Robertson Grant: Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 04 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7122. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour): To take up the suggestion of the member who has just resumed her seat Nicky Wagner I do not think the visit should be restricted to the Local Government and Environment Committee. I believe that anyone who has made the effort to be here at 20 past 12 on a Wednesday afternoon deserves the right to be there and I see Amy Adams is seconding that idea as well.The Labour Party is certainly supporting the Subantarctic Islands Marine Reserves Bill. I think it is worth noting that the area we are talking about here actually does have World Heritage status. New Zealand should be rightly proud but also at the same time feel a sense of responsibility for ensuring that we continue to support the status of these very important parts of the planet.Previous speakers have gone through in some detail the nature of the islands that we are talking about and the process that they have been through in terms of protection initially for the land itself under the Reserves Act and then carrying on through there with the Auckland Islands territorial sea becoming fully protected in 2003 and moving through various regulations to the point that we can reach now where these sets of islands will be protected. As I say on this side of the House we are strongly supportive of that process.What I wanted to focus my comments on in this first reading was the way in which this legislation comes to the House. This is special legislation to create these marine reserves. We are not creating these reserves under the law that currently exists for the creation of marine reserves the Marine Reserves Act 1971. A number of excellent things occurred in New Zealand in 1971. I was born for instance as one of those things. That is a moment that many people will note I am sure. Louise Upston was possibly born just a little before then I think.Louise Upston: No that year. Come on!GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh that year? That year sorry. I thought it was the year before. I apologise—Louise Upston: No 1971.GRANT ROBERTSON: I withdraw and apologise for that—another 1971 baby there as well. So 1971 was overall—on balance—a good year although it is starting to waver a little. But overall it was a good year and it was the year in which New Zealand passed its marine reserves legislation that put us at the forefront of marine protection in the world. This was legislation that was world-leading in terms of creating effectively no-take zones around our coastline. Other countries were well behind. My colleague Phil Goff has already spoken about the damage that has been done in other jurisdictions by not having this kind of legislation.The issue that New Zealand now has fast-forwarding 40-odd years is that New Zealand is now actually falling behind in terms of the way that we go about marine protection.Colin King: There was nothing done for 9 years.GRANT ROBERTSON: We are left with 40-year-old legislation that is in fact cumbersome. It has been suggested that this is something that could have had something done about it in Labour’s 9 years. I actually do accept that. I accept that the last Labour Government did need to try to make progress on this. To that end it had marine reserves legislation that sat on the books. The problem the Labour Government had in these days of MMP and minority Governments was getting a coalition of parties that would support that legislation. I recall this very well because it was part of my working life at the time to try to find the support for that legislation. Members on the other side of the House who have such enthusiasm now for marine reserves may wish to reflect that they were not in favour of that legislation but neither unfortunately was a majority of the House.What that now means in 2012 is that we are left with legislation that is in fact hopelessly out of date and very inefficient. For this bill one of the considerations that officials had to have was whether or not this bill should be special legislation to create these marine reserves or whether or not it should go through the Marine Reserves Act process. Well what the regulatory impact statement on this bill tells us is that the average time to establish a marine reserve under the Marine Reserves Act is 12 years. It is between 1 year and 23 years. But 12 years is not a figure that anyone in this House can be proud of. We need to be able to establish marine reserves in a way that is a lot more efficient and a lot more comprehensive than that.So I do think that it is time for this House to turn its attention back to the legislative framework for the establishment of marine reserves. The Environmental Defence Society has this year put out a publication around its views of what needs to happen in terms of marine reserves legislation. I had the honour of launching that earlier this year. I tend to agree with the society that the time has come not to return to the legislation that Labour had in front of the House 10 years ago because time has passed that as well but to create new marine reserves legislation that actually allows for the efficient promulgation of these kinds of reserves that allows for the creation of a network ofdifferent types of marine protected areas all the way from no-take areas through to the full protected reserves that most people would understand.We need to ensure that the purpose of any legislation that puts in place marine reserves is the protection of biodiversity because at the moment that is not completely clear. It particularly is not clear if you are creating no-take areas under the Fisheries Act because that purpose is not even there. So having a focus on the protection of biodiversity having the ability to create a range of instruments and having a network of marine reserves and protected areas is the kind of approach and framework that I would like to see us undertake. I would hope that we could work across the House to find a way of developing that kind of legislation. It must not be as difficult as it is now to establish these kinds of reserves.Alongside that the other thing that New Zealand Governments have been working on since the late 1990s is the establishment of some kind of integrated oceans policy in which marine reserves can sit. There are some good models of this around New Zealand that we can look at. I am thinking here about the spatial planning exercise in the Hauraki Gulf and elsewhere where we can actually see integrated oceans management supporting the protection of biodiversity. So I do urge the House that we do need to return to this question of what new modern marine reserves legislation would look like and ensure that we take on the very best practice around the world so that New Zealand once again can be a world leader in that area.There is one specific aspect of this bill that I think would feed into that. My colleague Phil Goff has already mentioned the fact that the establishment of these marine reserves actually arose from a process called the Subantarctic Islands Marine Protection Planning Forum. That was a piece of work that was begun under the previous Government. It is based on the marine protected areas policy from 2006. But the situation we have now is that we have an excellent policy on marine protected areas and legislation that does not match up with that policy which is why we need to make changes to allow marine protected areas and marine reserves and other types of protected areas to be included.But the process that was used in that planning forum is one that should be incorporated in any future legislation. That is a far more collaborative process that brings together stakeholders within a particular area and gives them the opportunity to be part of developing these models. I think there is an even better model and that was the one that was used to develop the Fiordland (Te Moana o Atawhenua) Marine Area. That was a model that truly included all of those in the community who were interested in marine protection in Fiordland including recreational fishers not that there are any recreational fishers in the Subantarctic Islands. But it included all of the stakeholders who would have wanted to have a say. It was quite a long process but at the end of it there was universal buy in and importantly an ongoing role for that community in Fiordland in the continuing management of marine space.As a result I think that there are some things in the way that these marine reserves were created that could find their way into future legislation. But what I would not like to see is the need to continue ad hoc development of marine reserves. What we need is comprehensive legislation that facilitates the efficient creation of marine reserves based on the principles of the protection of biodiversity and enables New Zealand to move beyond just our territorial waters and out into the exclusive economic zone and protects the marine areas that are required in those spaces. The exclusive economic zone legislation that was passed by this Government did not sufficiently take that into account and it is going to limit New Zealand severely in being able to play the role that it should in protecting our marine areas.We do endorse this bill. These islands are an important part of the World Heritage network and I hope that members of the House will take on board the importance of this kind of legislation and give New Zealanders a framework for establishing marine reserves that we can be proud of.