Newman Muriel: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Newman Muriel: Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:615;Page:11604] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of the ACT party to oppose the Resource Management (Aquaculture Moratorium Extension) Amendment Bill. This bill will change the timing for the moratorium to end from 25 March of this year to 31 December. This bill represents yet another broken promise from the Labour Government. The Government promised that the moratorium would be lifted by March. What do we find? We find that the moratorium will be extended until 2005. Even that is dishonest. If members of the Labour Government put their hands on their hearts they would not be able to say that the foreshore and seabed fiasco will be resolved by the end of the year. This bill is dependent upon the foreshore and seabed legislation being solved fixed or whatever one wants to say and every single member of this House knows that that issue is the biggest debacle that this Parliament has seen. Labour members sit there and try to pretend that this is an honest bill for the marine industry and regional councils up and down New Zealand who have a responsibility to decide where their aquaculture areas will be and it is a lie that is being perpetrated here today— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The member is heading down the wrong track with that sort of language. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN: 
 This bill is simply misleading New Zealanders that in fact the moratorium will be lifted by the end of the year. If the new Minister thinks that what I am saying is not correct I challenge him to get to his feet or get one of his members to get to his or her feet and say that I am wrong. I am not wrong. The moratorium will have to be extended by early next year or later on this year and it will go on and on. 
If we stand back and ask ourselves where the future of New Zealand lies what sorts of industries are emerging and developing for sure we would say that the aquaculture industry is one of them; that aquaculture farming fish management or whatever one wants to call it is an industry that New Zealand could do really really well. We understand that the moratorium was put on in the first place because the Labour Government lost its nerve. There was a bit of a rush of new people putting in applications and instead of putting in place a process to manage that rush of applications take it step by step and do it properly and competently the Government panicked and brought in a moratorium. 
The result of that moratorium has been that a lot of New Zealanders who were going to be investing in marine farming have gone off shore. I know of businesses that were looking to put millions of dollars into marine farming in New Zealand and when they knew the moratorium was coming on they had no faith that the Labour Government would be able to stick to its time frame. They had no faith that this Government understood the needs of business at all or the fact that in business one has to be able to plan get investment dollars together and have certainty that a Government will not change its rules midstream. Those investors and business people who had such high hopes for building aquaculture businesses in New Zealand looked at the Labour Government and asked: “Can we trust this Government?”. The answer was no so they left New Zealand. Many of them are now set up in Australia. 
I happen to know of one particular business that within 6 months of taking its investment money and good ideas across the shore to Australia had its marine farm up and running with no mucking around. There was no stupid Government intervention to try to prevent it from doing what businesses should be able to do. There was nothing like that—nothing like the absolute total shambles that this Labour Government has displayed to almost anything relating to business and investment in this country. 
This bill epitomises the way this Labour Government treats business. This side of the House has called the Government an anti-business Government. The reason the Government is anti-business is that it has no idea what actually drives business in this country. I remind those members sitting there that this country runs on the small-business sector. It is small businesses in New Zealand that create the jobs the growth and our standard of living. When a Government mucks around with the small-business sector as this Government is doing not only with legislation like this but with our industrial relations environment—the Government is about to stuff that up for most businesses in New Zealand with its new changes to the employment relations laws—it takes the heart out of small business and a lot of small businesses that had big plans dreams and aspirations of moving into different areas like marine farming decide they cannot be bothered. They do not want to be mucked around by a Government that does not understand their needs or what it is that drives them. 
Because of the moratorium that was originally put on the marine industry investment has gone and businesses have now left New Zealand. This country deserves better. This country deserves a Government that will come clean if it is not managing to do what it is meant to do like planning properly and organising itself. But we have a Government that is an expert at spin. It spins everything. I must say that the poll last night on television was really interesting. It asked New Zealanders whether they thought that all the U-turns that had been committed by the Labour Government was because there was a genuine reason to change policy or whether it was a public relations move by a Government that had been shaken to the core because it suddenly saw that it might lose at the next election. Ninety percent of some groups of voters said that this Government was insincere and it was going about its U-turns because it was panicking. Fifty-three percent of the Government’s own supporters said that this Government was changing policy doing U-turns and was not sincere. They said it was simply to try to get its polling up. 
This bill is distressing on another level and not just for the businesses that wanted to invest in marine farming or for marine industry itself—which has been stuffed around now for years and under this bill that situation will go on not just until December but next year as well and probably as long as this Labour Government is in force. The only hope for the marine industry is that we have a change in Government. This bill is also causing a huge amount of distress to regional councils up and down the country. Regional councils have a responsibility to figure out where their aquaculture management areas will be up and down the coastline. Some regional councils have already started their consultation and planning. Hundreds and hundreds of New Zealanders have turned up to those meetings to say what they think of those potential aquaculture areas. I shall tell members what this Government has not done. It has not given instructions to those regional councils on how to go about that process. What has happened is that many regional councils are going to industry first and saying: “Give us your wish list” and then taking that wish list back to the people who rightly say: “Hang on a minute. This is in conflict with tourism and recreational activities in our areas.” What has happened with this whole field is that a lot of distress has been caused because this Government has not given leadership. It has not given any proper planning to that whole area and because of that the ACT party has to oppose this bill.