Roy Eric: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Roy Eric: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am a little surprised to get a call without an intervention from somewhere else in the Chamber after the very spirited dissertation given by our fisheries spokesman Phil Heatley. He has outlined a number of the issues about which National has some concerns. I will reiterate some of those concerns and for the information of those who have just tuned in we are debating the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill. It is a rather complex bill which impacts on four different Acts in its attempt to move forward the process of advancing aquaculture in New Zealand. 
Members will know that in many parts of the fishing industry New Zealand has a very fine record. We were perhaps the first in the world to have an advanced fisheries management bill and set out in the purposes and principles of the 1996 Act was something that has since been mirrored in many places around the world. At that time some quite extravagant claims were made about the future of New Zealand fishing and not only in the sustainability area of harvesting wild fish. New Zealand has the fifth or sixth largest exclusive economic zone of any country in the world. Our isolation makes the management of that so much better in that we do not have shared waters so we set out a blueprint. 
Then some things happened that were a kind of enhancement to that particularly in the shellfish area. A lot of work went on with enhancement programmes such as for the likes of the Bluff oyster or “tiotio Chileans” found in Foveaux Strait. It is world renowned and it is in my electorate so I am interested to make sure that it is safe and secure. It is one of those iconic things. Then we had the enhancement and advancement of what were natural fisheries. 
But ultimately one looks at the spectrum of harvesting fish. One can only do so much in management and enhancement but feeding the planet in the future has a lot to do with having sensible and viable fisheries management through aquaculture. As I said some quite extravagant things were said about New Zealand’s potential. For example I was at a seminar about 6 or 7 years ago— 
Pita Paraone 
: How long? 
ERIC ROY 
: —6 or 7 years ago—and a fast-forward scenario of aquaculture was put out. It was proposed that by the year 2015 we could be exporting $2 billion worth of aquaculture products although some of that would still be consumed locally. Not only that but the production processes we put into processing high-value species could give us an entrée to other species that we might catch naturally and one of those would be salmon. Again New Zealand’s image as a pristine country is well known around the world and it is a real value-added thing in terms of what we sell. It was calculated at this seminar that if we were producing $2 billion worth of fish product from aquaculture that product could be harvested from 2000 hectares. When we see the size of the area in New Zealand that it would take to produce $2 billion worth of milk lamb wine or something else we know that it is certainly a lot more than 2000 hectares. So there was all this excitement and speculation about where we were going but my colleague Phil Heatley spelt it out—where has it gone? 
John Carter 
: Nowhere. 
ERIC ROY 
: Well since 2004 it has gone nowhere so National is supporting this bill. We want to move the steps forward; we still have this dream this anticipation. Is New Zealand suited to it? Well certainly. We need only look around the world at countries that are of a similar latitude to New Zealand. I was speaking recently with a fisheries management consultant from Argentina an Angelo Massini who told me that the growth rate of aquaculture in Argentina is 7 percent. We can compare that with the rate where we sit—zero—so we need to move on. Mostly this is about a spatial thing. I mentioned earlier that if we had those 2000 hectares engaged then we would be doing much much better so a number of issues need to be resolved. 
When an area has been set aside for marine farming we have had a bit of a gold rush. People have kind of just put a peg in the ground and said that they will do it and some of them have not even developed the claim but have earned huge profits from just getting their names on a patch of a sound a fiord or an area that has been set aside. They have then had quite a speculative advantage from onselling that patch so the spatial thing is one of those areas that really needs to be resolved. There needs to be some clarity about just how we develop those areas in a way that lets the real players in there and this bill will go some way towards doing that. 
Earlier this evening many members of Parliament were at a function for Saunders Unsworth. I spoke to some fishermen there and said that we had the aquaculture bill before us. I asked them whether they had a word of advice that I should bring to the House and they said: “Just get on with it!” They made some interesting comments about fisheries management in New Zealand in general. They said that our exclusive economic zone is one fish farm and that we are managing its aquaculture sustainably but they said that we need to be able to set in place some aquaculture management for those specific products that do very well under a management process either in cages or in some form of ocean ranching. 
I am sure the select committee will look very closely at one or two issues in this bill. At any time when we bring a fisheries bill into the House and it ends up before a select committee we get an absolute plethora of people trying to bring all kinds of issues to be developed or debated in and around the whole area of fisheries management and I do not expect this bill to be any different. I note that this bill has some retrospective aspects to it in terms of where some of those licences have been granted and I am sure we will get a number of submissions around that issue. Most probably there will be some people who feel there are some unjust provisions within this bill and we will have to sort our way through that. That is why I say that we are happy to support this bill to go to a select committee. 
We want to see the advancement of this vibrant industry but property rights are involved. At this point of the debate I do not know whether there are any robust arguments about what is happening with this bill with regard to retrospectivity but I can assure the House that we will be looking at that as an issue we will really have to grapple with to make sure there is equity and fairness as well as to make sure that we do not delay what goes forward from there. 
I mentioned that we have some activity now that is very well regarded and well known such as the work on the green-lipped mussel which is found in a number of places around New Zealand but particularly in the Marlborough Sounds and in Big Glory Bay in Stewart Island. This iconic species was not known in the world 15 years ago yet now it has been discovered there is a whole technology around its development and there is a variety of products in relation to it. It now has significant space internationally and is recognised as a high-value product that comes from New Zealand. 
There are other things as well. We could look at some of the native—and they are all native I guess—shellfish species that are under threat. Gradually we have seen the closure of the toheroa fishery right around New Zealand. Since 1993 we have not had a toheroa season at Oreti Beach— 
Hon Mahara Okeroa 
: That’s right. 
ERIC ROY 
: —and Mahara Okeroa acknowledges that. But there is a huge potential for us to develop these things in a way with fish farming. A lot of really iconic species can be developed such as kingfish. But what is the hold-up? We have had a Government that has sat on its hands for 4 years we have had a spatial argument and we have had issues around the retrospectivity of the property right in terms of where people can ocean ranch or fish farm. So this aquaculture bill is important. I doubt whether it goes far enough. Members of the select committee are keen to get into it and to resolve the issues. I am not sure whether it will be completed by the time this House breaks for an election but at least we will have the process going. It is our commitment to see that there is some advancement so we will be supporting the bill.