Norman Russel William: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Norman Russel William: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:17727] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 This bill in many ways is a technical bill amending a mistake. It was a mistake in the original legislation in which various actors in the industry managed to find the loophole. It is a pity that we did not manage to find it ourselves but there we have it. For that reason the Greens will be supporting the bill. 
I think it is important to make the point that in fisheries as with many other activities sustainability is one of the key issues. I heard Eric Roy lamenting the fact that we did not have a 7 percent growth rate like the Chileans in aquaculture. Of course a 7 percent growth rate means a doubling every 10 years. It is hard to imagine how we could continue to double the size of our aquaculture industry every 10 years; only so many places are suitable for aquaculture. 
We have already had the problem of the gold rush that Mr Roy talked about. We had the gold rush before which is why we had to have the moratorium on aquaculture in order to give us some space to try to work out how to deal with it. All the legislation that came out after the moratorium was an attempt to manage that and this legislation is an attempt to make sure that we follow through properly. But I cannot help but notice that just as we had a gold rush in aquaculture which required a moratorium on issuing new consents we have also had a gold rush in dairying in this country. Perhaps we also need a moratorium on issuing new consents for dairying—to take water and to have effluent discharge to water—just as we had to have for the aquaculture industry. When we have a finite resource as we have with our water resources and as we have with our aquaculture or environments suitable for aquaculture there is often a gold rush as people try to be the first in to stake their claims in the gold rush. Although that is entrepreneurial and we can be only encouraged that people want to get ahead the fact is that with a finite resource it is the job of the Government and Parliament to actually manage the process and to manage what happens with aquaculture just as it is our job to manage what is happening with water right now—a job we are spectacularly failing to do at the moment. 
Mr Roy may well want a 7 percent growth rate every year but we cannot continue to double the size of our aquaculture industry indefinitely every 10 years. In fact we should aim ultimately for a steady-state aquaculture industry—one that works within the limits of the natural environment. Although it may come as a surprise to a species like ours which has become accustomed to exponential growth we cannot have exponential growth in a world that is finite. It is simply not possible. We cannot continue to increase the size of our aquaculture industry by 7 percent every year and not expect to run into serious problems. 
There is of course an interesting connection between the aquaculture industry the dairy industry and water in general which is that the aquaculture industry runs into real trouble when there are large amounts of E. coli and other faecal matter coming down our rivers and streams; large sections of our aquaculture industry when that happens have to stop harvesting. So there is actually a very close connection between cleaning up our rivers and lakes and protecting this very important and I hope ultimately sustainable industry which is the fact that if we do not clean up our rivers and lakes then we will continue to have a negative impact on our aquaculture industry. 
I am hoping then that what has happened with aquaculture could be a lesson and perhaps if we do it properly a model for how we deal with managing our water resources in this country. These will need a serious intervention of the level of the aquaculture moratorium if we stand any chance of actually having a sustainable dairy industry in New Zealand as well as hopefully a sustainable aquaculture industry. The Greens will be supporting this bill to go to the select committee and we will look forward to its deliberations.