Ms Karin Dubsky:

I will highlight some things very briefly. The foreshore Act is unbelievably unfit for this century because the Minister has far too much power to decide whether to publish something, where to publish something and whether to put up the submissions. Every part of this is the Minister's prerogative under article 19. I asked several lawyers what their understanding was of the land defined in the foreshore Act at the moment and they said it was the seabed and the water column. This was their understanding from the cases they have been involved with. None of them thought it also included the airspace. At least from the point of view of this small group of lawyers who work in that area of foreshore, this appears to be a new departure. Therefore, I thought the questions earlier today on what prompted it were quite valid.

We are concerned about the implications of some of the extra powers being added to the Minister in the airspace. At the same time, it is an Act which we have been told will be repealed in sections and will soon be gone but when I looked, there are deadlines for various parts of the Act but not for others. Particularly on aquaculture, we believe the Act will be kept alive for a long time and therefore we need section 19 also to be addressed.