Hughes Gareth: Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 28 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15579. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green): Kia ora Mr Deputy Speaker. Ngā mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I would like to wish all the members in the House and people listening over the TV the live stream or the radio a very happy New Year and I wish them all the best for 2014. Of course we celebrate great Kiwis doing great stuff like Lorde. Obviously it is election year and we kicked off the debate with the Prime Minister’s statement. We saw a robust debate. I think all of us are going to put our values visionsand solutions for this country forward and it is going to be an exciting year because being an Opposition party as the member Dr Nick Smith points out often the Greens are opposed to things but in election year the Greens are going to be going out there putting out our positive solutions and vision. I think we have got a great deal of that so I relish the opportunity this year to talk about the positive things the things that make our country good.I echo the sentiment of Dr Russel Norman. This year we can make history. When it comes to ocean protection and protection of our beautiful Subantarctic Islands this year we can make history and take it seriously. I am glad we did finally hear from the Labour Party that it started the process. Listening to the Hon Dr Nick Smith you would think he had come in dressed as Neptune himself with a bit of seaweed on his hair and his trident for all of his talk of being the champion of marine protection. I welcome the Government taking marine protection seriously. I want to see more action. I want to see more talk. I want to see more consultation. But here is the Minister making out like he is the greenest thing since whatever the greenest thing was.What we see is the year starting on marine reserves. I think that is great for our country. It is great for our environment. It is great for our economy. Kiwis love our marine reserves. We were pioneering in 1971. I have got to somewhat point out the irony to Dr Nick Smith that here he is coming in as the champion of marine reserves pointing out the National Party’s history. It is somewhat ironic that it has taken 40 years to get to this point with these areas but even more ironic that the legislation that he refers to from 1971 has been bypassed. We actually need legislation of the Parliament to see these marine reserves adopted. It is not good enough. I think we can all agree on that. Obviously we saw two marine reserve bills languishing in select committees the second-oldest in our Parliament’s history.I would like to reopen the invitation made to your predecessor Kate Wilkinson—I have made it to you yourself—that the Green Party wants to work constructively because it is high time we modernise our antiquated yet pioneering for its time marine reserve legislation. I mean that seriously. I want to work with the Government be it a blue or a red one because it is high time we actually addressed the fact that we cannot make marine reserves in the exclusive economic zone. The criteria for getting marine reserves off the ground are incredibly difficult so let us work together. We need to protect more of our waters. We do need to do more. It is great to be seeing marine reserves around the Subantarctic Islands. I have never been there myself. I really hope to get there. I doubt very many New Zealanders will get to see this very special part of the country. Although the Minister is trumpeting the size—it is substantial at 430000 hectares—that of course is considerably smaller than just this year’s petroleum block offer. Just 1 year of oil blocks massively is larger than this. What did the Minister call it? Trumpeting this particular marine reserve. So it is great to see it but let us put it in context.We need to do more. These marine reserves take New Zealand’s percentage of marine reserve protection from only 0.31 percent to 0.41 percent. So less than half of 1 percent of New Zealand’s waters the fourth-largest in the world are protected. Obviously it is around 79 percent for the territorial sea but when you look at the exclusive economic zone it is less than half of 1 percent. We want to work with the Government to see more of our waters protected. When you look at all the academic studies we know there are significant local economic benefits. When you look at the studies you see there are significant fisheries benefits and biodiversity benefits—win-win-win for communities. The collaborative process has been good to help stimulate some of those discussions. There have been some controversial ones in the past.The Minister also liked to point out that the Greens will never celebrate the Government’s good decisions. That is just not right. It is not on. I think in the space of a single week I was tweeting in support of the Akaroa marine reserve decision and the decision to finally ban shark finning—in a single week. I would like to acknowledge the Akaroa decision because there you really see the nexus of the environmental and economic benefits. There are around 200 businesses directly related to the environment in Akaroa and in the harbour. The small marine reserve and the Taiāpure played a significant economic role in