Ardern Shane: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Fisheries Amendment Bill (No 4) — In Committee 
[Volume:619;Page:14568] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 I have been seeking a call on this bill for some time and I need to say at the outset that this bill is probably the most unfair thing I have seen in my time in Parliament. I am reminded of the words of none other than Albert Einstein. He said that some of the things we do count are not worth counting and some of the things we can count do not count—and that is exactly what we have here with this legislation tonight and with this proposal here. We have an arbitrary decision made by a Minister at a point in time based on the technology that is available today which ultimately demonstrates a huge amount of what should one say discretionary decision-making based on the advice that he has been given and it is unfair. 
At the end of the day there is no other way to sum it up but to say it is unfair. If one looks at the list of people who submitted to the Primary Production Committee and at the extensive process that that very very able select committee went through particularly in relation to this part of the bill which was the time issue around quota or the fish that went into quota one cannot help but conclude that the very very good select committee did the best it could with what was available but was often given bad advice. There was a huge amount of unfairness in the process that took place leading up to that point in time. 
That being said what should members do now to move forward? There is a recommendation here before the Committee and I yield to my learned colleagues who were in the select committee because it is a hugely complex issue. This is demonstrated by the number of submissions that were put forward and certainly demonstrated by the depth of work that had gone on by some of those people to try to establish how to move forward from this point. I yield to them when they say that this is probably about as good as we can get under the circumstances. But there are a number of people who are still outside of that and they need to be considered. Those who came before the select committee and told the select committee that history had been bad for them included Mr Trevor Goodship and Pranfield Holdings Mr Wayne Howell and H G Cave United Fisheries Vautier Shelf Company and Mr Middleton Mr Noel McLellan and Sealord Group. 
The National Party said in its report in the commentary on the bill that there are a number of others who potentially for whatever reason may come through the system with a proposal that is equally as robust as those that I have mentioned. If that were to happen I would presume that the Minister with the particular legislation that is before Parliament today will take them on board as well if that were to happen. Maybe the Minister in the chair the Hon David Benson-Pope will take a call and tell us whether that is so. What I do know is that there has been a tremendous amount of I guess parliamentary consideration of this matter and the decision at the end of the day is just an arbitrary decision made by those with the information that was provided to them. 
I have listened with great interest to the concerns put forward by Mr Ewen-Street who was on the select committee for a while and then was absent from the select committee. I think someone said earlier he was a victim of by-catch and potentially that is so I am not sure. But he was absent from the select committee for a while—let us leave it at that. He was affected by by-catch at the select committee that is for sure. That having been said he has some concerns that on the surface sound fairly genuine. 
The problem is we cannot fix one grievance by creating another and that is where the National Party view differs from that of Mr Ewen-Street. I say to Mr Ewen-Street that we cannot take from one group to give to another in an attempt to try to fix a past grievance even though I know the Green Party has an egalitarian approach to these kinds of things and plays a Robin Hood role on a lot of things—that is not going to be fair either quite frankly. So when it comes to this particular clause I think he may be a little bit misguided in his approach to that. The quota management of scampi or getting scampi into the quota management system is clearly the best way to manage this fishery based on the science that is available today.