Brooking RachelHon RACHEL BROOKING (Minister for Oceans and Fisheries): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm very happy to be here today talking about the Hauraki Gulf / Tīkapa Moana Marine Protection Bill and what a month August has been for the Hauraki Gulf. I know my colleague the Hon WillowJean Prime and I have spent much time there. During that time we've been talking to a range of stakeholders. Of course tangata whenua have been very involved in the development of the thinking of how to do the best protections for the Hauraki Gulf. So too has the statutory body the Hauraki Gulf Forum. I was recently able to attend and speak at the State of our Gulf report and of course it is not good news in the gulf. There needs to be a lot of work in there and this is one of the many measures that's happening at the moment to do better in the gulf and I'll talk about some of the other ones as well. I want to also acknowledge of course the Sea Change group that's really brought this range of methods that are needed in the Hauraki Gulf to the fore and then the people involved with Revitalising the Gulf which is the Government's response and of course this bill and other measures are related to that.Then industry: there are of course fishers who do fish and make their livelihood in this area. The marine park that's been around now for over 20 years is very large and extends well beyond Great Barrier Island. I think some people—and maybe I thought this initially—think that the area is really the area that you can see if you're in the Auckland CBD or around Waiheke Island but of course it's much more expansive than that and it includes the Coromandel.Of course there are all the environmental groups. There are so many people who really care passionately about the gulf—about all of the parts of the gulf—and are doing amazing work. Just for an example there when I was at the State of our Gulf report launch I met people who had the word Caulerpa" shaved into their hair—it was an interesting haircut but it really goes to the passion of those people—and people were getting their diving licences because they want to see how it is that they can help with the removal of Caulerpa which is a horrible biosecurity problem. I'm very proud to be part of the Labour Government which actually acts on biosecurity challenges whether they are in the ocean or on our dairy farms. Of course close to $3 million has been spent on the management of Caulerpa and on understanding and trialling treatments. At one point whilst we were in the gulf—well not in the gulf; next to the gulf—we met some of the Californians that have been looking at suction dredging to determine if that's a useful tool in New Zealand because it's complicated but it's a very important issue.As well as these marine protected areas that this bill creates 19 of them—very important. That's very important because marine protection strengthens biodiversity and we need that resilience when facing climate change in particular.I'm here speaking as the Minister for Oceans and Fisheries and it was in 2020 that the title of that ministerial role got changed to include oceans in it so that the focus is not just on fish stocks; it's looking more broadly at oceans. In that role I've been very pleased this month to launch the fisheries plan for the Hauraki Gulf and that is our first really ecosystems-based location-based fisheries plan for an area. It includes many jobs to be done—they're in this plan—and it will have an annual report every year that will be more specific about exactly what needs to be done in the gulf but it looks at a range of things. We've heard from the Minister talking about the issue of kina barrens and kina eating the seaweed and the impacts that not having that seaweed makes for a whole lot of our juveniles in a range of species. So we don't get fish and other species in the gulf because of those ecological interactions and it's really important that we're thinking about our marine environment in the whole.Then from midday today people can join in the consultation on one of the actions from that fisheries plan that requires a separate statutory process; it requires regulation to be made on the trawl corridors in the gulf. So at the moment bottom trawling is allowed in the gulf except for 27 percent of the area which is really in that inner area that I was talking about before that you can see from within the CBD. In looking to change that there are four options which would ban trawling from between 74 percent and 89 percent of the gulf. That is a separate process and I acknowledge the previous speaker Barbara Kuriger for pointing that out. So if people are interested in the bottom trawling that requires regulation-making under the Fisheries Act and that consultation is open today. It's a significant change. The presumption is reversed from being able to trawl in the gulf except for 27 percent of the area to not being able to trawl in the gulf and in up to 89 percent it will be banned.So I really have enjoyed working with the Minister of Conservation on this range of issues in the Hauraki Gulf. I note that this bill will go to the Environment Committee and that submissions will be over the election period just as they will be for those trawl corridors as well and I really ask people to make those thoughtful submissions on both topics. It's very important and I commend the bill to the House."