Heatley Phil: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17699] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I say to the House that it should not be deceived by members on the Labour benches. This 20 percent allocation of aquaculture space to Maori has always been a quid pro quo for the seabed and foreshore deal. When the deal blew up in Labour’s face Labour figured that it could throw to Maori 20 percent of the aquaculture space and Maori would be satisfied with that. How patronising and how condescending can one get! That is why National will oppose this bill. Labour figured that it would do a dirty deal but the marine farmers who are out there working today Maori and others alike will pay the price for that. The moratorium will be lifted once the bill is passed and it is about time for that to be done. The industry has been hamstrung for too long with moratorium after moratorium being used as a solution rather than a tool. Marine farmers from across this country have been invited to Australia and to South America to set up camp there and some have. Fortunately others have stayed here in the hope that finally a bill would be brought to the House that would solve the majority of their problems. 
I also acknowledge the work of the Primary Production Committee. Through the select committee process we changed what had been a dog of a bill into a much-improved bill. We have changed significant aspects of the bill but National still opposes it on a number of fronts. Firstly as I mentioned at the beginning of my speech there is the issue of horse-trading with Maori. Labour thought that if it chucked 20 percent of marine space to Maori they would go away feeling very satisfied indeed and would not kick up a fuss over the seabed and foreshore issue. That is patronising and condescending. Now we discover that it could be up to 40 percent of new marine-farming space because the promise of 20 percent of aquaculture space to Maori may never be fulfilled. Marine farmers may not give up their current space and therefore 20 percent may not become available for Maori. So the top-up has to come from new space—anything up to 40 percent of it. Interestingly most Maori submitters did not acknowledge this bill as a settlement. There are several reasons for that. Firstly there was no negotiation with Maori over 20 percent of the aquaculture space. Secondly there is no deed of settlement over the aquaculture space to point to unlike the fisheries settlement of 1992 where there was a deed. Therefore many Maori submitters are already dissatisfied because of that lack of a negotiated deed of settlement. They are concerned they will receive space they would not have chosen for themselves: patches of random space uneconomic space and small space. That sets the scene for another revisiting of aquaculture-space settlements. 
I direct the House’s attention to the Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill which is the last bill on today’s Order Paper. Under clauses 118 and 119 of that bill Ngati Awa is to receive 5 percent of the aquaculture space through preferential tendering and that is over and above the 20 percent figure. Ngati Awa has its own separate little settlement. That bill is on the Order Paper in Parliament right now. So we have the Aquaculture Reform Bill giving Maori 20 percent of the aquaculture space and the Ngati Awa Claims Settlement Bill giving Ngati Awa another 5 percent. That is without mentioning Nga Rauru Kitahi and NgatiRuanui which get aquaculture space in their own settlement bills Ngati Tama which gets 10 percent of the aquaculture space in its own settlement bill and NgaiTahu which in 1998 received 10 percent of the aquaculture space in its settlement bill. Therein lies the problem. The National Party does not see a solution in this bill whereby we will put an end to treaty claims in aquaculture. 
We also have unanswered questions as to how the interests of aquaculture will be balanced with commercial fishing interests. Certainly National supports greater interaction between the two sectors. There has to be a timely fully transparent and cost-effective process to follow—namely commercial fishers talking to marine farmers and marine farmers talking to commercial fishers about their aspirations in a particular area reaching a transparent and cost-effective agreement and then moving forward. National is unsure how regional councils will be able to quantify or qualify aquaculture’s effect on fishing—effects such as those on spawning and stock development. We do not know how they are going to do it. We hope regional councils can do that because we want aquaculture to move ahead. In reality regional councils will have to employ very smart scientists and researchers in order to ensure they have the best advice on how to address that issue. 
Our third major concern is the right of first refusal for an incumbent marine farmer. National members on the select committee fought hard and it was a big win for us to get the gains we achieved. But we are still quite concerned that incumbent marine farmers will get priority over newcomers due to their pre-existing investment. Contrary to David Benson-Pope’s statements made in the media commercial aquaculturists have never asked for space in perpetuity—not ever. They have never asked for a right of renewal; they have never felt that public space should be in their hands forever. They have only ever asked for the right of first refusal—that they have first dibs at renewal if they have been good tenants. Yet in order to gain renewal they will have to follow industry-good practice and no one has defined that. It will change with changes in technology. Marine farmers now discover that regional councils may tender out occupied space if they feel it is necessary. We are not quite sure what the test will be in terms of being “necessary”. We certainly have reservations about whether those requirements and tests are sufficiently robust to provide the certainty that incumbents need for their investment. 
In the Committee stage I will be submitting various amendments to this bill. They will also deal with the ability of the Department of Conservation to intervene in the whole process and issue a veto as an objector under the Resource Management Act—the Minister of Conservation being able to veto the process. We need changes to this legislation in order to provide certainty for this fledgling industry.