Simpson ScottSCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I am pleased to be able to take a call in this urgent debate because I have the privilege of representing an electorate where fishing and what goes on on the water and in the water around my electorate of the beautiful Coromandel is terribly important to tens of thousands of people who use that area for recreational fishing but it is also important for those people who earn their living commercially fishing in the waters around my electorate.I listened very carefully this afternoon to the opening contribution by the Minister the Hon Nathan Guy when he said that he welcomed this report and that there were some valuable lessons for the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) in it. He said that he accepted the Heron report and that there is no doubt that the decision not to prosecute in the case of Operation Achilles when that was an option is indeed regrettable. Absolutely I endorse the Minister's comments made earlier this afternoon.I know that MPI places an enormous importance on sustainability and that is important not only for us who are fishing today but for those of us who have children and grandchildren who want to fish in years to come. MPI has I think learnt a valuable lesson from Operation Achilles and one of the important learnings from that regrettable non-action is that there needs to be better more obvious use of the cameras in enforcement and of the material and the footage that can be gained from those. These are matters that are very important to me as a local member of Parliament.I want to make the point to the House that it is my understanding that even though that trial of cameras is going on in the Snapper 1 region in my electorate that footage—the footage that is gained from those cameras—can now be used in cases in court as legal evidence and that is a very big step forward. There are I am told 15 vessels commercially fishing in the Snapper 1 area and so those cameras are terribly important in terms of the compliance and the future compliance of those operators in that area.One of the important things about the Snapper 1 region that encompasses my electorate is that it is the mix of the commercial fishing the recreational fishing and also the customary fishing that is important. The Minister has set up a multi-sector working group for Snapper 1 made up of those three interested stakeholders—the recreational the customary and the commercial fishers—and for the first time such a multi-sector working group is looking at a long-term plan to increase the total fishing biomass in the area. The plan is to increase the biomass by 40 percent by 2040 and by 30 percent by 2025. That ultimately means that there are going to be more fish in the Snapper 1 region and that is good for those people who come from near and far to fish the waters around the Coromandel but also for those people who live in and around the Coromandel who fish there now.I want to pick up on a point that was made by Mr Prosser in his contribution to this debate and that is the undoubted benefit that can come from the new technologies that are going to be available to commercial fishers. The precision fishing technique clearly has advantages for the sector and that will mean that the fish stock that is caught will be in better condition alive when it is hauled aboard and will possibly gain a better price a higher price in markets both domestically and internationally. But more importantly it means that the bycatch can actually be sorted and returned to the sea in a state that means it can continue to thrive and prosper.These are important technological advances. This is an important debate. The Minister is on the money; he was right on the mark accepting the report. There are valuable lessons here for MPI to learn and we all acknowledge that.