Financial Review Debate — Department of Conservation

I think most people will be surprised when they reflect on the year under review, ask which was the most significant thing that the Department of Conservation did this year, and find out that it was not anything to help with conservation but was actually the antithesis of conservation. It was mining in inappropriate areas. The Government, through the Department of Conservation and the Ministry of Economic Development last year and this year, has been investigating opening up more of the conservation estate to mining. I am not someone who says mining is always wrong. I wear a gold ring and I drive a metal car. There is a place for mining; it would be hypocritical for us to say there is not. Indeed, there can be times when it is appropriate to mine parts of the land that is in the conservation estate. It happens not infrequently already. But just as it can be appropriate to mine in some parts of the conservation estate, it is completely inappropriate to mine in some other parts of it.

The most notable of the areas that ought not to be mined are of course the national parks. It is many, many years since anyone in New Zealand thought it was sensible to mine in national parks. That is, until the previous Minister of Conservation, Tim Groser, got into the portfolio. What was his first act as Minister of Conservation? His first act, within days of the election, was to amend the boundaries of the Oteake Conservation Park that was being created, to exclude an area where there is a lignite resource. We are not talking about gold, we are not talking about copper, and we are not talking about diamonds. We are talking about brown coal. The Minister altered the boundaries of a conservation park so as to exclude that area from it. Then the next things that the Government did were to start the so-called stocktake of mineral resources in the conservation estate and to look at how it could free up the mining of other parts of the conservation estate.

There are some parts of the conservation estate, which are listed in schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act, where mining is prohibited. They are largely national parks. Other than the national parks, mining is not prohibited in most conservation areas. But there are some notable exceptions to that. I think the most notable exception, to most people, is the Coromandel. The Coromandel is close to Auckland. Auckland has a third of the population of New Zealand and it does not have its fair share of national parks. The conservation areas close to Auckland, like those in the Coromandel area, really do need to have protection. That is why some years ago this Parliament decided that an area north of what is called the green line in the Coromandel should not be opened for mining. This Government is reconsidering that decision. But having done that, it found itself in a bit of a muddle, so it has tried to obfuscate and say it is doing nothing different from what the previous Labour Government did.

National says people should look at what happened in Paparoa National Park. The Government says mining by Pike River Coal adjacent to the park is an instance of mining on the national park. Of course, when we look at the detail of that mining, we see the Government is wrong. The only things in the national park are four emergency exits for the miners, each of which has a diameter of 1.5 metres. Mr Key’s saying that that was a precedent for mining in national parks is not correct. It is a precedent for mining in non - national park conservation areas, and that can be appropriate if they are not schedule 4 - listed lands. But the Government has been caught misrepresenting that.

What else is the Government up to? Of course the Minister has already overseen the taking away of ministerial responsibility in respect of decisions on developments in the marine space. There were problems with the timing within which that discretion could be exercised. I think members on both sides of the House would have been very happy to tidy up the timing of it, so that people had not spent their money on their resource management applications before the Minister’s decision was made. But that was the law as it stood. That could have been tidied up, but instead the Government has removed any political accountability in respect of decisions that there ought to be ministerial accountability for. The Minister is the guardian of public spaces on behalf of the public, and the Minister ought to be willing to be judged on the basis of his or her decisions. Instead, we see that the Government is trying to avoid political responsibility, by taking lands out of schedule 4 and making it easier to develop those areas and others. I think that is wrong. I think it is consistent with what the Government is doing, in terms of taking the assets of Auckland City away from the direct control of elected councillors. That is wrong.

David Parker might like to talk about mining and focus on mining, but I am much more interested in conservation and the work that the Department of Conservation does in that area. The Department of Conservation has huge responsibilities. It manages and oversees the conservation of New Zealand’s natural and heritage assets on land and sea, and it actively encourages all New Zealanders to enjoy them. It directly manages almost one-third of our land mass and our marine reserves, and it facilitates agreements to protect public land. The department is also responsible for managing protected wildlife and marine mammals. It is a huge job, but the department seems to do it very well. It seems to have a presence in every nook and cranny across the country, and it works actively with hundreds of volunteers to do this job and to do it well.

We are all aware that New Zealand is a country of unique animals, birds, and insects. Over 25 percent of our birds and 90 percent of our insects are indigenous. But New Zealand’s native wildlife faces a continuous battle for survival. Landcare Research scientists estimate that over 25 million native birds are killed every year. That is 25 million birds killed every year by imported predators such as stoats, rats, cats, and possums, so one of the Department of Conservation’s most important responsibilities is pest control.

Today I would like to talk a little about 1080 poison and why it is critical to use toxins like 1080 to protect our native forests and fauna. The department told us, at its review, that it feels there is a lot of misinformation about 1080. We know that there is much controversy about its use. But the active ingredient in 1080 is a naturally occurring substance that is found in plants and, interestingly enough, in plants like tea and pūhā. The 1080 poison is biodegradable. It dilutes and breaks down in water, and plants and animals naturally excrete non-lethal quantities of 1080. The Department of Conservation has monitored over 200 kiwi through 1080 operations, and no birds have ever been lost. On the other hand, without its protection nine out of 10 North Island brown kiwi born in the wild were killed in their first year. But after an aerial 1080 operation that targeted stoats and rats in Tongariro forest, seven out of 10 kiwi chicks made it past their first birthday.

