Hughes Gareth: Kaikōura (Te Tai o Marokura) Marine Management Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHughes Gareth: Kaikōura (Te Tai o Marokura) Marine Management Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19778. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GARETH HUGHES (Green):Kia ora Mr Chair ngā mihi nui ki a koutou kia ora. It is fantastic that in the last hours of this Parliament we are seeing marine reserve and marine protection laws passing through our Parliament. So I would like to do a round of thanks—thanks to the Minister of Conservation thanks to the officials and thanks to the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Maggie Barry who was actually a very surprisingly good chair. I would like to thank all the members all the submitters and most of all I would like thank Te Korowai the collaborative group that worked in Kaikōura to develop the policy that we see before us soon to become an Act of Parliament the Kaikōura (Te Tai o Marokura) Marine Management Bill.It is fantastic that we are protecting our waters. It is something that we need to do more. We have got only 0.41 percent of all of our waters less than half of 1 percent protected in marine reserves. We have got the Māui’s dolphin on the cusp of extinction Bryde’s whales going that way in the Hauraki Gulf and the New Zealand sea lion critically endangered. We are seeing our oceans in crisis with climate change acidification pollution waste and overfishing all threatening the health and viability of our oceans. The Pacific forum meets right now to discuss the moana this blue highway that connects our Pacific States. It is important that it has put the oceans on the agenda and it is great to see this Parliament doing something about it.I want to say very loudly and very clearly that the Green Party supports this bill. We support it. We voted for it at every stage. We have worked constructively in the Local Government and Environment Committee within the constraints to try to improve it. There have been some improvements such as the 25-year review now being reduced to a 10-year review once we see Supplementary Order Paper 481 agreed. In saying that we support it and we will be voting for it I do want to get three concerns on the Hansard of our Parliament. The first is that the Marine Protected Areas Policy and the marine protected areas classification protection standards and implementation guidelines were not applied. This is something that officials and Ministers have put a great deal of work into over the years. It is disappointing that these guidelines have not been applied in this case.Secondly we see the Hikurangi Marine Reserve. It is fantastic to be doing a marine reserve covering an oceanic trench—a biodiversity hotspot. Part of the thriving Kaikōura economy is built on the whale-watching industry which is associated with the trench. It is great to be doing it but what we see with this marine reserve is only a tiny amount touching the coast—1.97 kilometres. It must be the oddest marine reserve we have got in the country—a 12-sided irregular shape. I do not think there is a name for the type of shape that describes this marine reserve which only touches the bottom the benthos of the Hikurangi trench not the sides which are the real ecological hotspot areas. Given that we have heard advice from marine reserves and marine science experts that the boundary effects are magnified the enforcement obligations are made more difficult and the difficulties of communicating such a complex 12-sided shape is not ideal—obviously it would not meet those guidelines—what we would have preferred is a more regular consistent shape where those boundary effects are reduced it is easier to communicate easier to enforce and easier to protect. So we have some concerns over the process. We have some concerns over the trench reserve in particular.Thirdly when it comes to the whale sanctuary the Green Party would have preferred to have seen the other marine mammals species protected. It is great to see a whale sanctuary but we need to be protecting all of our marine mammals. So we would have preferred to have seen a similar marine mammal reserve as under the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 which could have protected the whales could have protected the seals and could have protected the Hector’s dolphin which brings me to my final point.Kiwis have a very clear choice on the oceans this election. We see that this bill will pass which is fantastic but what we have not seen action on from National is real action to save the Māui’s dolphin. What we see is National opening up a third of the Māui sanctuary to seabed mining. What we see is National wanting to see seismic testing which can deafen the dolphins and drive them into lethal trawling nets. In fact we still see those lethal legal set nets and trawl nets in the Māui sanctuary. We see our New Zealand sea lions on the path to extinction and action not taken to save them. We see a Government that is literally subsidising with taxpayers’ money tens of millions of dollars to seabed miners despite the Department of Conservation itself saying that it is troubling and likely to degrade the environment—for example risking the survival of the Māui’s dolphin.So for people watching the parliamentary broadcast if people out in New Zealand want to see a party that is going to stand up to protect what we love which is the oceans the ability to catch a wave catch a cray and go for a fish and the ability to protect the oceans which are the lifeblood of our economy of which our prosperity is built on the Green Party is the clear choice because the Green Party will act to protect our oceans.