be covered under this legislation. So whilst the legislation will cover natural disasters it will not cover those types of things. 
The second situation that is worth talking about is what the bill will do for provisional tax payers in New Zealand. Most New Zealanders might understand that not only is provisional tax a future tax based on prior earnings but the way that situation works is that the provisional tax payer has two options. The first is to have what is called the natural uplift which is that the taxpayers pay tax on 105 percent of their previous year’s income on the basis that they will enjoy about a 5 percent growth. I might add that that is better than the Labour Government can currently deliver for the people of New Zealand which Dr Cullen outlined recently will plummet to 3.5 and then 2 percent in the years ahead. But it is 105 percent of the normal uplift. 
The second option is for taxpayers to have an estimate of what they believe will be their income. In the case where they are making their third provisional instalment on 31 March then P3—the date at which they need to pay that income—is 7 March. That is really the issue we are facing here. Let us take the very simple example of a farmer in the Rangitikei who may have earned $86000 or $90000 last year and is faced with a tax bill in the 2004 period of tax on $90000. He or she would have paid tax on $30000 in P1 tax on $30000 in P2 and had this legislation not been passed would have paid tax on an income of $60000 with no ability to claim back and would have had the loss of use-of-money provision and would potentially have to pay the third instalment if he or she did not have the time to make payment by 7 March. The second point that is worth noting is the impact that without this legislation would have occurred for farmers and business people who act as a collection agency for PAYE and GST. 
I want to reflect on one other point and that is simply this. In terms of the estimate it is quite true that most of the people who will enjoy the relief provided by this legislation will be those who have over-provided for tax and therefore want to get the money back. But of course there would be some other New Zealanders who would be affected the other way where their income may be significantly greater as a result of the floods and would have under-provisioned in their tax return had they not had this legislation who have been most affected. Members should not forget for instance someone who hasbeen growing flowers for example in Rangitikei and selling those flowers in Auckland. His or her income may in fact be lower. This is one of the reasons this legislation has very general provisions and why a great many New Zealanders will be looking for relief under the legislation. National will be supporting the legislation. We have pleasure in being part of the process and we look forward to it passing swiftly through the House. 
Bill read a second time. 
Third Reading 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) on behalf of the Minister of Revenue 
: 
 I move  
That the Taxation (Disaster Relief) Bill be now read a third time. 
Bill read a third time. 
Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) 
Instruction to Committee 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) that it take the bill part by part. 
Motion agreed to. 
DARREN HUGHES (Junior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move 
 That Lindsay Tisch be appointed Acting Chairperson while the House is in Committee on the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2). 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: Is there any objection to that course of action being taken? There appears to be none. 
In Committee 
Part 1 Preliminary provisions 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 Mr Acting Chairperson it is good to see you resident in that Chair. I am hopeful it is a signal of things to come. This side would certainly support that. 
By way of introduction to Part 1 “Preliminary provisions” it is worth outlining what the bill is about generally. Part 1 includes the purpose clause which I believe is reasonably adequate but not perfect. I shall table an amendment to improve it and get it a lot closer to perfection than it currently is. The bill ensures a full and final settlement of historic under-recovery and over-recovery of levies collected by the Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of Conservation. 
A cost-recovery regime was introduced into fishing legislation in 1994. It allowed fisheries services such as monitoring research and so on and so forth to be undertaken by the Crown and it allowed Department of Conservation services such as monitoring and research to be undertaken. It also allowed the costs of that research monitoring and other services provided by both the Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of Conservation to be recovered by them and to be paid by fishers in the various sectors. 
The levies for research monitoring and other services are collected from a particular fishery such as the snapper fishery. Those services are returned to the snapper fishery. The services are not returned to individual fishers; they are returned to the fishery in question. So levies are collected from all fishers within a fishery and the services are returned to the fishery in general not to individual fishers. That may seem a pedantic point but when we get into the debate as to how this money this over-recovery is redistributed in the industry it becomes a very important point. 
I would like to move an amendment—and I shall be putting it on the Table shortly—to the purpose clause of the bill. We note that clause 3 “Purpose” contains three purposes. I will move that the primary purpose state—it will be No. 1—the following: “This Act acknowledges the discrepancies in conservation and fisheries services levies collected for the period 1 October 1994 to 30 September 2002.” There is a good reason for that. I know that Ian Ewen-Street will agree that although we see a negotiated agreement here we have never seen an acknowledgment or an apology from the Ministry of Fisheries or the Minister of Fisheries or from the Department of Conservation or the Minister of Conservation that those levies were collected and underspent. It is alluded to certainly in the negotiated agreement. But I recall that back in 2002 a bill was passed that had come from the Regulations Review Committee and that actually confirmed and validated the levies that had been collected. It made legal what appeared to be unfair and unreasonable. That particular validation bill made legal the levies that had been collected and underspent—and that should not have happened; certainly it should not have happened year in year out. I think it is important that clause 3 “Purpose” acknowledges that discrepancy because it would mean that the Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of Conservation put on the record that yes they did collect and underspend and in some cases under-collect and overspend—I acknowledge that also. 
