Craig LizCONSERVATION (INDIGENOUS FRESHWATER FISH) AMENDMENT BILL In Committee Part 1 Amendments to Conservation Act 1987Dr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. I'd like to take a brief call in this committee stage and what I'd like to focus on is clause 7 but before I do that I want to focus on why this bill is so important and what clause 7 is designed to do because what we're talking about here is some incredibly threatened species. When I first spoke on this bill back at its first reading what I talked about was my mum's experiences back in the 1930s when she was growing up and I was talking about whitebaiting. What they used to do was go down to the river and catch whitebait by the kerosene tin - full and often they'd bring them home and they'd have so many left over they had to feed them to the chickens. From my own whitebait experiences back in the 1980s we never caught in the same rivers more than a cupful. What we're seeing now fast-forwarding to my children's own generation is that over 70 percent of our freshwater species are either threatened or at risk of extinction and that includes four of our whitebait species along with lampreys and longfin eels. So what this bill does is it protects our threatened species because nowhere else in terms of our native species are you able to go and—say for our native birds depending on where they live you can actually go and get them and use them for food. So this is something that's about protecting our indigenous species. In clause 7 it talks about placing those restrictions on taking indigenous freshwater fish. It says basically A person must not take [an] indigenous freshwater fish from a conservation area except in accordance with an authorisation given under section 26ZHC(1)(a) or 26ZHD." For those that are not familiar with this basically at the moment you can't fish for our native species in reserves or national parks without express authorisation but this same protection doesn't cross over into all of our conservation areas. So what this is enabling us to do is create some protections around those areas so that our fish when they're thinking about travelling upstream spawning sites etc. they can have some areas which are protected. But what it also does in this clause is it also allows the Director-General of Conservation to authorise the taking of indigenous fish on application and it also allows the director-general to authorise it by Gazette notice. What that allows is that ability to create regulations which will oversee how those freshwater fish are taken. So when you're talking about the director-general authorising the taking of fish by Gazette notice what that needs to outline is the kinds of fish that can be taken the areas from which they can be taken and the manners in which they can be taken because this is incredibly important in terms of being able to have those areas where we can fish say for whitebait but also those that are going to be protected. We've got a Supplementary Order Paper here before the House Supplementary Order Paper 360 that also talks about making sure that those regulations—we have time to develop them up. What it talks about is any of those regulations not coming into force for a period of two years after commencement date because we need to be able to do that consultation and get this right. Down South where I live many many people love whitebaiting. It's really important in terms of—you know it's a pastime but it's also a way of getting food. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m."