Dyson Ruth: Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19359. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):Can I first of all acknowledge the drivers of the legislation the Kaikōura (Te Tai-o-Marokura) Marine Management Bill that we are debating today Te Korowai o Te Tai o Marokura the Kaikōura Coastal Marine Guardians. The leadership demonstrated within that group by a variety of people but specifically Tā Mark Solomon should be commended by everybody in this House.This process is unusual. It was actually instigated by the Hon Chris Carter during his term as Minister of Conservation in 2005 in response to a concern from the Kaikōura residents and users of the marine environment that there was very little protection and that the legislative framework we currently operate under does not provide a strong opportunity for people to get together and get an agreement such as we are seeing delivered today. The report from that group was not presented for another 7 years. That is how much effort and time has gone in but not because of arguments or any deliberate slowing down. There was no filibustering going on amongst this group. It was because of a genuine need to debate issues that are hard and that are contentious.The report was provided to the then Minister of Conservation and has been delivered by the current Minister of Conservation the Hon Nick Smith and I want to commend him for not just his work on this bill but also the way that he has responded to the comments from the Local Government and Environment Committee. We do not always have that response from Ministers and it is really appreciated when after the select committee has worked hard on an issue that issue gets a considered response from the Minister.The bill does some good things and I think that is of course to be commended. The concerns that were raised at the select committee however which the Minister has alluded to in rather a negative fashion—unnecessarily in my view—were that the agreement that has been reached is not consistent with best practice marine reserve protection. I think that is a tension that future Parliaments need to grapple with and resolve. You can legislate on top of local concerns or you can work with local stakeholders and come up with an agreement that might be less than best practice. There may be other opportunities to promote best practice and remove some of the concerns that local people have. In this instance it is obviously fishing. We are excluding some areas from pāua or crayfishing. In particular this area was of course a concern to local people. That is livelihood or that is their tradition but the marine scientists whom we had appear before the select committee said this does not cut the mustard in terms of best practice.So the decision for the select committee was whether we go part-way towards what would be the best marine sanctuary and accept the consideration of this local committee that as I said has been working for 7 years on this legislation or whether we say no we would rather hold out for best practice. I think we made the correct decision in saying we should support the hard work and commitment that has been shown by local people particularly given our understanding that at no time were they guided towards a framework of best practice marine reserve legislation. So on that basis we support it.I do not think that the National Government should be claiming great credit for this. Actually it has not done any work on it at all. It has been the work of the local people. The fact that it is coming before the House now and that it has been announced at least twice by the Minister of Conservation is really a bit of election year window-dressing to make it look as if the Government gives a toss about environment and conservation issues. I do not think that its track record is very good and I do not think its future commitments are any better.The undermining of the Department of Conservation in terms of the funding that has been allocated to it through the Budget in terms of the staffing resources and in terms of the total absence of the advocacy role—the core role of the Department of Conservation—is a matter to be ashamed of and I hope the Minister bows his head in that shame. There have been over 140 job losses at the Department of Conservation. It has really lost its connection with the community and that it not the fault of any single staff member. It is because the constant restructuring and the centralisation of its functions has meant that that so important ability to understand relate to and respond to its community has gone.We know that provincial New Zealand has been hardest hit by these cuts. In Nelson and Marlborough just this week we have had further job losses announced. So it is really the heart of the Department of Conservation that has been cut out. We know that we have some critically endangered species that the department no longer has either the resource ability or the clout to be able to do anything about.We know in particular of the issue of the critically endangered Māui’s dolphins. There are more National members of Parliament than there are Māui’s dolphins and I want to change both those figures in the coming weeks. I want the number of National members of Parliament to drop and I want the number of Māui’s dolphins to increase. The very future of that subspecies the future of the Māui’s dolphin is at risk because of the inability of the Minister of Conservation to stand up and speak on behalf of that critically endangered species. He has let the Minister for Primary Industries just ride roughshod over not only him on his own but also the future of that species.We know that in the proposal for the Ruataniwha Dam—the proposal that would turn the Tukituki River toxic—the Minister of Conservation made his views so clearly known that the Department of Conservation withdrew its substantial submission in opposition to the planned change and the Ruataniwha Dam—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on the second reading of this bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: Therefore its submission was watered down to next to nothing. So although this bill should be trumpeted and should be supported and will certainly be by Labour it should not be a gold star against the Minister of Conservation who has done no work in this space. The Kaikōura Coastal Marine Guardians did all this work. At the same time he is doing so little in areas that need so much attention.Of course the most damning aspect of the National Government’s proposals has been one that has had to be put on hold—that is National’s changes to the Resource Management Act. I want to put on record my appreciation to the Hon Peter Dunne who actually read the proposed legislation from the National Government and said National’s proposals to change the Resource Management Act would gut the very principles of the Act—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! We are on the second reading of the bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: —and therefore he was not able to support it. So this bill is good but it has to be balanced up against the bad things that are either being done the terrible things that are not being stood up against such as protection of the Māui’s dolphins or the proposals that would gut the very heart of the Resource Management Act.I just want to return to my commendation of the guardians. It was a very unusual select committee process that we went through in Kaikōura. We had submitter after submitter after submitter from local residents and Ngāi Tahu representatives including Tā Mark Solomon. We had representatives from the pāua industry we had representatives from the crayfish industry and from the wider fishing industry. We had Forest and Bird representatives. We had representatives from whale-watching. So there was a wide range of representatives from the Kaikōura community all saying that they supported this legislation. I do not think that has ever happened before. I do not think we have had what is often a very controversial proposal to have marine protection to have exclusion of fishing from a specific area—I do not recall any time when we have had such unanimous support from the local community.This is the first whale sanctuary of its type. It is the first New Zealand fur seal sanctuary of its type. It includes five customary fishing areas two tai-ā-pure and three mātaitai. It establishes an advisory committee and it introduces fishing regulations that are specific to this area and of course the overall marine reserve protection.I want to just conclude by noting my appreciation of the advanced notice that the Minister has given us of his intention to move a Supplementary Order Paper that changes the review period from 25 years to 10 years. Labour will be supporting that Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Minister. I think it is a good move. I think the idea of having a review of these marine protected areas is sound. There must be monitoring. There must be some science behind the review so that we can look at what we have currently and what we may lose but certainly what we will gain from this marine protection. That will give us a very solid base for the review in 10 years’ time and I look forward to it. On that basis I am pleased to add my support to this legislation.