I just put that to the Committee. I shall move an amendment to insert a new subclause (1A) in clause 3. 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 One of the questions that we kept raising in the Primary Production Committee was why the levies were not spent. It is clear that the ministry collected the levies legitimately. The money that was supposed to be spent by the Department of Conservation was forwarded to it but the money was not spent on the purpose for which it was collected. Also a lot of money was required to be spent but was not spent on research by the Ministry of Fisheries itself and I have never had a satisfactory answer to the question of why that money was not spent on research. I think that is a very important question not just for the sake of money that has been collected and not spent but because when one thinks about the ecosystem and the need for research on the fisheries one realises the money was there for that research to be conducted but it was not done. 
It is sad to say that the fishing industry in New Zealand is one of the most rapacious and destructive industries in terms of its impact on natural resources in this country. They the fishers do not want the research to be done. What sort of message is the ministry sending to them if it says it will collect all that money so that research can be done to help the fishers to keep in balance with the ecosystem but then says that that was not even sufficiently important to warrant spending the money in the manner in which it was designed to be spent? 
The total risk the Ministry of Fisheries was subject to in relation to the collection of levies was a very considerable figure. I believe that it was in excess of $200 million. One company Barine Developments said all that money was being spent on levies and it was not getting any benefit from it. Rather than simply refusing to pay its levies and being prosecuted by the ministry Barine Developments paid its levies but not to the ministry. It paid the levies into a trust fund so that they were secure. The Barine Developments case did not go to court but it was going to go to court. It was only when the Ministry of Fisheries was advised I believe by Crown Law that it would lose the case against Barine Developments that it settled out of court with the company. The ministry then realised that having been open to that risk with Barine Developments it was open to a much bigger risk with regard to the rest of the fishing industry and this legislation was mooted so that that loophole or that possibility would be closed off. 
I think that the ministry really has some soul-searching to do on this issue. [ 
Interruption 
] It does need to do some soul-searching. Why did it collect that money but not spend it in the way in which it was supposed to have been spent? We do need more research. The ministry says that it will bring a particular species into the quota management system as if that were an end in itself. It is not an end in itself. The quota management system is certainly a step in the right direction but it is not the end of the journey. Just putting a species into the quota management system does not solve the problems. We have in the quota management system a process that in effect gives property rights to individuals. We are talking about very valuable assets that can be passed on to other people—bought and sold and traded. The quota management system vests ownership in a small number of people; rights to quota are valuable things to have. But the quota management system is not the solution to the problems of the industry and we do need research to be done on the species. I was amazed to learn a couple of years ago that at the time there were 32 species of fish in the quota management system and the ministry had confessed that it knew the life cycles in some detail of seven of those species. Yet the ministry believes that simply putting species into private ownership under the quota management system will in some way resolve all the problems of those species. That is not the way to go. 
In the next part of this debate I want to address the issue of the rebate of levies to small fishers but I will leave that until a later moment. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to make a contribution on Part 1 in support of my colleague Phil Heatley and the wise words he has spoken and also to make some complementary remarks to those of Ian Ewen-Street about the sorry state of both the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries in respect of the history associated with these provisions. It is a pretty sad state of affairs when money is collected from private individuals for a particular stated purpose and then it is found out that it has not been used for that. It is an indictment on both the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries that this bill is even needed let alone that it contains some provisions that will result in substantial compensation being paid out to the fishing industry. When I look at the schedules I note that those who hold quota for yellow-eyed mullet will receive a full dollar of compensation to share amongst themselves—I hope they do not spend it all at once—but that is not to belittle some of the larger sums that are involved in some parts of the fisheries in terms of the compensation arising from the sorry history of this matter. 
There are a couple of quite specific points that I want to make in respect of the Department of Conservation. Specific agreements were met in respect of the conservation service’s levies. They were quite specifically for a purpose. I remember well that at the time the fishing industry expressed concern that the Department of Conservation did not have the programmes in place nor the researchers in place to use that expenditure for the intended purpose. The Department of Conservation hand on heart said we should trust it. Members in both the previous National Government and the Labour Government did trust the department but it was not worthy of that trust. It breached that agreement. The department made Ministers and more important made officials look stupid and that is a lesson that must be learnt. I am concerned that there is still a culture in agencies like the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries whereby if someone else is doing the paying not enough careful thought is given either to the quality of the programmes or to the expense levied on an industry. If we look today at the state of the fishing industry we see it is in a pretty difficult position. I hope some lessons have been learnt from this bill. 
I think there needs to be a far greater degree of scrutiny by this Parliament of the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries. It is something of a disgrace that the levies system was going wrong from as early as 1994 but as has been pointed out by Ian Ewen-Street that did not come through until 2002. That says that this Parliament must bear some responsibility for not providing the level of scrutiny alongside agencies like Audit New Zealand that we rely on for advice to ensure that the moneys were used for the purposes for which they were intended. 
So we have ended up with this bill a pragmatic bill that in Part 1 sets up the framework for the agreement that was struck to resolve this issue. National supports the core of that as a pragmatic way out of the hole but is still concerned about the culture that remains within the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries. We are not yet satisfied that those agencies have clearly in their minds the responsibilities that go with imposing such levies. When I look at the raft of extra taxes and levies that have been introduced under this Government at a whim I do not have very much confidence that things will improve in future. We need to be vigilant in making sure that money taken for the purpose of important research is spent exactly in those areas. I think we have a challenge to ensure that the reporting standard from both the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries is tightened up so that those who do the paying receive a lot more feedback on the quality of the research that is undertaken. 
