Wedd Catherine; Tuiono TeanauCATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki): Look I rise in support of the Resource Management (Extended Duration of Coastal Permits for Marine Farms) Amendment Bill because this is a great bill because it will drive productivity and it will help our Government achieve what we want to in the next 10 years and that is doubling the value of our exports.Aquaculture is going to play a very large role in this. The sector generated in 2023 $763 million including $575 million of export revenue; and the sector employs over 3000 people—3225 people to be exact. The aquaculture sector has huge potential to grow and it has potential to be a multibillion-dollar industry. As the chair of our committee who has just spoken has said we did hear from a lot of industry players during the Primary Production Committee process. We heard from the marine farms and many of them spoke to us about the cost the red tape and the regulation that they were all facing as industries at the moment which was obviously very very restrictive for the industry. They spoke about the bureaucratic process and just the restriction in terms of being able to grow as an industry.Officials actually spoke to us and said that it was costing about $6 million at the moment in terms of these reconsenting processes. So this is a cost that these industries could be putting back into innovation into technology into rebuilding—and building—their industries. The industry representative groups as we've already heard did speak about some of this innovation that they could be investing in. The Marine Farming Association spoke about the King Shag research project and the mussel bed restoration project—all examples of things that they could be refocusing a lot of that potential cost into these projects.Then we heard from Moana which is the largest Māori-owned seafood company a fully integrated oyster farming operation with 28 farms. They spoke about their concerns around the consenting process and then having to go through these processes over and over and over again with the same information kind of the same bureaucracy they were going through. They spoke about how this was really restrictive in terms of being able to grow as an industry. And you know this is a company which is providing hundreds and hundreds of jobs and opportunities in provincial New Zealand as the member has already spoken about. These businesses talked about wanting confidence and certainty to be able to reinvest. This bill is all about creating confidence and certainty and driving productivity in this sector.But I must say there was one couple who did come up from the Marlborough Sounds during the submission process and they are a couple that I will remember. It was the first time that they had submitted and they just spoke about the hard work that they had been doing over decades in this industry. They were creating hundreds of jobs down there in the Marlborough Sounds and they just talked about the red tape gone mad the bureaucracy gone mad and the cost. It's businesses like this that we want to be aspirational for. We want to be aspirational for our food producers and for our primary industries in New Zealand.That is why this is a good bill. It supports aquaculture in New Zealand and it supports us moving forward and driving productivity. That is why I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The next call is a split call.