Wagner Nicky: Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7121. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I am delighted to support this Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill at its first reading. I absolutely agree with the Hon Phil Goff that it is great to see these marine reserves being created particularly when they are in such a distinctive area which has been recognised by World Heritage status.The Local Government and Environment Committee is very keen to get on with this work. We have done a lot of work on marine protection already this year with the exclusive economic zone legislation and it is the beginning of a whole tranche of legislation with the new marine reserves legislation to be introduced next year. While we were listening to submissions on the exclusive economic zone legislation we learnt how much New Zealanders care about the sea—not that we actually had to be told. All New Zealanders seem to be connected. We come from an island with huge sea massesaround us. We like to look at the sea we like to sail on the sea and we like to swim and dive and surf in the sea. So it is particularly important that we get our marine protection right. The National Government absolutely supports that.We have a proud history of marine protection. We passed the original Marine Reserves Act in 1971 and that established the first marine reserve at Cape Rodney in 1977 so it was the beginning of a whole list of things that have come up to this day. Since we have been in Government we have announced nine new marine reserves which is a dramatic increase on what was there before and I think it is about another 36 percent of protected areas. Once these marine reserves are gazetted 9.4 percent of New Zealand’s territorial seas will be protected by marine reserves and I think that is something we can all be proud of.But I would really like to focus on these particular reserves. They surround the islands—Antipodes Island Bounty Islands and Campbell Island. Those are islands way down south about 800 kilometres south-east of Stewart Island / Rakiura. Nobody lives there at the moment although there have been times when they have been inhabited by sealers and then there has been some pastoral farming done there but nobody lives there now and they are protected with nature reserve status.What this bill will do is protect the seas around them and that is particularly important because these islands are known particularly as important seabird breeding areas particularly of the albatross but also petrels penguins and shags and also surprisingly enough the Antipodes parakeet which is a brightly coloured parakeet that seems sometimes out of place on these cold and windswept islands. As a matter of interest they are also well known for their mega-herbs. These are enormous plants with colourful flowers that are a little bit like desert flowerings. They come all together and there are magnificent herbs mega-herbs across the islands. They had been eaten down in the past but since the protected area status they have now been flourishing. Just as a matter of interest this is a similar model to what we have done with the Auckland Islands protecting both the land and the water and that seems to have been particularly successful.So the Local Government and Environment Committee is looking forward to dealing with this bill. We are very keen and enthusiastic to get it right and so we are hoping that maybe Parliament might insist that we take a trip to these islands as a select committee visit. Thank you.