Finally I say that if money is to be taken compulsorily in this way it relies on trust. This bill is about that trust being broken. Neither the Department of Conservation nor the Ministry of Fisheries should be under any doubt that parliamentarians want to see a greater degree of scrutiny around these issues in future. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 I would like to begin by conveying my thanks and the thanks of the ministry to the Primary Production Committee for the very positive and productive way in which it addressed this vexed issue. I thank Mr David Carter for his stewardship of that process and equally thank my colleague Janet Mackey who is the deputy chair of that committee. 
I would like to comment on the comments Mr Heatley made earlier. I am a little surprised that I have no reports of those concerns being raised as part of the select committee process. They were not referred to from my rereading of the commentary so I am surprised that the amendments he is proposing this evening have not been previously canvassed. He will be able to enlighten us about the reasons for that. 
I would like also to refer members who have not yet taken the trouble to look at the purpose clause. I think one of the key issues around this resolution and I know it will be reinforced by the select committee chair is that what we have in front of us as a Parliament is a negotiated settlement between the ministry and the industry. I think that will affect our decisions on such issues as those Mr Ewen-Street alluded to earlier. Although I will not traverse the issues on which I understand Mr Ewen-Street will raise some amendments I have to say that I do not think it is helpful now or in the future to refer to such an important industry as the seafood industry as being rapacious or destructive. I think the relationships that are being forged with the industry with the ministry and with the non-governmental organisations and environmental groups in this area are to be encouraged and should not be undercut or damaged by that sort of extravagant statement. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 I want to say at the outset that New Zealand First will not be supporting the amendment proposed by the National Party through Phil Heatley because the bill’s whole purpose concerns a negotiated settlement. What more can be said than to say that this bill is about redressing a situation that needs to be fixed. That says it all. We do not need an amendment that humbles somebody or takes somebody down to make that point. That is what this bill is about. It is about fixing up the unders and overs. 
This industry is still in the reasonably early years of a quota management regime. One must remember going back just a few years that the industry was fighting against paying anybody any levies for anything—industry-good or not. It was an industry that believed. I am not blaming it for that; I am saying that it was an industry where people could get larger and larger vessels go out find a fishery and virtually capture it and do their business. There was no limit on what they caught apart from their own good judgment. There were no levies to be paid except income taxation in the normal course of events. 
From the previous speaker’s comments one would assume that Government departments just went out there and did precisely as they wanted. Those departments had Ministers at their head from both the National Party and the Labour Party as they took their turns to be Government so it is not as though those departments did not have an overview from the very people who are criticising them in this debate. The ministry put in place a regime that was to collect levies for the greater good of the fishery and to ensure that a quota management system was implemented in the correct way. 
No one is saying they did not take too much. This bill is designed to cure the over and unders situation and to put matters right—to pay back to those in the industry from whom too much was taken. That is what the bill is about. We agree with that and we support the bill unlike some others because we want to see that matter put right. However to go off on some tangent and say this should not be happening or to say there were some nefarious means or terrible actions taken is simply to deny the fact of the basis on which those levies were made in the early days. I can assure the Committee that fisher people of the day—and again I do not blame them—were not going out there saying: “Look I will tell you how many fish I caught so that you can have an accurate levy.” or “I will tell you how much I took from the sea last year so you can have an accurate levy.” That could not be established. We had to have some guesswork—and when I say “we” I am talking about the Government of the day of which I was not part— 
Hon David Carter 
: The royal “we”. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON 
: —the royal “we”—so the levy was too high. 
This bill addresses that matter. New Zealand First agrees with this bill. I am somewhat amazed at some of the flim-flam coming from my colleagues who did mention this issue in the select committee it is true but it did not make it into the commentary because it is a nonsense. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 It is not very often I agree with the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope but he does make a point that the purpose of this bill is to implement a negotiated settlement reached between the Crown and the commercial seafood industry in respect of the under-recovery and over-recovery of costs of the fishery services and conservation services relating to the period 1 October 1994 to September 2002. 
It is fair to say that there was a large degree of unanimity within the select committee except on one particular issue relating to those who did not pay their levies. Even though the courts have said it was illegal or the obligation by the Department of Conservation and indeed the ministry did not occur these fishers are still required to front with these levies. 
It is an indictment on the Department of Conservation and on the ministry that they did not perform their side of the contract. If the fishing industry is paying a levy then it seems to me that that is a contract of obligation on the part of the Department of Conservation and the ministry to fulfil. That certainly did not happen yet there is no full explanation as to why it did not happen. The Government departments of course are totally avaricious in terms of revenue gathering. They are not really concerned how much they gather as long as they get it. Then they realised that this has had a very deleterious impact on many in the fishing industry some of whom no doubt have had to find serious sums of money to pay these levies—possibly mortgage their houses—and others did not pay them. This is where the anomalies start to arise. 
