Fitzsimons Jeanette: Marine Reserves (Consultation with Stakeholders) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Marine Reserves (Consultation with Stakeholders) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3162] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Thirty percent of New Zealand land is in national parks. It is outrageous that one cannot shoot birds log trees or mine on that 30 percent of New Zealand land! But I do not hear a huge outcry among the New Zealand public to reduce that figure to 1 percent. Less than 1 percent of our coastal waters is in marine reserves yet there is a huge outcry every time there is a proposal to protect a tiny area of marine ecosystem so that it can regenerate to something like its original state. We have vast areas where there is no restriction on fishing. We have a few very small areas where we say nature has to have its place too and there has to be a place where all New Zealanders can see the marine ecosystem as it originally was. In places such as Leigh where the marine ecosystem can be seen as it originally was it is just astonishing to see how biodiversity has regenerated since fishing and other extractive abuses stopped. 
The Green Party is strongly in favour of consultation and of communities being involved in the location of marine reserves but better provisions for this are in the Government’s new Marine Reserves Bill which has been languishing in front of this Parliament—in fact in front of the select committee I used to chair—for years now. I can understand Eric Roy’s frustration that that bill does not seem to be going anywhere despite the select committee having heard all the submissions on it given it a lot of consideration and formed some pretty strong views across the House about changes we could make. Those changes would improve consultation improve the role of iwi and hapu and prevent the current perception that the Department of Conservation is playing the role of judge jury and executioner on the whole issue. But the Government simply will not progress the bill. It was a huge disappointment to me when I was chairing the Local Government and Environment Committee that Government members were not prepared to advance the bill and it seems they are still not prepared to do so. 
So I can understand Eric Roy’s frustration and his wanting to bring in a bill that deals with only the consultation side of the issue. But that is not the right way to do it. We need to review the whole marine reserves situation. The 1971 legislation is anachronistic it is out of date and it does not deal with the modern world. It does not for example provide a proper role for iwi and hapu in the decision making and management of marine reserves. The new bill can do that—it already does so to some extent and there are ways in which it can be amended to further do so. I do not believe we should put an amendment bill through the House that deals with only the question of consulting people who want to fish. We have a substantial bill sitting on the Order Paper that will deal with that question and many other things as well. That bill will give us the opportunity to protect biodiversity at the same time as providing plenty of areas where people can go fishing. 
The Marine Reserves (Consultation with Stakeholders) Amendment Bill is not the way to take the issue forward. I challenge the Government to let the Marine Reserves Bill be debated at the Local Government and Environment Committee and to let some of the work that that select committee did last year and the year before reach fruition. The Greens will not support this interim bill.