Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I've spent a lot of time engaged in fisheries-related matters and got very little return. It's easier to spend 10 minutes in such activity and land nothing but we'll see if we can improve on that on this occasion.Hon Member: That was clever; very good Mr Penk—very good.CHRIS PENK: Thank you—thank you. There's plenty more where that came from. I note actually the Minister of fisheries is David Parker and I know that he likes fishing expeditions because in his role as revenue Minister he's got the IRD looking into the affairs of New Zealanders who are presumably too wealthy for his liking.Hon Michael Woodhouse: And often just they're sharks.CHRIS PENK: Anyway wearing a different—sharks indeed! Loan sharks perhaps even Mr Woodhouse. So thinking about this actual bill that is in front of us nevertheless it is in the literal meaning of the word fishing of course. I've not been involved in the legislative debates until this point so I've taken great pleasure and interest in hearing colleagues across the House giving their views on the matter including on behalf of their party and you'll have heard the views of National Party members in terms of obviously wanting to support the overarching aims of the legislation but expressing some wariness about the mechanism being created whereby a lot of regulations can come out of this primary legislation. I know that any regulations that pass the desk of the Regulations Review Committee will be well considered under the chairmanship of the Hon Judith Collins and that fine team but nevertheless it is incumbent upon us as legislators in this House none the less to make sure that we can bring to light any potential fishhooks. I'm sorry Mr Speaker. I didn't even mean that one. It's just quite hard to avoid. But nevertheless we do have to—Hon Dr David Clark: Plumbing new depths.CHRIS PENK: —make sure that we're not—I beg your pardon?Hon Dr David Clark: Plumbing new depths.CHRIS PENK: Plumbing new depths even according to the Hon David Clark. I love it thank you.Hon Dr David Clark: It was a real sinker that one!CHRIS PENK: Yes indeed. We're going to move on.Hon Michael Woodhouse: On a scale of one to 10—CHRIS PENK: Haha! You've got to say scale". I'm not going to do fish puns just for the halibut but anyway—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Perhaps you're using the wrong bait here Mr Penk.CHRIS PENK: Ha ha! Very good Mr Speaker. Hon Dr David Clark: Sole destroying! CHRIS PENK: Sole destroying—ha ha!Hon Michael Woodhouse: Now he's floundering.CHRIS PENK: Oh dear—floundering! I'm just repeating these at this point so that they get into Hansard. We don't want to miss any of these—don't want any of these to be the one that got away!Anyway on to the bill because it is a serious matter. One of the things I do look for and having an initial glance at this is the distinction if there was one between shellfish and what we might ordinarily call "fish"—fish proper for want of a better phrase. As I say I'm not an expert in the area. But all jokes aside it is a very serious topic of course for New Zealand and I'll come back to that distinction between shellfish and other fish shortly. But just to put the debate in context of course at the risk of stating the obvious New Zealand is a maritime nation. We are according to one characterisation a very large nation of which most of our territory is water. So looking at a map or a chart there's more blue than green which is how we like this Parliament as well of course on this side of the House too. But certainly in terms of the ecological reality it is hugely significant from an environmental perspective and of course from a commercial perspective as well. I understand from no less an authority than the legislative statement actually that there is some $4.2 billion worth of revenue or total economic activity I should say including $1.35 billion of export revenue in any given year associated with fishing and presumably fishing-related activities and sales and support activities and so on. According to my maths about a third is export dollars from that economic activity. So that's to be taken very seriously by any country particularly at the volumes we're talking now for New Zealand. So it is really important in a commercial sense. Tourist activity is popular as well. Remember tourists? We used to have those but at least theoretically that's an activity that any such people who may grace our shores again would enjoy as well and add to our reputation and the experience of those who would come here and spend some money on our shores. Thinking about the importance of the legislation and particularly its aim to spell out as clearly as possible which fish stocks are able to be kept or must be landed indeed versus those that are able to be discarded—of course in any given scenario that's important to provide some certainty for those who are out there on the water knowing how they're to regard their catch. But of course having rules in place and providing that certainty drives the behaviour as well. The behaviour in question would be—and again I don't profess to be an expert but the types of nets or lines or other paraphernalia and of course also the depths at which they're fishing the areas in which they would fish and so on. So having a set of guidelines and they use the word loosely—we're mostly talking about primary legislation again with that regulations element—the clearer we can make the matters for those who are engaged in this important activity the better it will be for them but also for the environment because then there won't be inadvertent catch of creatures that they're not able to catch. I do note actually and I should point this out for the sake of fairness that while we in the National Party are saying quite rightly that there's extensive provision for regulations to be made the bill as it now is which is the amendment to the Act does actually set out to some extent exemptions that can be made as they relate to existing regulations. So it's a bit of a hybrid I suppose in terms of the way that the whole regime operates.But I saw for example in relation to the schedule—I'm talking about existing regulations to do with many different types of fish: blue cod catches the eye at the start blue moki butterfish and so on—it goes through those settings in very specific detail; how catches and stocks and species are to be treated in each individual case. So it's quite interesting how it all fits together. I did notice within those regulations that scallops are mentioned so there is a shellfish element at least in part. And the reason that I'm interested in that is actually from a local perspective. For the Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate which is very coastal representing a wedge of that thin body of land that is the North Island of New Zealand in the upper part of that—obviously lots of coastal area obviously lots of good fisheries not only within shallow waters and in deeper waters but of course on the rocks as well—this is quite a controversial and a serious point in those parts and no doubt other coastal areas in New Zealand and elsewhere that people are interested in these matters from an environmental point of view. And that's to say that when the regulations allow a certain number of a particular kind of shellfish to be gathered per day the limit is expressed per person. So if you have a large gathering family or some other group each with access to that number of shellfish to be gathered and it's per person basis then over a relatively short period of time a single group can really clear out an area in a way that's surely very damaging to those ecosystems recognising the reliance of other creatures in turn on those shellfish as well as the importance of the shellfish themselves. From an ecological point of view but obviously recognising that there is a lifestyle implication for those who live near the water—there may even be an economic implication at an individual household level for people who rely on gathering shellfish and other types of fish for their sustenance and to put food on the table. And good luck to them I say if they want to do that activity. It's pretty hard work I would have thought but there are people amongst us for whom this is an important activity and therefore it should be important to us all. And certainly as I say from an environmental perspective that certainly makes sense. I think the select committee it seems to me from the outside did a good job of trying to grapple with understanding how this bill fits into the ecosystem from a parliamentary sense or a statute book perspective of how it all ties in. So the shellfish and the other fish obviously complement each other to some extent. And of course recreational and commercial types of fishing is another distinction we can draw; noting of course that if there's too much commercial activity then that will impinge on the ability some might say the right indeed of New Zealanders to engage in recreational fishing activity. So I think that's probably enough for me on the subject. I mean after 10 minutes whether I've landed anything or not you can be the judge of but in any case like my other colleagues in the National Party I do emphasise that we support the intent of the bill. We will watch carefully to see how its particular provisions are put forward by way of regulation and of course how those are enforced and applied and so forth. We commend the bill to the House."