Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Talofa lava. Fa'afetai. We all deserve a strong safety net that helps people live with dignity and that's why the Greens were so pleased to see in this Budget the increase in income support for New Zealanders living in poverty in line with the recommendations of the Welfare Expert Advisory Group. That means 33000 children will be lifted out of poverty. This Budget has also seen a huge investment in climate-related activities: $2.1 billion. It quadruples the size of the Green Investment Fund to kick-start low-carbon technologies with an extra $300 million and there's been a major commitment in this Budget to recycle the revenue from the emissions trading scheme (ETS) from next year's Budget into green initiatives. That will mean approximately $3 billion can go towards climate action in coming years and when the Minister for Climate Change James Shaw is going to release the climate commission's final recommendations on 9 June knowing that all this ETS revenue can be invested in climate action it is really exciting. This Budget 2021 has been about people. It's been about investing in people and infrastructure and climate action. Papatūānuku also needs investment. There was a big increase in funding for conservation in Budget 2018 and in 2019 and then we saw in the COVID recovery package with Jobs for Nature an extra $1.3 billion across four agencies. In Budget 2021 there's an extra $132 million in Vote Environment for the design enactment transition and reform of the Resource Management Act (RMA) because of the recognition that it has really failed to protect the environment. It is too cumbersome and takes too much time and unlike in 1991 when the RMA was passed there is funding to help with implementation and the guidance that councils will need. There's also $28 million for kauri dieback to protect the taonga of our kauri forests but what's missing in terms of this Budget 2021 is an increased investment in our oceans in fisheries and in marine protection. So we haven't seen that. In the words of the Ministry for Primary Industries in answer to select committee questions there is—and I quote—no significant change" in the fisheries appropriations as a result of Budget 2021. There are no new policies or outputs no reprioritisation of funds and just no change to the outlook. So that is same old same old but same old same old is not delivering for fisheries management. It is not delivering for our oceans. We've got a huge information deficit in terms of fisheries management and big shortfalls in information about fish stocks about species bycatch and about ecosystem impacts of fisheries. That's long been recognised and it was highlighted by the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor Dr Juliet Gerrard in this report about the future of commercial fisheries. But this Budget has no additional funding for fisheries research. That's despite some fish stocks being in freefall. In 2020 nine fish stocks were reported as collapsed five were virtually certain to be experiencing overfishing and two were likely to be experiencing overfishing. We need more funds for stock assessment and we need more funds for that to be done every year. In 2019 only 160 fish stocks had been scientifically evaluated. There were 228 fish stocks that hadn't been assessed. Those 228 fish stocks account for 30 percent of our commercial catch. Expecting sustainable fisheries management without real-time assessment of those stocks is not sustainable management. Forty-six percent of our commercial catch comes from bottom trawling. The Budget in 2022 needs to provide for significantly more investment to tackle the impacts that bottom trawling has on beds the ecosystems and the habitat. Overseas there's been a lot more effort to protect seamounts as biological hot spots but not here. There's no extra funding in the Budget for reform of marine protection. That may be being done under Fisheries New Zealand's baseline and the Department of Conservation Te Papa Atawhai's baseline. It is urgent because the 1971 Marine Reserves Act is outdated. It doesn't provide adequately for Te Tiriti. It's focused around protection for scientific research. We need major reform of marine protection and we need an investment in that. We rely on our oceans. They've helped protect us from a warming climate and we need more investment."