It is entirely pertinent and prudent for the ministry to negotiate a settlement with the seafood industry. One of the problems that has occurred is that there have been accusations that the smaller players in the fishing industry who have since left and who have paid all these levies for research have totally lost any benefits and the benefits that remain of this $24-odd million will go to the major players within the industry. I certainly have some real sympathy for that particular point of view yet to take the situation forward as it has to be it is reasonable that we should support this negotiated settlement between the representatives of the fishing industry and the Crown to ensure that there is some way forward. 
However it is worth reflecting on the fact that so often with Government departments we do not get any benchmarking. We do not get the indicators flowing back to show that the benefits are accruing and that we are getting some performance from Government departments. So here we are some time later yet again tidying up the mess of the bureaucracy. There is no other way of putting it. It is a mess. It is not so long ago that we finished the scampi inquiry which was also something of a mess. I say to the Minister in the chair that he has his work cut out to ensure that this ministry and this industry gain the credibility that they should have. 
The fishing industry has enormous potential to sustain a very very worthwhile income for this country and indeed for itself but it needs to ensure that the structures it has in place are workable that they are benchmarked that when anomalies arise they are sorted out promptly and that the public can have confidence in the system and in the ministry. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 As I stand to debate this bill I say that one thing is an absolute mystery. The mystery is this: how did the industry get to a point where there were such overs and unders with the collection of these levies that we are now in a position of having to do such a massive tidy-up? The unders and overs with the levies that have been collected were supposed to go to the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Fisheries to undertake research. In situations where the research has not been carried out this is very difficult to understand because from working within the scientific community one thing is very clear. Scientists up and down the country are struggling to get funding for their various research projects. They are keen to get more research undertaken. So when some money has been collected for the express purpose of carrying out research it seems an absolute scandal that the money has not been apportioned to that particular area. I think there will be a number of scientists who shake their heads wondering why this money was not spent and is now being redistributed to the fishery. 
I commend the work of my colleagues Phil Heatley and David Carter on the Primary Production Committee because I know that they have worked extremely hard to bring up issues relevant to the industry but also to point out some of the holes that were apparent when the first bill came before them. When one looks at some of the fisheries and the huge amount of money to be redistributed we are not talking about small change but large dollars. The payment to the hoki fishery is $2.3 million and that in itself could have funded very significant research into that particular area. I look at some other fish such as the swordfish the Arrow squid snapper orange roughy or even the big-eyed tuna at $791000. That amount in itself could have funded significant research that could have gone some way towards better things for those involved in the industry. We do support the idea that the funding is being returned to the fishery and not to individual fishermen within the fishery. I think we have seen this as a system that has been used in other aspects of our agricultural industries as well. 
The whole point though is not to overspend and undercollect or to overcollect and underspend. Hopefully by efficient management of the collection of levies in more cases than not one would hope that the amount has been equally spent and allocated towards projects that needed to be done. It is a shame that we are having to hand money back because as many of us know getting money in the first place so that people can undertake scientific research is often very difficult. Research in itself is not easy to champion within some sectors and particularly since the hard work had been done and the levy had been extracted it is a shame that it had not been put to good work for the betterment of the industry. 
This is an omnibus bill. It is a fisheries amendment bill that oversees most of the different fish within the industry. The bill itself is a quite small but technical bill. As Phil Heatley has explained it attempts to tidy up some of the problems that have occurred for some time now in terms of not only the overcollection of levies in certain cases but more important the undercollection of levies in other cases. So this is a common-sense approach to dealing with what is quite a complex issue. I do find it interesting to read the Greens’ report and some of the concerns that they have raised. Their concern is that the funding is not being returned to individual fishers. It seems interesting that those members take issue with funding being returned to individual fishers when they do not do so with the tax system. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 I will start my contribution to Part 1 of the Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 2) by taking this opportunity to congratulate the Minister. Earlier this evening the Minister made his maiden ministerial contribution to fisheries legislation in the Committee of the whole House. Now that he has made his contribution for the first time—we noted that he did not bother to stand through the earlier fisheries legislation this afternoon—I have a very important question for him to answer as to whether he has confidence that once this legislation is passed both Ministry of Fisheries officials and Department of Conservation officials will manage to set levies correctly into the future. 
Here we are again passing fisheries legislation—and I tell the Minister that I have forgotten the number of occasions on which I have been involved in discussing fisheries legislation in this House—because the original Act has not been operated as envisioned by Parliament. So I take this opportunity of asking the Minister to please take a call at the end of my contribution and take the opportunity to assure this Committee and more important the industry that he has absolute confidence in the officials who will set the levies. I want to know from the Minister that we will not be back in 3 or 4 years’ time contemplating another fisheries amendment bill that establishes that levies were not collected correctly. In this case there is a negotiated settlement by industry members and by officials from the Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of Conservation. 
In hindsight one of my regrets as we discuss this legislation is that many fishers wrote to members of Parliament through the 1990s and earlier saying they did not feel there was fairness in the levy-setting process. Those people complained bitterly that levies were set at a level that would drive fishers out of business and in many cases those fishers were driven out of business. I will not be so bold as to say that was entirely because of the levies set but clearly the levies were set at a level that was too high. I think that as members of Parliament and as my colleague Nick Smith referred to we had faith in the officials who established the levies because the correspondence would have gone to them for assistance with answering. We probably in many cases sent letters back to those fishers saying: “No we think the levies are fair and reasonable.” 