that beautiful township. It is great that we are finally seeing progress there. But we need to do more than having 0.41 percent of our waters protected.What we would be pushing for is greater modernisation of the legislation a greater focus on working collaboratively with people. Again it is somewhat ironic that former Minister Heatley comes down to the House and bangs the table and talks about how the Government the National Party is all about action action action. But we also heard in this debate that these areas were gazetted as World Heritage areas in 1998 under a National Government which did not protect them then. This Government has been in power for 5 years and it has taken until this point the election year to finally get on and do it under legislation. Maybe the action call is not as apt as the Minister made out.What we would like to point out is that we support the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. We would like to thank the submitters the Local Government and Environment Committee members and the chairperson Nicky Wagner. We think that the bill was improved in the select committee. The fact that the review for full protection has been pushed forward is a good thing. But what we were urging and you can read it in our minority report is the fact that these are World Heritage listed areas. They should be fully protected. I think it makes a mockery of protection to see only percentages. It is 39 percent of Campbell Island and 58 percent of the Bounty Islands. The rationale is the potential crab fishery in the future. I challenge any member to say who is going to be marketing crabs caught in a World Heritage area and exporting them around the world. I do not think that they will find many consumers particularly in those premium markets that we should really be going on.I welcome the focus for marine reserves. If the Government wants to have an arms race a competition when it comes to protecting our waters I welcome that because we have got some really good policies when it comes to that area. When it comes to the Māui’s dolphin we have a protection plan that would stop the trawling that is happening in the marine mammal sanctuary. We would end the mockery of our marine protection laws which see that in the benthic protected areas fishers cannot fish 100 metres above the seabed yet a company can literally vacuum up the top 5 metres of the seabed—a protection area that does not offer protection. We see an oil well in the middle of a marine mammal sanctuary. We see the Government this year in the petroleum Block Offer 2014 literally offer deep-sea oil permits that cross into a marine mammal sanctuary around Akaroa. Good on the Christchurch City Council and Vicki Buck in particular who made a submission to the Government opposing that pointing out the risks of deep-sea drilling.What we would do is have sanctuaries that actually provide sanctuary and protected areas that actually provide protection. We would set an ambitious target for marine reserve protection around the country. We would update the antiquated Marine Reserves Act. Again the invitation goes out that we want to work with the Government to modernise this old-fashioned legislation. A good green Government that comes in and makes history could start by protecting the Kermadec Islands. Overnight New Zealand could go from less than half of 1 percent to 15 percent of our waters protected in marine reserves by expanding the marine reserve around the Kermadec Islands. For the cost ofonly around $120000 per annum of fishing we could send a message to the world that New Zealand takes this seriously. We have an economy built on smart sustainability that takes environmental issues like conservation seriously. That is where our economy is coming from and that is why I am pushing incredibly hard after the Greens won the shark-finning victory to protect the Kermadec Islands. We want to work with all parties to do that.We would start the development of an integrated oceans policy which has been talked about for years and years but we need action. So all in all the Green Party stands for protecting our waters and protecting the economy which depends on our beautiful environment. As New Zealanders we should say that this is something that should unite us. I grew up in Gisborne on the East Coast where every summer we would go camping at the same beach Pouawa. That is where I learnt to surf and it is where I would go out with my dad and put out a cray pot. I think every New Zealander has got that story.We heard of David Shearer’s story about seeing Māui’s dolphins live in the marine environment when he was out surfing. I think it is an incredible tale and it is a tale our kids and our grandkids unfortunately may miss out on. But it is not too late; we can protect our Māui’s dolphins. We can see more of our waters protected. We can see a thriving fishing industry built on sustainability. We can protect our waters from the other threats facing them like deep-sea drilling and like vacuuming up the seabed with some of the incredibly crazy marine mining proposals. A Government that takes it seriously is a green Government. That is why I think you will see that a good green Government will make history protecting our waters protecting our environment protecting our economy and protecting the things we love.