Burns Brendon: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Burns Brendon: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
[Volume:668;Page:15325] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am very pleased to support the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill (No 3). I will set the framework for my comments around cautious support for this bill. I say “cautious” because— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Oh come on. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: —and I will express the caution first—we have been there at least twice before in my lifetime in terms of trying to grow this industry successfully. But I also say “support” because aquaculture can and should become a billion-dollar export industry if we get it right this time round. I am a great believer in aquaculture. I say that as somebody who just at lunchtime today when hosting a South African delegation with colleagues from the Primary Production Committee ate some delicious salmon for my lunch—farmed salmon. 
Paul Quinn 
: Did you pay for it? 
BRENDON BURNS 
: I did indeed pay for my lunch through the tax system that we all contribute to I say to Mr Quinn. Last Saturday in a rare moment off from work at Pomeroy’s pub in my electorate I enjoyed with my wife a lunch of a dozen freshly cooked Marlborough Sounds mussels. I am also a regular consumer as some other MPs may be of fish oil pills which come from farmed salmon and which are good for keeping our joints supple and for feeding our capacity to retain information. 
Craig Foss 
: You should share them with your colleagues. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: I should share them with members opposite—indeed I should. 
I lived for 14 years in Marlborough and spent a lot of time in the Marlborough Sounds in holiday and weekend periods. The Marlborough Sounds is home I think to about three-quarters of the current existing aquaculture industry. I love to fish. One can never catch more fish than when one is somewhere near a mussel harvester. Yes there are parts of the sounds where the mussel industry and aquaculture in general may currently be being farmed to capacity but that certainly does not apply in any more than a handful of bays across the vast expanse of the Marlborough Sounds. 
The current aquaculture industry in New Zealand takes a fraction of 1 percent of our coastal water space. We have considerable capacity for growth—considerable capacity for growth—and I hope this bill will provide for that because this is a clean green industry. It is a sustainable industry. It is an industry that is needed by this nation to grow and an industry that is needed by this world to grow because our fresh catch resources are declining—as members will know if they saw the weekend piece in the  
Sunday Star-Times 
 about the pressure on the tuna industry for one example—and we need to be able to grow fish and shellfish to feed the world. 
The Marlborough greenshell mussel industry is the dominant player in the current aquaculture industry. It was established by mum and dad pioneers and they grew that industry out of nothing. They invented such things as the use of net stockings in a continuous loop to host mussel spat and attach it to the lines between the mussel floats which were also designed and developed in Marlborough for that industry. It was a No. 8 fencing wire industry that has come together and created a fantastic sustainable industry for us. But it needs to grow. 
Three months ago I suggested to the Primary Production Committee that we might go and look at the industry in the Marlborough Sounds. I think the proposal was that we would go to look at a National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research facility but I believed that we should go and look at this industry in situ. It was a splendid day and we as members were shown—shown again for some of us—how that industry is performing and how it could perform better. We were treated to some of the innovations that are emerging. Bruce Hearn from Marlborough a pioneer of the industry has now developed what I believe are the best oysters in the world and is farming them commercially in the Tory Channel. They are absolutely delicious. That is the sort of technical innovation that is happening in the industry and we should see more of it. 
But I still come back to the note of caution that I expressed at the beginning of my comments. That is because living in Marlborough in the 1990s I well remember Doug Kidd as the Minister of Fisheries and as the then local MP introducing a moratorium that started for 1 year I think and was extended to 2 years if not beyond as he attempted to control the gold rush that was going on for water space at that time. Legislation emerged but it did not solve the issues of the industry and encourage growth that is sustainable and possible. 
At the beginning of 2005— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Tell us about the 5-year Labour moratorium. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: This is across parties and Governments. I remind the member that it was her Government that introduced the Resource Management Act not the Labour Government which she was so critical of before. She should check her facts before she opens her trap. 
In the year 2005 while working in a private capacity I organised a visit to the Marlborough Sounds by Jim Anderton when he took on the fisheries portfolio to expose him to the industry. I thought that if anybody was going to get that industry moving it would be Jim Anderton. He had been the architect of the Labour Government’s policies in terms of regional development and all of aquaculture is regional development. But I have to say that the growth did not happen. We are now looking at the Australian model. Last year the Primary Production Committee visited South Australia where a very good model is in place. It is a partnership between industry and government. Yes extraordinary growth is going on in South Australia. They are now farming tuna kingfish and black mussels and some of the Marlborough industry pioneers are involved in the industry in Australia because they have had such frustration here with the restrictions in place in terms of the growth that could occur if we get it right. 
Ten years ago in my past life as a journalist when on a press fellowship I visited Ireland to look at regional development. 
Paul Quinn 
: You’ve travelled the world. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: Yes at times I have benefited from that and it certainly helps along with the fish pills to open one’s mind—and some members would benefit from that I say to Mr Quinn. I visited Ireland and one of the enduring strengths of the Irish economy—and it has had its difficulties of late—has been the aquaculture growth in that nation. The models are there; they are absolutely there. But we do need to be cautious. The reason we have to be cautious is that Doug Kidd who is well-respected by this House as a technocrat and operator did not get it right in the 1990s; Jim Anderton did not get it right in 2005-08; and now we are putting our faith and trust in the new Minister Mr Heatley and I say good luck to him. 
But I have to say that I think the Ministry of Fisheries may be as much a part of the problem to date as part of the solution and I think the industry needs to make sure it takes every opportunity for input into this bill as it is guided through the Primary Production Committee to make sure that we get it right this time. It is hugely important to our nation that we get it right this time round. We have the opportunity. The Minister has indicated that the bill will be before the select committee through until April next year so there is a good time frame for submission in order to get it right. 
There are multiple reasons why we must get it right this time. The fact is that this could be by 2025 a billion-dollar export industry which would more than double the current growth of the aquaculture sector. We want to see those sustainable export dollars. We want to see the jobs that emerge from the aquaculture industry’s growth and we want to see the food for a food-hungry world which could be supported out of this low-impact low-imprint sustainable industry. 
But there is another reason that I want to commend to this House in terms of support for this bill. It is because of what the greenshell mussel can do to us as people. I believe it can make us smarter. The reason I cite for that is that two eminent scientists both of whom won the Nobel Prize Sir Ernest Rutherford and Sir William Pickering have one thing in common. They both grew up in Havelock which is the home the world capital of the greenshell mussel— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Parekura is a Rutherford; seriously. 
BRENDON BURNS 
: There we go! I will not quite put Parekura in the same league as Ernest Rutherford and William Pickering because there was a science bent rather than Parekura’s political bent. But in all seriousness this is a sustainable industry and it deserves the chance to grow. It can be done in a way where communities can have input. We do not want to see the industry expanded to every corner of every bay in every part of New Zealand. That will not happen. It is not envisaged I am sure.