Jones Shane: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeJones Shane: Fisheries (Foreign Charter Vessels and Other Matters) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 15 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17293. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon SHANE JONES (Labour):Ā kia oraanōtātou.Ngā mihi ki ātātouitēneipōi atātou ewhiriwhiriitēnei take epāana kingā ika kei tekōpua mepēhearānei ehaohaongiaai. Mekauatātounōki e tukuingātāngata orāwāhi kiatutuangia. Ā mepēhearānei tewāriu ōtātou ika kei tekōpua o te moana ehopukinatikangia ā kawhakamahia etātou hei taongahokohoko kingāwāhi. Mepēnātakuwhakamārama.[And greetings once again to us collectively. Salutations to us this evening as we consider this matter about deep-sea fishing and how it should be fished. We should never allow people from overseas to desecrate them. And how should our deep-sea fish be valued harvested correctly and turned into treasured marketable items by us for other countries? That is how I should explain it.]I stand to acknowledge the work that has been done in this area. I want also to acknowledge Paul Swain a colleague of ours who in the past was Minister of Immigration who almost had his parliamentary career truncated because he had an illness. He survived that and went on to hold a number of the commerce portfolios within the Helen Clark Government. He was appointed along with a diplomat whose name fortunately I have forgotten. I think he was the former ambassador to Tokelau or some sort of auspicious position like that and a lawyer. They considered the issues pertaining to the usage of foreign-owned vessels and whether or not the New Zealand deep-sea fishing industry would suffer some extreme injury if access to those vessels was essentially declined. That made its way if I am not mistaken to the table of Phil Heatley before he discovered that his ability to shed tears was greater than that of the athlete currently on trial in South Africa and who is enjoying the attention of the courts.Hon Judith Collins: Oh! That’s a bit nasty.Hon SHANE JONES: I can say that because he was one of the few people who unwisely made fun of me in my little dramas. As my colleagues on the other side of the House would know there is nothing like karma. I think it was the Book of Ecclesiastes that said that which you do to others will be done to you. Rest assured I know about that because I have suffered it myself. But anyhow—Hon Hekia Parata: Cheek-turning.Hon SHANE JONES: Looking in a mirror. Anyway it then got to the table of the current Minister for Primary Industries and made its way through the system in the form of a bill and came to the Primary Production Committee. Our committee functioned well. I do want to acknowledge the quality of chairmanship. I join in that with my colleague from New Zealand First Richard Prosser. Most of us on that committee have some connection with provincial New Zealand. We have grown up enjoying hunting shooting fishing or whatever rhymes with that and we need to be very careful that we do not lose that connection with the provinces and the regional economies of the country because whether we like it or not more and more of our MPs are being progressively drawn from metropolitan New Zealand.However we have worked on the bill. We did consider whether or not the bill could be improved by providing an opportunity for those groups that complained about being penalised. That was an element of the Māori deep-sea fishing community those people catching pelagic species. At the end of the day it has proved to be the case that such exemptions will not stand the test of either time or the current political climate. I say that because there is now a new standard. I would be the first to admit the standard was not there in the 1990s. In those days I was in the fishing industry and there were no great questions raised as to whether or not deep-sea fishing vessels owned by foreign interests should be used and we relied exclusively on foreign-provided labour. But there is a change and on this side of the House no doubt all of my colleagues realise that new labour standards will be introduced. It is up to the fishing industry whether they bePākehā Māori or anything in between to work out a capital response as to how vessels can be upgraded or how quota can be brought together in the deep-sea fishing community and put on vessels that will hopefully employ more New Zealanders.I would say this: the fishing industry has been easily stigmatised. In the unlikely event that I am ever the Minister of Immigration again I will never agree on us relying on foreign labour to man the freezing works of New Zealand. There are enough men and women in New Zealand who should not be unemployed who can go and work in the freezing works. It is good enough for the fishing industry to have that access terminated it is good enough for the dairy farmers to be made to employ Kiwis and it is good enough for the horticulturalists to be made to employ Kiwis before they rely on foreign labour with the exception of the people of New Hebrides now known as Vanuatu which I am quite partial to given that I went to school at Saint Stephen’s College with many of them. My point is that if we are going to pick on the fishing industry and say that foreign labour is not welcome in the fishing industry then I am very keen to apply that to the dairy industry to the horticultural industry to the freezing works industry and to various other sectors that are quick to complain to politicians that they cannot find Kiwis to do the mahi.So we on this side of the House are going to support this bill. Although I have not seen the Supplementary Order Paper I have been briefed about the Supplementary Order Paper. As I have indicated to the chair of our select committee and to the current Minister they will get no grief from me. I say that as someone who chaired Sealord and who chaired the Māori Fisheries Commission. I will not hide from the fact that over the yearsMāoridom have had their quota placed on vessels that had been crewed by workers not only from Indonesia but from other sources of labour throughout South-east Asia.The challenge for the fishing industry is whether or not it can catch it in a form that makes money. That is really at the heart of the challenge: how do you manufacture raw material food in New Zealand and still make a profit? Milk is slightly different. Although you could say that fish is not too different from milk—unless it is processedvery quickly it smells like the proverbial. So I think that milk is in a slightly different situation—i.e. it has to be processed very quickly. Fish can be headed and gutted at sea frozen taken up to—in my time—Dalian in northern China to Shenzhen in southern China and processed and sold to Long John Silver’s or sold to McDonald’s as protein before it is destroyed by the Americans who douse it in sauce so that it no longer tastes like fish. That is why they enjoy orange roughy.I know I have got a few more minutes so let me entertain the House. Actually orange roughy became known to the Americans when that great television icon J R Ewing ordered New Zealand orange roughy in the context of a show calledDallas. Not long after that—and I kid you not—quite a few queries came to New Zealand: “Tell us about this orange roughy fish.” As a consequence a lot of effort went into developing the orange roughy fishery as a source of protein for the American market and in particular the lent season. Over the years we have made millions of dollars for the New Zealand economy by selling enormous amounts of orange roughy into what the Americans call the lent season. Orange roughy is a particularly sought-after fish in the States because when they eat it to them it does not taste like fish. That is after they have covered it in condiments which is essentially what the National Government is going to have to do with its policies—cover them in condiments if its members have got any dim prospect of winning the next election which is diminishing by the day.Hon Hekia Parata: It’s comedy week.Hon SHANE JONES: I could say it is confectionery week when I look at Hekia. But I do not want to be ordered out of the House etc. and yelled at by the Ngati Porou. They should spend their time yelling at TeKōhanga Reo National Trust. They should spend their time assisting Hekia to tidy up TeKōhanga Reo National Trust. But that is another matter. A change of Government will be needed for that particular miracle to take place. Orange roughy is a type of fish that is very dense so it should actually appeal to the National Party colleagues—not all of them. In particular those who are on the committee that I share—there is nothing dense about them at all. They are far-sighted. It is just that they are not valued by their own party unlike myself I think. Yes I realise I am being called to give an account. I stand to assure the House that we will support this bill. Kia oratātou.