Now here we are some years later having to agree to a settlement process negotiated by officials and by industry representatives which acknowledges that the levies were not correctly set and that hardship has been incurred by a lot of fishers. In my mind the most important words in the commentary are in a very brief paragraph stating that the select committee accepts “that the Fisheries Act 1996 was not implemented as contemplated by Parliament in relation to cost recovery.” That is the essence of this legislation. Parliament passed that Act back in 1996 and we had every right to express confidence then that bureaucracy would have the means and the will to establish levies that were fair and reasonable. Yet here we are 8 years on acknowledging in Parliament tonight that that did not occur. 
I congratulate the industry and I congratulate the lead officials on at least presenting us with a mature response that has been negotiated and that is a means by which the industry can move forward. That is at least something because time and time again in this industry we have seen a less mature response that has involved solicitors barristers and many thousands—in fact millions—of dollars being involved in the court system. So at least on this occasion there is a response that in my mind is more pragmatic. But I still think the Minister should take this opportunity to assure me as a member of the Opposition that he has confidence we will not see this sort of problem having to be rectified in another 8 years’ time. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Phil Heatley to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to insert before subclause (1) the following new subclause (1A): 
(1A)This Act acknowledges the discrepancies in conservation and fisheries services levies collected for the period 1 October 1994 to 30 September 2002. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 84 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to and Part 1 agreed to. 
Part 2 Amendments to principal Act 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 In Part 2 we refer to what I think was the only issue of contention for the Primary Production Committee and that was the means by which the credit for the levies—the $25 million - odd that had been agreed—would pass back to the industry. People appeared before us—tuna fishermen etc.—who were no longer part of the industry and who in some sad situations still owed the levies originally levied against them but who had been unable to pay because of their financial position. These people presented a compelling case to the select committee and asked what was fair about a negotiated settlement that missed out altogether people who had subsequently left the industry. 
I think that without doubt the committee initially felt strongly for these people but when we further addressed the issue in the cold light of day—again assisted by substantial and very good advice from Ministry of Fisheries officials—it became clear that for two reasons we had difficulty in trying to address this concern. The first reason was that the levy had always been collected on a species-specific basis and not on a fisher-specific basis. Once the committee had come to grips with that issue it became nonsensical to then try to credit back a levy on a different basis to that on which it had originally been collected. 
I think that more compelling for me was the second reason which was that any attempt to pass back this levy credit of $25 million - odd on an individual basis would have huge costs associated—if indeed it was possible. Some of these people were no longer in business some were no longer registered for GST and some were deceased. Ministry officials were able to convince us that the cost of trying to identify and pass back credits to individual fishers would well and truly exceed the value of the credit we are talking about. At that stage the majority of select committee members agreed that the only way forward was to accept what the industry had negotiated with the officials and that was where the matter lay. 
An interesting thing then occurred in this select committee report back involving the position of the Greens. This happened on one of the few occasions when I was not at the select committee. We had an interesting situation whereby a minority report which basically outlined the very issue I have just spoken about was presented by the Greens and accepted by the committee. Surprisingly when we came to vote on the particular legislation the Greens at that stage despite advancing a minority report saw fit to vote with the committee so that the legislation passed from the select committee in a unanimous fashion. I leave it for Mr Ian Ewen-Street to explain quite how that occurred. Many odd things have happened in Parliament but to my mind that would be the very first occasion of a report back with a minority review reflected by a party associated with that select committee but to which that party voted for the legislation as it passed through the select committee. 
So the major issue we struck in Part 2 related to payments to people who were no longer in the industry. There is some fairness associated with trying to find a better way but at the end of the day—and clearly the committee in total agreed because that is what the voting records show—there was no other way to do it though I do acknowledge the hardship that has been incurred by those fishers. I guess that relates to the earlier point I made that we did rely on the ability of the ministry to set the levies correctly in the first place. 
R DOUG WOOLERTON (NZ First) 
: 
 Mr Carter the chairman of the select committee is right. I might add that he did a very good job. He is right to identify that area of unfairness or seeming unfairness. I do not think that anybody would deny that there was unfairness when a recompense comes back and is put against future levies in the industry. For whatever reason those people who have sold out of the industry feel slighted in some way or done in the eye. 
In primary production areas and my experience has largely been in the dairy industry it is quite common that those who are elected to—and this is a fact; it is not a matter of contention—represent people in the industry can only and in my view should only and this is where the difference comes with my colleague Ian Ewen-Street represent those who are in that industry at that point. Those people are not elected to represent people of a bygone time be it only 2 years ago. They are elected to represent those who are in the industry at the present time and to a degree to look after that industry as it goes forward. 
So this is an unfairness that I personally have had a lot of experience of and it is something that is accepted—that is one cannot look after those who have gone before. They have chosen to sell out at that point in time they have left the industry and any benefits that are to come back to people in the industry should go to those who are participating in the present day. Therefore while recognising the unfairness of that particular decision I think that any other decision would be even more unfair. Again before I sit down from speaking on this clause I want to say that this industry is in its formative years. It is an extremely litigious industry where everything in those formative years is open to challenge open to legal challenge has been challenged and considerable sums of money are at stake. Again that is what this bill is about. Even though it is unfair I do agree that this is the right way to deal with this. 
