Ardern Shane: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17710] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 It is pleasing to see the Minister of Fisheries back in the chair although I was looking forward to asking the Minister for Transport Safety a number of reasonably curly questions on this legislation. Like a lot of members who have spoken I am concerned about the power the Department of Conservation has. Notwithstanding the comments made by the honourable member Jim Peters who has a great deal of knowledge in this area I suggest that clause 4A is not the sort of clause that is usually placed in legislation such as this. 
Let us look at Minister Carter the current Minister of Conservation—or more accurately at “Minister Smith” the former conservation director of the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society who makes the decisions in the Minister’s office—or at whoever may be the Minister of Conservation in the future under an MMP coalition with the Green Party if God forbid the Labour Party were ever in a position to form another Government. Let us look at what might come of that. Of course we will not have as Minister the very good member Ian Ewen-Street who actually has some interest in this area and spent some time on the Primary Production Committee because he is retiring from Parliament. We will have somebody like Nandor Tanczos or Sue Bradford from the Green Party potentially ending up as the Minister of Conservation. 
Jill Pettis 
: Shane you are blinding us with your brilliance. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: I ask the senior Government whip who is chirping away over there to take a call and tell me that that will not be so—to rule it out absolutely. Her colleague the Hon Jim Sutton the Minister of Agriculture certainly will not. We have put it to him a number of times and he certainly has not ruled out Sue Bradford as the next Minister of Agriculture or Minister of Conservation. 
Let us look at what this legislation will do in terms of the power of veto it gives to the Department of Conservation. To start off through an Order in Council the Minister of Conservation can prevent or impose conditions on proposed allocation of space. On the surface that does not sound too bad if there is a responsible Minister. But as I said the chances of that happening are not great at all. The department gives effect to Government policy on the ability to include the Treaty of Waitangi clauses in allocating space. So there is a second issue that may or may not cause some kind of humbug there. The department can also under the Resource Management Act submit an individual consent or objection—that is the Department of Conservation or its Minister or “Minister Smith” whom I have spoken of could put in a private objection through the Resource Management Act process. If that fails—if the department still has not killed the aquaculture proposal which clearly would be the objective of that group based on its track record thus far—then it can effectively veto an allocation at the last hurdle under the guise of giving effect to Government policy. I ask the Minister in the chair to take a call and put to bed the fears of those who submitted to the very good Primary Production Committee with those concerns. I am sure he will have a view on that. 
I also ask the Minister to take a call to explain how the aquaculture management areas process will work in a practical sense with the Department of Conservation having so much power over it. I say to the Minister that given the track record of the Department of Conservation so far—its “preservation at all costs and to hell with business” sort of approach—the department will kill any proposed aquaculture management area or any proposed aquaculture investment that may be put forward. I also ask that the Minister take a call to explain to those who may be interested in investing millions of dollars in this industry why they would even bother to go through that process when there is so much uncertainty about the likely outcome. 
This industry particularly with the huge developments in technology that are taking place potentially could be one of this country’s biggest export industries. It is a growing industry. There is huge opportunity looking forward. With the kind of power of veto that is given to the department under this legislation why would people even bother to come to New Zealand and look at the proposal? They would look at other opportunities internationally and find that anywhere else in the world potentially they could have an easier go at it.