Heatley Phil: Fisheries Act 1996 Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Heatley Phil: Fisheries Act 1996 Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Sitting date: 23 September 2008. Volume:650;Page:19011. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 The National Party supported the Fisheries Act 1996 Amendment Bill (No 2) going to the select committee because we believed the ministry Crown Law the Minister and the industry when they came to us and said that the law needed clarification. There was no will on the part of the National Party to change the law; what we wanted to do was clarify the intent of the law and we believe that the legislation does that.  
This bill amends section 13 of the Act to allow the continuation of what has always been done—that is to use a range of methods and management strategies in the setting of a total allowable catch. The ministry claimed that clarification was necessary following a recent court case decision where the total allowable catch and the total allowable commercial catch settings of orange roughy were successfully challenged. Although there was at that time dispute over whether it was the interpretation of the law that led to the judgment against the Ministry of Fisheries rather than poor advice from the ministry the fact is that since the judgment commercial fishers the ministry and Crown Law agree that the intent of the law needs to be clarified. We welcomed that into the select committee. We understand that the industry the ministry and others agreed on wording that does not extend the current law and does not curtail the current law. It does not extend current practice when measuring fish stocks and it does not curtail current practice in measuring fish stocks; it simply endorses both.  
Current law and current practice allows the Minister to set the total allowable catch and total allowable commercial catch based on a maximum sustainable yield that has been estimated using a range of methods not just a single method. The law as it currently stands could be interpreted to say that there is only one way to estimate the maximum sustainable yield. We would not like to see the Ministry of Fisheries restricted to using only one method to estimate the maximum sustainable yield simply because that would mean that the vast majority of fish stocks would not be able to be measured in this way and certainly the resources to do so are limited so it would just not be practically possible.  
This amendment has no relationship we should add to the section 10 fisheries amendment bill that was languishing on the Order Paper with no political or industry support. We saw that in the mid-year. The section 10 legislation was to clarify the law that the Minister must take a cautious approach where there was inadequate information on fish stock health. I have to say again that this legislation here has no relationship to that section 10 legislation; this legislation deals with section 13 only.  
National agrees that the current Act is not explicitly clear. We agreed to clarification not change. We can say particularly to recreational fishers who are concerned that this legislation makes a change that favours the commercial fishing industry that members of the select committee—members from Labour National and other parties across the debating Chamber—were very careful to ensure that this legislative change that we are debating today made no change at all to the intent of the Act or to how the Act currently works. There is no shift of the goalposts at all; we have been very careful to make sure of that. We agree that the current Act is not explicitly clear. We agree to clarification we do not agree to change and we believe that this is what this legislation does achieve.