IAN EWEN-STREET (Green) 
: 
 Obviously I disagree with the two previous speakers. I do agree with their summary of the state of events where there was a negotiation between the Ministry of Fisheries and the industry for the settlement of the under-spent levies. I make the point that the negotiation was between the ministry and the Seafood Industry Council which by and large represents the big players in the fishing industry but does not represent the small players. It is the small players who I feel have been very harshly treated in that process. A lot of those small fishers—not necessarily as a result of the levies—have left the industry. They paid their levies in good faith to pay for a service they did not receive. I think it is incumbent on us as lawmakers to say that those people have been unfairly treated and we need to redress the situation. 
We are their last line of defence; we are where democracy ends for those people; we are their last hope. I cannot believe that those people could come to the select committee and be dismissed with: “Oh yes. We accept it’s unfair but that’s just the luck of the draw. That’s the rub of the green.” I do not believe that. I think that those people having paid their levies in good faith are analogous to tenants who paid money to rent a house for 8 years but who on moving out of the house find that they have paid too much rent and the landlord says: “Yes I agree. You have been paying too much rent. What I will do is reduce the rent for the incoming tenants.” I do not believe that anybody in this room would believe that that is fair. I do believe that it is incumbent on the ministry and on us in this Chamber to present fairness to small players. 
The ministry when it was questioned during the select committee process acknowledged that it knew who those people were and acknowledged that they could be refunded. It would be administratively difficult but not impossible. I believe that it is crucial to democracy for us to take the part of the underdog and say: “Look this is unfair. We can do something about it so let’s do something about it.” To that end I have put forward an amendment to this motion to say that we should refund in cash those small fishers who are not represented by the Seafood Industry Council or the ministry. 
But even more telling is the case of those people who were paying levies but for whatever reason fell behind or failed to pay and were prosecuted by the ministry—in all fairness I suppose. It was subsequently found that the levies were illegal. I accept that they were retrospectively validated but they were initially not legal. They were certainly unfair. Those people had been prosecuted for not paying unfair levies and to this day they are continuing to pay levies. It is not too hard a process surely to identify those people—there cannot be very many of them; maybe half a dozen—and say: “Forget about paying your money back.” and just waive the outstanding monies. That surely is easy enough. 
My two amendments to this part are I believe the crux of this bill. If we do not accept these amendments then I think we are saying that Parliament is not about fairness that democracy is not about fairness and that we are just doing things because they are administratively convenient for the ministry. I do not think that is the way it should be. The ministry if members will pardon the expression cocked up on this issue. It was the ministry’s problem. I think it is incumbent on the ministry to acknowledge that to apologise to the people it has done wrong to and to refund those people for levies that were paid in good faith but not spent. I encourage my colleagues—those who have said I believe quite genuinely: “Look I agree with Ian. He has got a good point. It is not fair but we are going to vote against it anyway.”—to say instead: “Look this is a valid point. It is not that difficult. Let’s get in behind these two amendments and do something really constructive for those small fisher people who are not represented by anybody else in this community.” 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Minister of Fisheries) 
: 
 I repeat my thanks to Mr Carter for the comments he made about the contribution of the ministry staff. It is obviously an enlightened chairman who looks after the Primary Production Committee. So often in this place officials whatever the department come in for criticism that is often most unjustified and inappropriate so it is nice to hear those positive comments that Mr Carter made about the contribution those officials made in reaching what was obviously quite a difficult resolution around an acknowledged complex issue. 
I would like to make a few comments in relation to what Mr Ewen-Street just said. Some of those issues have already been foreshadowed by the select committee chair but they are very clear. In statutory terms it would be quite inconsistent with the statutory nature of the Fisheries Act 1996 to personalise repayments or refunds of that kind. Equally there is the issue of the extraordinary practical difficulties and the identification and location of those who might be dead bankrupt gone from the industry and so on in attempting the redress that Mr Ewen-Street was canvassing. 
I would also like to make some comments about the other major part of this bill—that is the clarification of the law that has become necessary because of recent court cases. We have become focused on the overs and unders until now but we should not forget the financial risk this country faces because of the illegal take in our fisheries which is not only most significantly a threat to the sustainability of the resource but also a threat in terms of illegal fishing of paua and rock lobster alone. That probably costs the country in excess of $20 million a year. It is for that reason that new section 233 substituted by clause 6 deals with the highest band of offences. They have caused some difficulty and some convictions have been overturned recently which has attracted considerable attention in the courts and that is why this clause is so important. In terms of improving the robustness of those offences clearly the message that the Government is serious about cracking down on and being able to hold convictions on commercial poaching and black market offending will go out into the community. 
