Dyson Ruth: Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 20 March 2014. Volume:697;Page:16919. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):Can I say that it is a real pleasure to be speaking in support of this bill the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill. I want to open by congratulating the Minister of Conservation the Hon Nick Smith on the content of this legislation and say that I look forward to it progressing at good pace through the Local Government and Environment Committee back into this House and being passed. I think it is a very good initiative. I also want to acknowledge the outgoing member of Parliament for Kaikōura Colin King who is well known for his advocacy here and was certainly acknowledged by the Minister. I do not know what it is about a Thursday afternoon but we seem to do this on quite a regular basis. Sometimes I feel a little tricked that I end up leaving the House congratulating the Minister of Conservation. I have just done it again—but he deserves it. Actually he also deserves congratulations on the Akaroa marine reserve because it did languish—not for 9 years of a Labour Government as he said but actually for 9 years of a previous National Government before that. I recall that the late Rod Donald; Mr Speaker David Carter; and I as the three members of Parliament in that area signed joint representation signing a joint letter of advocacy to the then National Minister. I am just trying to recall who that would have been. It might have been the Hon Nick Smith actually. We were advocating in the early 1990s for a marine reserve in the Akaroa Harbour the Dan Rogers Marine Reserve. So let us not be petty about this because the Hon Nick Smith did sign it off just as he has progressed this legislation and signed it off.I also want to acknowledge a far bigger group of people—the local iwi those in the local marine industry the tourism operators and the environmental groups who have worked for 7 or 8 years to get this management plan progressed. I totally agree with the other point the Minister made and that is that we would all be better off if we did not have long protracted litigation about marine protection but rather went down a path where we can get agreement by all the different groups in the first place. A similar effort was proposed a decade or so ago. It did not really get progressed. I hope that the next attempt achieves that. It seems to me that for the fishing industry that would be a good thing. It would be very clear where there are no-take areas. They do not have to argue about it. They would just know about it. For those of us who care passionately about having better marine protection we would not have to spend hours and lots of dollars on going through contentious and divisive court action in order to progress it. Local people would be able to have their say on what is important in protection in their community. I think that is a very worthy aspiration and I would certainly commit to Labour working alongside the Government—until 21 September when we will not have to. But I would invite the Hon Nick Smith to give us the same reciprocity from his position in Opposition on 21 September so that we would be able to work together so that our communities will be less divided over marine protection and have the opportunity to come together.As I said at the beginning of my contribution it is a real pleasure to be able to support this legislation. It is a good move. I still maintain that it is low-hanging fruit because there are a number of quite substantive areas in which the Minister of Conservation has failed. I want to just draw those briefly to the attention of the House in my concluding comments. The Minister acknowledged the Minister for Primary Industries the Hon Nathan Guy. He has actually been an obstacle in some of the most urgently needed protection and that is better protection for the Maui’s dolphin and the Hector’s dolphin. Just this week at the Local Government and Environment Committee a very substantial petition signed by thousands and thousands and thousands of New Zealanders was presented and spoken to by Christine Rose from Auckland and Associate Professor Liz Slooten from Otago University. They talked about how easy proper protection measures would be to be put in place and how the protection measures that the Hon Nick Smith and the Hon Nathan Guy have recently introduced just do not cut the mustard. They do not go far enough.We might ask why that should be of concern to the House. Well actually it must be of concern to the House because we have the responsibility of protection of the Māui’s dolphin. There are only 55 adult Māui’s dolphins left. They all live in New Zealand waters. It is our responsibility to take the most precautionary approach possible to ensure the survival of that species. What bigger responsibility can there be in terms of marine mammals than to have the fate of a species in your hands? That is the position we are in. Bullied by the fishing industry and the Minister for Primary Industries the Minister of Conservation buckled and did not hold the line on the precautionary approach and the best possible protection. I think that that strategy needs to be relooked at. I would be delighted to ask the Minister a patsy question about how great the Māui’s dolphin protections were if he introduced such protections but he has not. I think he lets not just the side down but New Zealand down.Our fishing industry is now under threat because of internationally the increasing number of consumers who look at the product they are about to purchase and say: “Where was this made? How was it produced? Is it sustainable? Is the industry that produced it sustainable?”. We have more and more of our consumers overseas—the wealthier end of the market buying high-value products—looking at our fish and saying: “Well when this fish was caught they may well have killed a Māui’s dolphin. They may well have killed a dolphin that is critically endangered.” and those people are saying: “We’re not going to buy that fish.” We have the opportunity to support our fishing industry to move to sustainable practices and at the same time save our Māui’s dolphins save the species. How could anybody lose from that proposal? Why did the Minister of Conservation not take it up? Why did he get bullied by the Minister for Primary Industries and buckle when the literal future of a species is at stake? So I think that is something that we need to be concerned about need to work harder on and as I said I will be delighted to congratulate the Minister of Conservation when he does the right thing.The other area where the Minister of Conservation has significantly let the side down is when through some exchange of concern information or advice between the Minister his office and the Department of Conservation the substantive submission prepared by the Department of Conservation raising concerns about the one-nutrient model which is proposed in the Tukituki plan change to progress the Ruataniwha Dam just vanished. Instead of a well-researched properly scientifically based submission raising genuine concerns with the board of inquiry about this one-nutrient model—it is a model that says the level of nitrates in the Tukituki River will not be of concern and it will worry only about the phosphorous level; it is brand new it is unique it runs the risk of turning the Tukituki River toxic—the Minister of Conservation through that exchange with his department had the submission withdrawn. Those concerns had to raised by NGOs by Fish and Game by Forest and Bird and by other local community groups that are concerned about this brand new model being tested in the Hawke’s Bay and running the risk of turning the Tukituki River toxic. I think that is a very big black mark on the register of issues against the Minister of Conservation. I do not think that that submission should have been withdrawn. It was an important one to make. It is at the heart of the advocacy role of the Department of Conservation which has been not just watered down but actually drowned and thrown out—the baby with the bathwater—by this Government. The current Minister is certainly a step up from his predecessor in terms of being passionate and caring about conservation issues but that was the worst example of where the department was needed and had the responsibility for putting that submission to the board of inquiry and that substantive submission just went in the bucket.In conclusion I want to again congratulate the Minister on bringing this legislation forward. It is a good bill and it is one that we will be supporting hopefully through all stages—unless something goes off the rails in the meantime and I cannot imagine it would. I want to again acknowledge the local people who have worked so hard on preparing Te Korowai which was the strategy document that led to this. For many many years they worked constructively hard with passion and with genuine understanding of the local area and it is a great pleasure to be able to support this legislation on that basis.