Dyson Ruth: Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9668. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It is a great pleasure for me to rise and join the calls of support for the Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary Bill. I want to begin by making a genuine commitment of acknowledgment for the hard work and passion shown by the Minister responsible for the bill the Hon Nick Smith. We are in different parties but we share a passion for the protection of the marine environment and on this particular occasion I think the tributes that have been paid to him his drive and the fact that this is regarded as the gold standard have been well-earned. So I want to place on record my acknowledgment for his work and our support for this legislation.The Kermadecs are a pretty amazing place. The drive for the sanctuary has been driven not from within this Parliament although it has certainly been Labour’s policy for a little while to support legislative protection through a sanctuary bill but from people outside this Parliament and they deserve a tribute equal to that that I have given to the Minister because they have been absolutely fearless consistent passionate and factually based and have moved the whole of Parliament to this position. I hope it is the whole of Parliament. I have not heard the ACT contribution yet and you never know actually when it comes to that party but I hope the whole of Parliament is able to give its support.So I want to acknowledge not only but in particular the Pew Charitable Trusts represented in New Zealand by Bronwen Golder; Forest and Bird represented on this issue particularly by Anton van Helden; and the World Wide Fund for Nature again represented particularly on this issue by Alex Smith. There are others who have worked on it as well but those three individuals and organisations certainly deserve tribute. They have been amazing.The launch of the legislation held in the western foyer of the Beehive which is a pretty noisy place at the best of time—it has a lot of traffic going through. It was abuzz with excitement last week and I really enjoyed the fact that so many of our political parties were able to join with those organisations that I have just noted and celebrate such a good decision.The bill will not be without controversy I am sure as it goes through the select committee and I look forward to hearing from the chair of the select committee Scott Simpson—who I am sure is keen to take a call soon—and also to the second reading here after the deliberations because a piece of legislation like this will not be entirely without controversy but I certainly hope that the select committee is able to give it the consideration that it deserves. It warrants it. It warrants coming back to this House in a better shape if that is possible as a result of submissions that were made.The Kermadecs—the area that we are talking about—has 11 percent of the world’s seabird species. That is a lot. That is a lot in just one area although it is a big area. There is a 10000 metre depth in the Kermadec - Tonga Trench and it has 32 different New Zealand fish species within it. A lot of people do not know that the Kermadecs is a New Zealand territory. They think it is somewhere else. I would like to pose a question to the Minister and to the chair of the select committee because I have not yet been able to get an answer and I assume they will know the answer to this question: who is the member of Parliament for the Kermadecs? I am really disappointed that neither the Minister nor the chair of the select committee at this stage of the debate knows the answer but I bet that by the end of the third reading we will have it.I used to be the member of Parliament for the Chatham Islands. It was a great privilege. That area was stolen off me rather unfairly in boundary changes and now it comes under Rongotai and there are a few other beautiful islands that we are fortunate to have. I know that the member for Coromandel has quite a few of them in his patch because he is often boasting about them and I know that Jacinda Ardern has often told with some pride of the islands that are attached to the Auckland Central electorate. But I do not know who the member of Parliament for the Kermadecs is so I would like that to be the first challenge—Hon Dr Nick Smith: I volunteer.Hon RUTH DYSON: The member for Nelson is offering but I cannot yet see a geographical connection. I suppose the same water touches the beaches around the Nelson area as in the Kermadecs but seriously it is an interesting question and I know that a number of us would really like the answer.One of the issues that have been under debate is whether the governance structure of the sanctuary is going to be that of co-management. That is what was originally proposed but that is not what is in the legislation and I am sure it will be raised again during the select committee consideration. I want to acknowledge Rick Wītana from Te Aupōuri and Harry Burkhardt from Ngāti Kurī who spoke at the launch of this legislation and who have long been involved and have had very open and serious discussions about the governance structure.This is not a marine sanctuary that is set up in the same way as many others are. It is more along the lines of the Fiordland protection that the guardians of Fiordland set up under separate legislation but this is different again in that it has both Ngāti Kurī and Te Aupōuri represented as part of that structure. There will be as I said some debate about that.There are a couple of other points that I want to make in relation to the administration. The first is that even though the Minister for the Environment introduced the legislation and I know did all the hard work to get it to this stage the Department of Conservation will actually administer and manage the sanctuary. That is appropriate and that is good. I am very concerned though because in recent reports in the media the Department of Conservation is quoted as saying to its Minister—not the Minister responsible for this bill but the Minister responsible for the Department of Conservation—that it is so short of money that it is likely to be unable to fulfil its statutory obligations. And here we are giving it in this legislation a huge amount of more work to do—monitoring a marine sanctuary.It is appropriate as I said for the Department of Conservation to have this role. It currently has amazing staff and volunteers who work on Raoul Island—and I want to pay tribute to them. I also want to echo the words of Minister Nick Smith in paying particular tribute to those who have lost their lives on Raoul Island particularly the young volunteers who did so recently—one by drowning and one in a volcanic explosion. Those are tragedies. They are people who are so passionate that they dedicated part of their life to do this conservation work and they paid the ultimate price for it. So they should be acknowledged as well.But if we are expecting the Department of Conservation to manage this huge marine sanctuary where is the money going to come from? If we want it done properly it must be properly resourced and if recent media coverage is anything to go by it cannot even do its current work within the money that it has got. Millions and millions and millions of dollars has been slashed from its budget over the last 7 years without any justification in my view and we just to need make sure that we put the Government’s money—the taxpayers’ money—where the mouths of Ministers are in this legislation and make sure that the department is able to fulfil its job.The second point that I want to make which again I am sure will be raised during the select committee process is about the breadth of marine scientific research that will be allowed under this legislation. We are told that research ordinarily would breach the provisions of this statute but there are exemptions that can be made by the Environmental Protection Authority. I think that is a good process. If you are going to have exemptions of course you should have a robust process and I have no concerns at all about the integrity of the processes of the Environmental Protection Authority.But we do know that in some instances the intention of Parliament of legislation and presumably of Ministers is often watered down when it comes to the actions. Again recent reports about the extraction of swamp kauri are an example of that. Something that we all thought in this House was clearly not allowed has been permitted by what I think has been quite a lightweight response by the department responsible. I think in this case it was the Ministry for Primary Industries rather than Ministry of Environment or the Department of Conservation.This is a great way to start the parliamentary week with a celebration of the protection of an extraordinary piece of water of underground volcanoes of birdlife and of fish whales and dolphins. The Kermadecs have got it all. It is a brilliant part of the world and it is with great pride that this Parliament is taking this step and moving to its better protection.