Newman Muriel: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Newman Muriel: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:616;Page:11746] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to oppose this bill. I have to say that personally it gives me no joy at all to speak in this debate. In fact a debate like this makes me ashamed to be a member of Parliament because this bill is a fraud. This bill is trying to signal to the whole marine farming industry that a moratorium will be lifted by the end of December this year. Every single member of this Parliament knows that that is a lie. The Government knows that it is a lie yet it is forcing this Parliament to pass this blatantly false bill. In the time that I have been in Parliament I cannot remember having actually to do what I am doing now which is to speak on a bill that is not true. This moratorium will not be lifted by December of this year. This moratorium will continue on for probably years and years. The Labour Government is trying to pretend to everyone who is involved everybody who has aspirations for marine farming in New Zealand that at some stage in the not too distant future those aspirations can be realised. That is an absolute abject lie. 
The moratorium was brought in a couple of years ago because the Government panicked when a whole lot of people decided that the marine industry had opportunities for them. There was a whole rush of applications with many of them from Maori who saw that this industry provided opportunities for them. The Government faced with this rush of applications panicked. Instead of just putting in place processes to deal with it it put in place this moratorium which was meant to last for 2 years and to run out on 25 March. The Government has now panicked again and has brought in this bill which extends the moratorium to 31 December 2004 but we all know there is absolutely no way that that deadline can be held to. I take exception at the new Minister of Fisheries Mr Benson-Pope who spoke at the beginning of this debate saying in effect: “I give my word that there will be no further extension.” That Minister should learn that he should not start his career as a Minister by making promises that he knows will have to be broken. His reputation will be tarred because this Government has no intention at all of lifting the moratorium by the end of this year. 
When the Government goes even further down in the polls and tries to blame everyone else it can look to its own record of broken promises and U-turns to give it some inkling as to why the New Zealand public is now losing confidence in the Labour Government. The reality is that the foreshore and seabed debacle which is probably the biggest constitutional problem that New Zealand has faced in recent history has been caused by the Labour Government. When faced with that problem which arose through the Court of Appeal ruling it decided it would use the opportunity to further appease Maori to try to buy their vote at the next election. It had not realised that that would push its whole thrust towards trying to secure the Maori vote past a tipping point. When New Zealanders woke up to the fact that Labour had now become a very unfair Government because it was trying to push privilege too far in one direction like the possum caught in the headlights this Labour Government panicked. From then on we have seen U-turns on the foreshore and seabed issue and a whole bunch of lies as the Government tries to correct where it has gone just too far. 
The best thing this Labour Government could have done as it entered this debate was to come clean with Parliament and the people of New Zealand and simply say it was now caught up in difficult issues. It should have said that this bill would extend the moratorium and that unfortunately we would probably have to look to extend it into next year or even beyond. If it had done that I believe that it would have earned some respect not only from members of Parliament but also from the public. Instead it continues to spin its way out but as we all know in politics these things do come round and bite one. 
The problem too is that the Minister said in his introductory comments that this bill would bring greater certainty to the industry. Again those words are simply smothered in snake oil. This bill does anything but bring certainty to the industry. If we look at what industry needs we realise that certainty is absolutely essential but it also needs honesty from the Government and it needs to know that the Government understands what it takes to run successful businesses and to have people make business investments. It is no wonder that businesses in New Zealand do not trust Labour. 
Hon John Tamihere 
: They don’t trust you. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: The Minister for Small Business got up a few minutes ago and made some statements that were absolute rubbish. The point is that the reputation of this Government as an anti-business Government is growing and it will continue. The small-business sector which is faced with the new challenges that the industrial relations law reforms will bring this year believes that this Government knows nothing about running business. Many New Zealanders who work for those small-business companies are losing faith as well. If I recall one of the latest polls shows that Labour is losing the support of ordinary-bloke workers who have always supported Labour but have now decided that this Government cannot be trusted. 
The aquaculture industry is currently worth hundreds of millions of dollars to New Zealand. The potential I understand was for that industry to grow to $2 billion by the year 2020 if it were allowed to continue to expand to grow to develop and so on. It is a shame when a Government panics because what happens is that firstly an industry cannot grow and achieve its potential and secondly the players in the industry—the business people who have put their investment into the industry—face disruption conflict and losses because of the uncertainty that has been brought upon them by this Government. I would like to express my sorrow to that industry. It is unfortunate that the marine farming industry has the worst Government that it could possibly have chosen. 
But I would also like to extend my sympathy to the regional councils up and down this country which have been consulting in a genuine way over aquaculture marine areas as they were asked to do. They have been misled by the Labour Government because Labour should have told them late last year when the foreshore and seabed debacle came about that they need not bother consulting right then because that debacle would put everything further back. Instead this Government has allowed them to waste their money and ratepayers’ time and money as well.