Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Speaker. The Minister who has resumed his seat is going to need to do an awful lot better than that if he wants to sell his water reform package in a couple of weeks' time because if that was a warm-up speech for a kind of defence that he is going to mount on that kind of policy and it applies to this tricky slippery whitebait-banning piece of legislation he's going to have to do an awful lot better. At first reading this bill was presented to the House as an innocuous indigenous fishes' protection piece of legislation. It was delivered to the House as a technical minor piece of legislation a piece of legislation that was designed to be protecting and to ensure enhancement of a fishery. When we got it to the Environment Committee—having been aware of the legal opinion that Fish & Game had had prepared by none other than that legal giant Sir Geoffrey Palmer who had expressed in his opinion great concerns about the bill—it became immediately obvious that the bill as introduced as presented to this Parliament actually was something quite different. The officials were completely at sixes and sevens in terms of their understanding of the purpose of the bill. They were completely unsure about the direction that the Minister of Conversation was trying to take or indeed what was the required outcome from the bill. It was only after lengthy sustained and persistent questioning by National Party members on the select committee that the true purpose of this bill began to emerge and it was like pulling teeth to try and find out what it was all about. We went at them week after week to try and get clear simple answers.What we found was that actually within this bill was camouflaged intent camouflaged language camouflaged purpose and absolutely a camouflaged attack on really the whitebait fishing that has been so much of the tradition of the New Zealand way of life. What this bill seeks to do—and I listened to the Minister completing her speech this afternoon and she again repeated that this is a piece of legislation designed to create a tool box to give a complete tool box to her and the conservation department. What we found out is that a complete tool box" is a euphemism for "a ban"—a complete ban—and that is not what was put to us at first reading. This is a Government that at one stage—I remember back to the Speech from the Throne where the Speech from the Throne proclaimed that this was going to be the most open transparent and honest Government that New Zealand had ever seen. Actually this bill is an indictment upon that pledge because nothing could be more open or transparent or honest than a bill that purports to do one thing but actually has an intent and a desire and an objective to do something completely opposite. It's Orwellian in its definition this bill. So we have a bill on the face of it that appears to be some kind of conservation measure but that actually is designed to achieve a political purpose that is not what was put to this House at first reading and it was only through diligent careful persistent questioning at select committee that we were able to get to the bottom of it. I want to commend the work that my colleague Sarah Dowie has done on this because she's been able to delve into the detail of this bill and find really what the Minister's true intent is.So we had a disguised purpose a hidden meaning and what is essentially the use of a piece of Government legislation to pursue what is a political ideological debate around the rights of people whitebait fishing. Actually what this piece of legislation does is ensure that the Minister will have a tool box that enables her to ban whitebait fishing when she wants to. Previous comments that she's made not in Government but in Opposition would indicate actually that that has been an intent for some considerable time. So when the Minister says "no ban within the next 12 months" that's code for "a ban very soon after 12 months" after the so-called consultative process is complete. So we on this side understand completely what the objective of this piece of legislation is. What we will continue to do is to make that objective very clear to New Zealanders who have for generations been able to whitebait fish in a way that has ensured that the traditions are maintained and upheld. We will defend our right as an Opposition to expose the hidden objective and the hidden agenda of this Government who want to do things under the guise of conservation. This is a bad bill. It's much worse than we thought it was going to be and it's deeply flawed in so many ways."