The original provision under section 233 made it an offence to knowingly contravene the Act for the purpose of obtaining a benefit under the Act. Unfortunately the Court of Appeal has held that commercial gain was not a benefit—understandably—under that Act and that finding has prevented some prosecutions from being successful. We look forward with the passage of this bill to that no longer being the case. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: On the question before the Committee the debate is on clauses 5 to 13 and on schedules 1 and 2. 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 Part 2 is not so much a question of things not being fair which Mr Ian Ewen-Street tried to suggest by way ofanalogy—of tenants renting a house and not knowing until they had moved out that they had been overcharged and the landlord saying he would remedy that by lowering the rent for the incoming tenants. But I have a better analogy. Some members of AMP or Colonial Mutual Assurance sold their shares and then a couple of weeks later the company demutualised and those people missed out. Was that fair? Absolutely not. But it is a reality and people just accept it. It is life. It is all about hard knocks. We do not live in a perfect world but if we did maybe there could have been some redress for those people who were unfortunate enough to sell their shares in those companies before they demutualised. The reality is that they did miss out. It is unfortunate and I suspect that my analogy is probably slightly more relevant Mr Ian Ewen-Street’s analogy. But that is a matter of opinion. 
This issue is all about the fishing industry moving forward. There have been some real messes and some real problems. We cannot help but reflect that two Government departments—not so much the industry—are basically responsible for this bill. They caused the mess. The Department of Conservation was meant to perform a duty. It did not do it. The ministry should have been benchmarking or showing that it had some performance but there was a total lack of performance and a total lack of accountability by two Government departments. That is the real issue here and that is why the ACT party is saying that industry and individuals are far better at running their industry than Governments or bureaucracies or councils or whatever. The rights of the individual and the property right that is attached to that will ensure that fairness is ultimately spread right across the board. People understand the rules and reflect that in their day-to-day lives. But as long as we have these huge bureaucracies trying to dominate industries we will always have the anomalies that come along from time to time. 
That does not mean to say that we in the ACT party do not sympathise with those who have paid levies for years and got nothing back. Of course we have understanding and some sympathy but it seems to me that the $24.1 million going back into the fishing industry is about addressing what I can fairly describe as a public good versus a private good. If we decided that we would individualise the $24 million and give it back to the others it would start the whole accounting process all over again. It seems to me that the Seafood Industry Council has negotiated a reasonable deal notwithstanding the fact that there are individual fishers who justifiably feel aggrieved. But like everything else as I said earlier nothing in this life is ever totally fair and I believe that the select committee did the right thing. 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I would like to contribute particularly to the debate around Mr Ian Ewen-Street’s persistence on a matter that has been explained to him by at least three or four members and officials working together—that is that some fishers believe they should be beneficiaries of a cash refund. These are the people whom Ian Ewen-Street is looking to represent. 
Opposition to this bill comes from those who believe that the distribution of the $24.1 million as a reduction of future levies is unfair to those who paid the cost-recovery levies in earlier years and who have since left the industry. Mr Ewen-Street’s basic argument is that they should be beneficiaries of a cash refund. However he does not acknowledge three things. 
Firstly the settlement is consistent with the cost-recovery regime whereby under-recovery is to be debited and over-recovery is to be credited in a future period—that is from a past period to a future period and to the same general group of levy payers not to the specific levy payer. 
Secondly the levies are collected from that sector of the industry in order to be spent on the same sector of the industry—not on individuals. The Ministry of Fisheries and the Department of Conservation do not collect the levies to fund them to go and clean the boats of individual fishers to clean the nets or pull in the nets of individual fishers or to concentrate on issues relating to individual fishers but to that fishery as a whole. That is the point. The legislation takes a holistic view. It is concerned with the benefit that the services deliver to the industry not to individual fishers themselves. 
Thirdly if a fisher has left the business and sold the quota that fisher leaves behind the bills and leaves behind the income. It is like any business—if people sell their business it is gone unless they write in the contract that from then on they will still pay the bills and still draw the income. Those fishers have sold the business in this case the quota and have left behind the bills and the income. That is as simple an explanation as I can get with the complex mind I have in explaining this particular issue and I am sure that members will accept it. 
I have been quite intrigued as to Mr Ewen-Street’s argument about past levies being cumulative over several years or skipping back 2 or 3 years. I have some sympathy for his argument because Ministry of Fisheries officials convinced us—it was a bit dodgy—that although we read in the Act that it went from a past year to a future year that it was not cumulative for a number of years to a future year and that one could not go back 3 years for a future year it could be done. We were told that even though it had never been done by a Minister one could go back through cumulative years. I had planned to introduce an amendment on this part to make sure that in the future the Minister would be given the rope—I will pause there—to do that but I notice now and the Minister’s officials have kindly pointed out that in fact the provision is already in there. I acknowledge and concede to them that it is in there. 
New section 265(b) in clause 9 states: “the Minister has not previously had regard to under this section”. To what section? New section 265 states that “the Minister must … have regard to the costs of any conservation services or fisheries services incurred by the Crown in a previous financial year that … the Minister has not previously had regard to under this section.” In other words if he has had regard to the previous year he can also have regard to other years. It might be 2 or 3 years back or a cumulative sum of all of those. In summary I think that Mr Ewen-Street is a bit off the mark. 
JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 If we look at the reason we are in the Chamber today it is that there has been a huge problem with the overcollection and overpayment of levies that were supposed to go towards either conservation services or to the provision of research services for the benefit of the industry. 
This problem has been created over the last 10 years and of course when a very large sum of money has been overcollected we are faced with the problem of how to divide that money in a way that is fair to the industry and fair to as many people as possible within that industry. We are talking about handing out about $24.1 million. The aim is to work out a system that is fair that has a certain amount of common sense and that is economical to do. 
