Peters Jim: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
Peters Jim: Aquaculture Reform Bill — Second Reading Instructions to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:622;Page:17707] 
JIM PETERS (NZ First) 
: 
 I am very pleased to follow Mr Heatley because he and I come from a district where marine farming is important and significant. This year there are 149 marine consents of various types in Northland. Ninety Mile Beach is the most significant source of mussel spat in New Zealand. Recently a consent was given for a spat farm in Whangape. Last of all in the identification of potential sites of great influence for this country Marlborough and Thames-Coromandel were just ahead of Northland. Therefore I am pleased to be able to speak on Part 1 on behalf of New Zealand First. We have waited impatiently for many many months and years to get to this point. 
I assure the Committee that the issues raised by Mr Heatley have been in the minds of regional councils such as Northland’s for many many months. There is nothing in the criteria and the steps set out in clause 4A “Purpose” that I find irregular or unusual. When reading paragraph (b) which states: “to empower the Minister of Conservation to direct regional councils” one is aware of the fact that the Minister of Conservation has such powers now. That Minister has such powers under the Resource Management Act in relation to marine activity which this matter is part of and therefore it does not seem unusual that the Minister of Conservation should be part of this process—he or she hitherto always has been. As those of us looking at the Marine Reserves Bill know there is dual ministerial duty over marine reserves at present by both the Minister of Fisheries and the Minister of Conservation. 
I see nothing here that we could not proceed with now in regard to my region. The criteria for councils to follow for defined coastal plans in terms of the effects on coastal space and so on which are outlined in subparagraphs (i) to (vi) of clause 4A are normal practice in regard to plans. Surely we are aware of the fact that if there are to be changes there is an orderly process and procedure for doing just that. Other parts of the bill set out how that should be done. There are certain criteria for publicly notified plans to ensure that they are all identified that the public are made aware of them and that they are part of public consultation. If there is to be a private plan procedure then again there will be public notification and all the issues set out in clause 4A will be carefully defined in that plan. So I see nothing irregular or unusual there at all. 
But I wish the Minister in charge of the bill David Benson-Pope was in the chair because there are problems in regard to Ministry of Fisheries’ farms and sites up to this point as many of them have not been under careful monitoring or care. When we went through Northland looking at the proposed marine areas we saw some disgusting evidence in Kerikeri and other places of abandoned or would-be abandoned sites of a historic nature that were all under the Ministry of Fisheries. 
One of the issues that concerns many councils is who will be responsible for that clean-up. Did the Government’s Ministry of Fisheries when it gave out those allocations take care to monitor and to provide for the very issues that Mr Heatley raised? In other words was there over the years such a lack of care and attention that abatement notices should have been placed upon those sites or licences—abandoned or not—but instead nothing was done? It is of grave concern that although any council will be able to work through the defined plans outlined here at the end of that exercise we still will find that although recently awarded council sites—in Northland there have been 35 since 1992—have been monitored and closely analysed many earlier sites were not. 
I am not blaming any Government ministry or department; I am merely saying that there is a real situation out there now of sites that were poorly looked after and that could be very easily identified but that could be part of productive industry in the future. They would be subject to planning but before that could be implemented there would need to be a dramatic change to and clean-up of those sites. 
The second issue that I want very quickly to look at and that I will come back to in some detail is that we heard some discussion earlier with regard to clause 21 and its effect on Maori and treaty issues—so-called. I certainly want to take a further call to develop that at some length.