Heatley Phil: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
Heatley Phil: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 3) — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:15191] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 I must say that members on this side of the Chamber are disappointed that the Minister has taken only one call on this issue considering that the bill comprising 38 pages including the schedules was won on the first reading and then lost in the Primary Production Committee after which a Supplementary Order Paper half the length of the substantive bill—in order words there is a 50 percent increase in the number of provisions—was presented by the Ministry of Fisheries and the Minister. We would like the Minister to take a call particularly on the mussel spat issue. 
I have been tracking the mussel spat issue for about 12 months now. It was first brought to my attention because of marine farmers concerns that the ministry was going to include in the quota management system mussel spat caught on marine farming structures. That is where a marine farmer is farming mussels with spat produced by the mussels on the farm caught and collected on the structures because they are obviously nearby—and where the ministry takes into account the spat collected there. Well common sense prevailed and we are delighted to see that spat caught on structures will not be included which is the only good news about this part. 
We understand from the Fisheries Act that there are two reasons for putting a fishery into the quota management system. The first reason is to do with sustainability—to ensure that a fishery whether the species is a crustacean a fin fish or a shellfish is managed sustainably for generation upon generation—or any threat to that. The second reason a fishery would be put into the quota management system is to do with utilisation—that is to say that New Zealand incorporated gets the best out of the fishery as it is utilised whether by market or recreational concerns. However we were told by ministry officials that there is no sustainability issue with mussel spat. It swirls around the ocean and what washes up on the beach but is not collected dies. Sure sometimes the tide comes in collects it and washes it back out to sea but substantially it is washed up on the beach and dies. If it is not collected therefore it dies and cannot be used. 
We asked the officials about the amount of mussel spat that is washed up or that swirls around the ocean each year. As the ACT member said they had no idea where the spat came from no idea where it went and no idea where it was tracked around the country. In other words they had no idea of the general tracking of mussel spat. But they did say that the only sustainability issues they could see were those caused by environmental conditions—warm seasons and cold seasons warm currents and cold currents or anything like that caused by the environment. In other words fishing for mussel spat has no impact on sustainability so why should it go into the quota management system for that reason. 
Then there is the utilisation issue. We too are concerned about the idea that there would be eight or nine people who would have control of the quota in future years. But it is worse than that because not only are there just eight or nine people but those eight or nine people belong to three main families. There are Anthony and Diane Wedding and Patrick Hugh Wedding; Robert Denison and Kirk Denison who are numbers four and five; and there is another family as well a number of whose members will get quota for spat. So the number of individuals who will control this resource is low and some of them belong to the same family. That is OK on the face of it but with mussel spat because there is no sustainability issue and because there appears to be no utilisation issue we are concerned that the quota will be restricted to a few people who have a common interest and common link. 
We will be voting against this part because it is our view that mussel spat should not be brought into the quota management system and certainly not so soon. I know that the Mussel Industry Council agrees and that it will back us on that.