Hughes Gareth: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 24 October 2012. Volume:685;Page:6134. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I want to touch on the theme raised by my colleague Dr Russel Norman on the extreme anti-environment ideology we are seeing from the National Party this term in Government. I want to look at just one example which is the Ross Sea because here we have environmental bandits in Cabinet literally acting not in our interest and actively damaging our economic interest our environmental interest and our community interest. They say they care about the environment like the Ross Sea but what we know is the way they are acting—the way they are acting like environmental bandits—is akin to a hypocritical fashion. 
The Ross Sea or the last ocean as it is known is the last intact marine ecosystem left on Earth. This beautiful wild place is described by the journal  
Science 
 as the place least impacted by human hand on the planet. Unlike most places on the planet the top predator is still there. This is the last ocean because it is the last place where man’s impact is being felt but it is also the last place we are going on our relentless push to catch more fish. But we have an opportunity to change it to protect it because right now in Hobart the Commission for the Convention on Antarctic Marine Living Resources is meeting to discuss how we protect all the waters in Antarctica but this for New Zealand is the most precious part what has been described as the last ocean. 
What we have however is that after more than a year of negotiations on a joint proposal with the United States Government we see those bandits in Cabinet urging the Minister of Foreign Affairs to walk out of the joint US proposal and now New Zealand has tabled its own proposal. It is a proposal in which McCully has literally drawn a line round the main fishing grounds and created a marine reserve only on paper. It is a marine reserve where the areas where we do not impact—where we do not exploit—are left entirely within the marine reserve but those areas where we do exploit are left out. It looks big on paper—it is a paper sanctuary—but what it lacks in effectiveness it makes up for and compensates in size. 
Basically what we see is those bandits in Cabinet protecting the fishing interests not protecting this pristine beautiful place the last ocean. We see the Government swallowing hook line and sinker the spin we see from the fishing industry. What we know is that we are protecting very narrow fishing interests—a handful of fishing boats some contracted to other nations. We are talking about 0.17 percent or a fifth of 1 percent as the catch landed in the Ross Sea by New Zealand boats compared with our larger catch. We are talking about around 1 percent of our fisheries exports but what we are doing is damaging our brand. By looking out for protecting these narrow fishing interests we are actually letting down all of our fishing exports. 
Jonathan Young 
: From Shane Jones. 
GARETH HUGHES 
: Mr Young we are letting down all $1.5 billion of our fishing exports. We know already that US supermarkets like Safeway are boycotting New Zealand - caught Ross Sea toothfish. 
It is bizarre that we would even walk out of a joint US proposal. I thought this Government would want to go the Commission for the Convention on Antarctic Marine Living Resources with a joint New Zealand proposal. It is one of our aims to work closer with the United States Government if you look at the New Zealand Government’s spin. What we know is that we are also damaging the chance of an outcome now that we have got three proposals on the table: the New Zealand weak one the US proposal and also the better Antarctic Ocean Alliance. 
But I want to clear up one thing. What we know is—not the extremism we hear from members like Shane Jones—none of those three proposals is going to ban fishing. None of those three proposals is reducing the toothfish quota. 
The fact is that New Zealand once upon a time was a world leader in protecting the continent the land and the ice of Antarctica but we are failing to protect our oceans. The Government describes it as a well-managed fishery. Well it might be in comparison to our poorly managed fisheries around New Zealand waters or what we see in other countries but the fact is that we still know so little about this toothfish yet we want to remove an entire 50 percent of its population. We still have not found a toothfish egg larvae or an under 4-year-old juvenile. This place is under ice for 9 months of the year. We just do not have accurate information to make these decisions. 
We have to ask ourselves why we are going to the ends of the world to catch the fish. What happened to the rest of the fish that was in all the world’s oceans? The fact is we have eaten them. We have eaten the fish and now we have to go right to the limits of endurance technology to the frontiers of the world to the last ocean. 
The Government says we are down there to protect it from pirates. The same argument was used in England in the age of the slavery debates—that they should keep participating in an improper practice to help somewhat improve the standards. If that was the argument why are we not going to Somalia? The fact is that if we were going to reduce piracy the best way we could do it is by having no fishing boats down there so that we would know where the fishermen are. 
The fact is that Labour does not have a position it has got only slogans. The Government is out there protecting fishing interests. We can protect the last ocean.