I take issue with some of the comments made by the Green member that part of this process has been unfair because some of the levies—some of the credits—will be going to those people who might not have been in the industry at the time the initial levy overpayment was collected and some of the money is not going back to those people who were in the industry at the time the levy was collected. Those people may have left the industry they may have gone bust they may have sold their businesses or whatever—they are no longer there to collect their part of the levy. 
Any system of repayment has to establish a certain amount of fairness but one of the points made by Phil Heatley is that the select committee the officials and the industry itself have taken an industry-wide view about how the money is to be repaid. In terms of repayment if I spend a bit of time on Mr Ewen-Street’s example he said that it was a bit like a landlord overcollecting rent and then paying it back to an individual tenant—a tenant who might have left town died or whatever. I do not think that is a very fair example because that does not happen in reality. 
 A better example would be to look at the way councils collect rates. In some years they may overcollect rates and in other years they may undercollect rates but the way they compensate and the way they make sure they are fair to all ratepayers is by either lowering or raising the rates of future ratepayers. They do not go back and try to track down every single ratepayer who might have paid rates in the period within which they overcollected the money. 
It does not take a long time before one chews through $24.1 million worth of costs in trying to track down fishers who might have left the industry who might have died and have estates or who might have sold their businesses. In an ideal world one would like to do that and return the levies to those who paid them but in reality it is quite difficult—it is unachievable. 
One of the things that strikes me as very interesting about this part was a comment made by David Carter the chairman of the Primary Production Committee. He said that we are in the unusual situation of a party having a minority report on a bill yet that party going on to support it. I do not think I have seen that before and I cannot think of any other example where that has occurred. 
Hon David Carter 
: It’s history in the making. 
KATHERINE RICH 
: Yes I say to Mr Carter it is history in the making. I do not think we have heard enough of an explanation about why we have that dichotomy of views within the report. It is good that the members of the industry have come together to try to find some kind of consensus about a way forward for the whole industry. It would be difficult to support this bill if the industry was not for it and felt that it had not played an important part in establishing the way that the levy debts should be repaid. We are talking about a very significant amount of money so I am glad that the select committee took the time that it did in order to be able to review a very complex problem and to come up with some solutions in this very complete bill. 
Hon RICK BARKER (Minister for Courts) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Hon DAVID CARTER (National) 
: 
 At this stage nobody has spent much time on the schedules so I thought I would take the opportunity to discuss the detail in them. If Mr Ewen-Street the Green member listens to the contribution I am about to make and takes the opportunity to look at the detail associated with the schedules then he too will understand the point—which has been made by many many speakers—that the credit of these levies is very much species-specific. 
I start by asking the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope to assure us that he is familiar with the calculation of the schedules. I am sure he has had a look at them and has noted the extreme detail that they go into. For example the highest amount received by a species—for snapper in area one— 
Phil Heatley 
: To the nearest dollar. 
Hon DAVID CARTER 
: Yes. Snapper in area one gets $1717023 yet another species yellow-eyed mullet in area eight gets $1. The Minister will see that the officials and indeed the members of the select committee have done an extreme amount of work to get to that amount of detail. 
The first question I want to ask the Minister—which I forgot to ask at the select committee hearings—is: if I were to add up all the amounts listed in the schedules—some species get $2 some get $13 and some as I said get well over $1.7 million—do those figures total $24.1 million or do they total $24593543? I ask that because the settlement is for $24.1 million. There was a negotiated settlement at the time for interest because of the time it would take to pass the legislation. I am now confused as to whether the total amount in the schedules is for the negotiated settlement of $24.1 million or whether those amounts total the global amount of the negotiated settlement of $24.1 million plus the additional amount for interest due to the time taken. I look forward to the Minister making that contribution because it will assist us in deciding whether to vote for this legislation. 
Secondly I want to ask whether the Minister has any advice as to what a fisher of yellow-eyed mullet in area eight should do with the $1 he or she will receive from this credit. Does the Minister in his generosity really expect that that $1 will make that much difference? I see the Minister is itching to take a call to answer those two questions. If he is prepared to do so I think at that stage we could move the debate forward. 
NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Tainui) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
Motion agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Ian Ewen-Street to clause 10(1) be agreed to: 
to add to paragraph (b) of section 265A(1) the following new subparagraph: 
(iii)In the case of fishers who have paid levies before 1 October 2003 but have since left the industry that the pro-rated values of their underspent levies be refunded to them in cash on or before 30 June 2004. 
A party vote 
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 111 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Ian Ewen-Street to clause 10 be agreed to: 
to add to paragraph (b) of section 265A(1) the following new subparagraph: 
(iv)In the case of fishers who have been prosecuted for non-payment or underpayment of levies on or before 1 October 2003 and who continue to make repayments have all outstanding amounts waived. 
A party vote 
Ayes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Noes 111 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to. 
Amendment not agreed to and Part 2 agreed to. 
Schedule 1  agreed to .  
Schedule 2  agreed to .  
Clause 1  agreed to .  
Bill reported without amendment. 
The House adjourned at 9.42 p.m.