Roy Eric: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Roy Eric: Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
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ERIC ROY (National—Invercargill) 
: 
 I was looking for someone else to take a call on this important matter— 
Nathan Guy 
: You’d think the Government would be into it. They’re running out of puff. 
ERIC ROY 
: Yes well I actually thought it was the Government’s bill. There was a reasonably abbreviated response from the Minister when he introduced this and I was looking for something a little more full because being a little underdone on what is quite a complex bill I was hoping for some elaboration. But I am very happy to talk conceptually about what this bill will do given that the detail is quite complex. 
The issue quite simply comes down to this. New Zealand has a significant advantage compared with the rest of the world in putting in place fisheries legislation in terms of our wild fisheries but in terms of where we sit with the rest of the world and our role with agriculture it has been the sunrise industry for about a decade. We are all waiting. When I went to a seminar about 6 or 7 years ago we were told that it would be a $2 billion industry by the year 2015. I think it has grown about 3 percent in that period. The nuts and bolts are that we are significantly behind. The Minister for the Environment Trevor Mallard is shaking his head. I ask the Minister what the figure is. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I can’t give it off the top of my head but it is certainly more than that. 
ERIC ROY 
: No it is not very much more than that. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: There has been good growth. 
ERIC ROY 
: There has been minimal growth and the Minister knows that. Not only that but there have been some endemic problems that have not been addressed by this Government. We have had a situation that was largely what might be termed a gold rush if we can say that. It is a spatial rush. Limited areas have been designated people got in and registered and some of those areas have been developed and some of them have not. In a way we have not had the best possible ways of apportioning space to the industry and in a lot of ways we have not best matched that space to the best species. 
We had a significant number of difficulties around experimentation and this is addressed to some degree in the bill. We have also had some issues around things like spat catching and being able to transfer spat into areas where the mussel industry has been operating as aquaculture. We have before us a No. 2 amendment bill. It is a kind of omnibus bill: it picks up four different Acts. There will have to be consequential legislation to these four different Acts and I understand that at the end of the day this bill will be divided into four separate Acts. The select committee is keen to move forward and to progress this. The Minister nods his head; he knows— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I am just having a laugh because I thought the member was supporting it. 
ERIC ROY 
: We are supporting it. In actual fact my message to the Minister is quite clear: he has sat on his hands for too long. We have known about the Aquaculture Legislation Amendment Bill (No 2) for some months yet it has just appeared on the last day of Parliament. 
Hon Member 
: They had 9 years. 
ERIC ROY 
: They had 9 long years. We heard the term “9 long years” frequently spoken today in Labour’s valedictory speeches. We have been in Opposition for 9 long years and on the last day in urgency the bill is suddenly put in. We do not know the shape of the next Primary Production Committee but the current one would have loved to get its teeth into this and sort out these issues— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Eric I’ll just give you a comment. I wanted to do this as part of the first bill but David Carter turned me down. 
ERIC ROY 
: No that was a separate issue. We needed to have this bill in well before that other bill. That was a specific issue and the Minister knows that. We are supporting this legislation. 
I am sure the select committee is looking forward to resolving some of these issues. I am not sure who the members will be but the new select committee with most probably a new chair and new membership will have this bill to cut its teeth on. I just put out this little warning. Fisheries legislation is in some ways more complex than tax legislation. It is hugely difficult so we do not want any shortcuts. 
I say to the Minister in the dying days of this Government that we should have had this bill before now. We support it. We look forward to hearing the submissions and to progressing this omnibus bill which will step forward— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Omnibus? 
ERIC ROY 
: It is an omnibus bill; it says so in the explanatory note. We look forward to progressing it. Thank you.