Scott Lynda: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
Scott Lynda: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17725] 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I wish to follow on from where my very good colleague Phil Heatley finished off and talk about the undue adverse effects of aquaculture on fishing. In the Marlborough Sounds at the moment the farms are really quite small in relation to what is being proposed with deep-sea farming. Deep-sea farming is quite experimental and as yet has not really been trialled because of the moratorium but it is the next big step for marine farming in New Zealand. If it goes ahead and proves to be successful those undersea farms will not have a visual impact but they could take up a large amount of space. If they do we will see more effect on the actual fisheries process. 
Marine farmers are happy at this time to see some finality so that their industry can move ahead but they certainly are not happy that a one-stop shop process has not been delivered by this Government. That was the other major issue they wanted. The first issue was first right of refusal so that those who had invested in the industry could maintain their business; the second was a one-stop shop. Those who have been around the aquaculture industry will know that the process at the moment whereby people have to go through a Resource Management Act process then through a fisheries permit process is extremely frustrating. The Ministry of Fisheries was taking over 2 years to process applications for just small—in some cases—extensions to marine farms and during that time the resource consents under the Resource Management Act would run out. When the Government extended the moratorium it had to pass special legislation to capture those people who had gone to the time trouble and effort to get a new resource consent only to find that because of the process through the Ministry of Fisheries it had run out. 
When they rang up and asked questions they were charged $200 an hour. That was the charge-out fee with which the ministry tried to stop angry frustrated marine farmers from ringing up and asking what the ministry was doing. When I wrote to the Minister of Fisheries about the issue he said he had offered the ministry more resources and it had said it did not need them—that it could cope. Two years later it is having to put in a whole lot more staff to deal with these permits. 
Members can understand an industry that was growing at 20 percent and is now growing at 0 percent becoming extremely frustrated. The men and women who forged an industry and developed it for New Zealand and who were way ahead of the game—way ahead of Chile and other areas like Australia—have been basically stalled at the gates of the 21st century. They are pleased to see this bill being debated tonight but they are not pleased that they still do not have just one process. They have to go through the Resource Management Act process for a consent but the Ministry of Fisheries can still stop a process from going forward. It can look at the spatial effects and stop the process if it feels there is an undue adverse effect on fishing. 
I know that the recreational fishers in the Sounds will be happy. We love those marine farms because there are always lots of snapper around them—but I should not give away the places where everyone should go and fish. The main effect will be on the commercial fishermen and they will have concerns about large spatial areas because they want to be able to fish in that space themselves. However aquaculture does make a lot of money for Marlborough—it was our highest income-earner—and it could make a huge amount of money for New Zealand. But the fact is that Australia and Chile are now getting into the game in a very big way and we have lost quite a lot of our intellectual capital to those countries because people have been so frustrated by this Government.