Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): It's an absolute pleasure to take the final call on the third reading of the Conservation (Indigenous Freshwater Fish) Amendment Bill. Basically growing up I have really fond memories of biking over to my grandmother's house with a couple of mates I always took with me. We used to grab her whitebait net and then lug it down to the river and then we'd spend the afternoon whitebaiting. We always had a really great time—didn't catch much but it was a really good way to spend an afternoon. Thinking back my mum grew up on the river whitebaiting and my grandmother also before her. Basically that's where some of those family stories came from about catching so many whitebait that it filled the kerosene tins. They had to lug them home and they fed the leftovers to the chickens.The issue is many of us grew up whitebaiting but this is not the Conservation of Whitebait Patties Bill" and this is also not the "Conservation of Rights to Gravel Extraction Bill". This is the conservation of indigenous freshwater fish bill and particularly our threatened freshwater fish. Even a lot of the really experienced whitebaiters down on the river they also believe that things need to change to protect this vulnerable fishery. So this is a really really important bill. Why is it important? It is because so many of our freshwater fish are threatened or at risk of extinction. When we looked at the Ministry for the Environment's 2017 freshwater report they were monitoring 39 native freshwater species and they reported that 72 percent were either threatened or at risk of extinction—so most of our indigenous freshwater fish and that also included four of our whitebait species along with lampreys and longfin eels all of them threatened and at risk.Fish are unique in a sense in New Zealand in terms of our indigenous species. We've got native birds we've got reptiles—they are protected no matter where they live. They can live in a conservation area they can live in a reserve they can live in a national park and they're fully protected but thinking about our threatened indigenous freshwater species they're only protected if they're in national parks or reserves. So if they're in conservation areas then they're not protected from fishing. So this bill paves the way for better management of our freshwater species but it also protects the habitats in which they live.If you think about the life cycle of our freshwater fish habitat is incredibly important because when they're swimming downstream to spawn what they end up doing is spawning and laying their eggs in that long grass that basically get laid at spring tides and then the eggs mature and they wait for the next spring tide to float them off larvae hatch and they go out to sea and then the whitebait swim back up the river some months later. That's an incredible interaction with the environment at every space. So if we're mowing the grass verges so there's no long grass if we're putting in place obstacles so they can't migrate if we're draining all the swamps and wetlands then it's really really difficult particularly if we've got a lot of pollution nutrients entering our water. It makes it very very difficult.So what this bill does is it not only looks at protection from being caught in terms of whitebaiting; it also looks at some of our habitat protection. The first thing this bill does is it basically puts restrictions so that the director-general can set regulations about catching those species in our conservation areas. So what it's talking about is the director-general may by issuing notice in the Gazette authorise the taking of indigenous freshwater fish from areas other than national parks but it also particularly says that without those authorisations then you can't fish in a conservation area. So those regulations are incredibly important but because again it's important to have that consultation those regulations won't be put in place and become active for at least a minimum period of two years so we've got that time from when this bill comes into force that we can have that consultation and set up that regime properly—incredibly important.Also it is looking at spawning sites and protection of them but also putting in place regulations around declaring noxious fish that we can look at how we manage those in terms of control prohibitions and also looking at things in terms of barriers that get erected within rivers that can stop fish migrating up.There are a lot of extra tools in this tool kit that are incredibly important for the protection of our vulnerable species so I have no hesitation in commending this bill to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker."