Kuriger Barbara; Parker DavidBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki-King Country): Thank you Madam Chair. On Subpart 1 page 37 Minister I'd like to ask you: you've made a change to clause 5(6AB) around the habitat of trout and salmon. We had a number of concerns around the fishermen on this clause. Can I ask you to perhaps explain to those fishermen—so the piece that's been crossed out in your Supplementary Order Paper says The habitat of trout and salmon is protected so far as consistent with the protection of indigenous species." and in clause 5(6AB) that you've replaced it with "The habitat of trout and salmon are protected as far as this is consistent with the protection of the habitat of indigenous freshwater species." I just wanted to ask you a question really around the piece that says "as far as this is consistent with" and wondering if you could speak to the fishermen about just allaying their concerns on that issue. Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you to the member for that question. Well the Environment Committee said "Look this is not all about indigenous. We need to protect the habitat of trout and salmon." It's good; the existing Resource Management Act does that. One of the reasons why submitters wanted that is that a lot of the environmental advocacy that goes on up and down the country is actually by a fantastic membership-based organisation Fish and Game Councils. They are regional organisations they have a regional structure they do have a head office in Wellington but actually the head office is subservient to the regional bodies not the other way round although sometimes to them it doesn't feel that way I know. They've got members up and down the country who are passionately interested in protecting their access to trout and salmon and they're a force for good. They try and protect the habitat of trout and salmon against degradation. So they came along and said "Look you know we really find it harder to do our business if there's not a reference into the statute saying that the protection of a habitat of trout and salmon is important." and so the select committee put that into the statute. The Supplementary Order Paper corrects the grammar. As it was at select committee it said "The habitat of trout and salmon is protected." Well that was a rookie error by someone but "The habitat of trout and salmon are protected"—you could have different habitat of salmon to the habitat of trout therefore there is more than one habitat therefore they "are protected" rather than "is protected". So that's the first change.Then it said "so far as consistent with the protection of indigenous species" and the words "this is" were missed out. So the words "as far as consistent" have been changed to "as far as this is consistent". So the member can see I think that these are very technical changes. They do make the wording of it better easier for people to understand and that's actually the nature of a lot of the amendments in the SOP. Can I thank the officials for all of the enormous work they've done here. I do think that for Parliament I know there are people who say we're rushing it this legislation after all of the multiple reports in the three years that we've taken to land it. We've landed it within three years because that's all you have within a parliamentary term. I'm of the view that we do need a four-year parliamentary term and this is an example. But within that three-year term we have put a lot of pressure on officials as well as civil society to land it and so I'm very pleased with the effort that Government officials Parliamentary Counsel Office and the like have put in to make this legislation as good as it can be. And that is an example of how they've scrubbed up the legislation and improved it in minor ways since it came back from the select committee."