Eckhoff Gerrard: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
Eckhoff Gerrard: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:15267] 
GERRARD ECKHOFF (ACT) 
: 
 I want to pick up on the theme of Mr Peters’ speech. It does seem to me that what United Future said to the ACT party was that if we supported its amendment United Future would support the Government. I ask Mr Baldock to run that by me again. If we the ACT party supported his amendment United Future would support the Government—is that not a good deal! I ask Mr Baldock whether I have “Stupid” written across my forehead. No I do not want him to answer that but I think the reaction from the members on the Opposition side of the House actually told him something about the logic behind his proposed amendment which got what it deserved. 
I do not disagree with the sentiment that was behind the amendment. Of course we want to preserve kahawai or any other fish stock for the recreational lobby but the reality is that this Labour Government has decided to ignore the recreational fishers in this country and their rights. The Government is protecting the rights of Maori—their so-called rights—with 20 percent of the allocation under the deed of settlement. It protects those rights and it protects of course the rights of commercial fishers who have a property right—and rightly so too. But what about the recreational fishers? I have asked in the House on past occasions why if the Government—and I suppose successive Governments—are genuinely concerned about the lack of fishing opportunity and the lack of quota for recreational fishers that issue is not mentioned in this bill. The Government could have bought on the open market the property right that the purse-seiners have—that 3000 tonnes. The Government could have bought that right; it could have gone to those people and said it was making an offer they could not refuse. The Government has done that on a number of other occasions. When it wants to settle a land deal or whatever else it wants to settle it can do that. On other occasions it opens the chequebook and does that but it did not do so this time. 
I want to move on to the substance of this No. 3 bill and I think I speak on this bill more in sorrow than in anger. The prime focus surely should be to get the important fishing industry out of acrimonious debate and out of the litigious situations that seem to dog it constantly and get it into a secure property right concept which the quota management system does give. I will not stand here and say that the quota management system is perfect in every way shape or form. Nor I think could anybody stand in this House and say that democracy is fantastic in every way shape and form. But the alternatives—and that is really what we are talking about—are a darn sight worse. As other members who have spoken have indicated the quota management system is by far and away the best system that we the human species have come up with. We are moving forward under that system and certainly it is a concept that has been picked up internationally. 
 When mentioning the word “internationally” I think it is fair to say that the Primary Production Committee which studied this bill at great length tossed it out of the boat figuratively speaking because it was seen to be so bad. There may be an international agreement. Hopefully maybe we could or may—those are the sorts of words that surround the language of this proposal of the Minister—have some sort of international agreement surrounding migratory species. It may be in 1 year in 5 years in 10 years or in 20 years—goodness knows! But the Minister required New Zealand fishers to control their catch effort while the process of negotiation was being carried out. That is an absolute nonsense which was pointed out and I think accepted by all members of the select committee including of course the Labour Government members. They saw that it was totally ridiculous for New Zealand fishers to restrict their catch effort while the Taiwanese and the Venezuelans—it does not matter who the fishers were—went for dear life in the South China Sea catching the fish that they wanted to. Back home we would be standing out in the cold and saying that we were wonderful because we were so tremendously concerned about sustaining the fish stocks that we were not going to try to catch any while those guys did their damnedest out there. That was an absolute nonsense argument so the select committee came to the conclusion that this bill should not proceed. That was the expectation of the committee. 
The purpose I am sure of a select committee is to determine whether a bill that is sent to it should advance. In most cases a bill does advance with some minor adjustments and with a lot of help from Opposition members as well. That is the proper process and so it should be. But when a bill comes back to the House with a recommendation from a select committee that it not proceed surely that is what should happen. Yet the Minister came up with Supplementary Order Paper 246 literally 5 minutes before the bill was due to be read and tried to change the thinking of everybody. It was as has been mentioned a very very substantial technical amendment. There were 17 pages—it was half the size of the original bill—and members of this House were expected to absorb it in 3 or 4 minutes. The reality is that Supplementary Order Paper 246 should have gone back to the select committee for further consideration. 
Hon David Carter 
: Hear hear! 
GERRARD ECKHOFF 
: I know that Mr David Carter the chair of the committee promoted that concept as I did. That would have been the sensible thing for a sensible Government to do. What did this Government do? It just ignored that. It is part of the arrogance that we find from this Government from time to time. Well it is not just from time to time; increasingly it is all the time. 
I have dealt with the migratory species but one of the issues that concerned me the most was what appears to be the capture of the ministry even by an organisation like the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society. On the subject of mussel spat the rationale for bringing it into the quota management system was to stop people from driving down Ninety Mile Beach in a rush once the spat was running or whatever they do. The concern was expressed that vehicles would be pouring down the beach as everybody rushed out to catch the spat and that is why the society wanted to bring it into the quota management system. That was a concern of the society and it was picked up by the Minister. Gracious me! If that does not show the naivety of the whole process and the capture of the ministry by an outside organisation then I will go he. 
This was a really bad bill. It should not have been introduced and it should not have been debated. We should be back at the select committee tidying up this Government’s mess yet again. It will come as no surprise that the ACT party will not support this bill. There were some aspects that could have been tidied up but because the bill is such a dog’s breakfast we will let that slide. We will not vote for this bill.