The Environmental Risk Management Authority, the independent environmental watchdog, put 1080 under intensive, expert examination 2 years ago. It concluded that the continued use of 1080 has significant benefits for New Zealand’s environment. The Department of Conservation uses 1080 according to guidelines imposed by the Environmental Risk Management Authority and health authorities, and there have been more than 2,000 tests of water supplies. None of the results have identified any risk to public health. Safety standards for reticulated water have never been breached.

There has been a refinement in the use of 1080 over the last decade, and the amount of toxin per hectare has been cut down by about 90 percent. This means that there is only a teaspoon of toxin on each hectare. The Department of Conservation does about 560,000 hectares of pest control annually, most of which is ground based. One hundred and fifty thousand hectares are aerially sprayed with 1080, and that method is used in country that is challenging and when other options are not available. The Department of Conservation’s aerial 1080 operations cover less than 2 percent of public conservation land. The department also spends hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on alternative pest control methods. Alternatives have to be cost-effective, have comprehensive coverage, be humane, and pose little risk to human health. At least 30 research projects are under way to find improvements in the use of 1080 or alternatives to its use. Other methods such as innovative self-setting stoat and rat traps have recently been developed by the department in conjunction with private enterprise. A possum trap is due shortly. These innovations should boost the cost-effectiveness of ground control.

I am delighted that in her contribution Nicky Wagner said she wanted to talk about conservation. That is absolutely what we on this side of the Chamber wish to talk about, and that is why we are being forced to discuss mining. The most controversial issue that the Department of Conservation and this country are currently facing in this subject area is the fact that the National Government wishes to open up our national parks and other areas of strategic and sacred importance to this country for mining. Members on the Government side of the Chamber may shake their heads at me and claim that I am acting as a scaremonger, but let me take those members through the rational reasons why we would not need to touch schedule 4 of the Crown Minerals Act unless we wished to mine the lands listed in it. There is absolutely no alternative reason why we would remove land from schedule 4.

Before we begin, I think it is probably useful to look at the true role of the Department of Conservation, which is helpfully raised in the financial review. It states: “The Department of Conservation manages and oversees the conservation of New Zealand’s natural and heritage assets … for the benefit and enjoyment of all New Zealanders. The department directly manages public protected lands”. We have already spoken about the fact that roughly 30 percent of New Zealand’s land area is locked into the conservation estate. But there are two categories of conservation land, and I think it is important that we draw out the distinctions between the two. When we talk about schedule 4, we are not talking about everything. We are talking about those areas that a National Government, in the first instance, decided after much discussion and debate were important enough to be given a special place in our legislation. That is the schedule that is now being questioned by that very same Government.

We see in the financial review that some members rightfully put to the department the question of whether it felt that its role was being compromised by the fact that it was involved in this review of schedule 4 in the first place. I understand that the Director-General of Conservation said the department was advising on the conservation values of the areas under review and he did not regard its involvement as contrary to the objectives of the legislation. Well, I question whether he was allowed to speak out against the department’s role in this particular review. I think that it compromises the role of the department as an advocate on behalf of the conservation estate.

Before we go any further, let us look at why this issue has been muddied. I personally blame the National Government if there is any lack of clarity about what is going on in this debate. I have some previous history in this area. Some years ago I was a private secretary for an Associate Minister of Energy who had responsibility for mining. I worked directly on schedule 4 and variations when mining companies wished to make applications for mining on conservation land. I understand the distinction between the two situations. If the National Government wishes to remove land from schedule 4, that is a very different thing from whether someone is granted a variation to mine on the conservation estate. Those are two different things.

Probably the best reasons we can find as to why schedule 4 was created in the first place are given in the Hansard of the third reading debate on the Crown Minerals Amendment Bill (No. 3) on 20 November 1997 by Nick Smith himself. He was the Minister who ushered in this important schedule at the time. If we go back to some of the rationale that he provided at that time, we see that he said: “This Bill at long last puts some pegs in the sand in some very significant areas of New Zealand and says to the mining industries of New Zealand: ‘These are no-go areas.’” The irony is the reference to “pegs in the sand”, given that half of the Coromandel is back up in question, as well. Nick Smith continued: “This legislation says to the mining industries that those areas set aside as national parks are not appropriate areas for mining.” Ten years on, I would like to ask the Minister whether perhaps at some point he would like to share with us what has changed. Does he think that those national parks are any less significant to New Zealand now than he did then? As far as I am concerned, everything that is listed on schedule 4 has remained the same in terms of its conservation value.

Nick Smith went on to say “This is landmark legislation for the conservation movement in New Zealand.” Those who were involved—the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society in particular—were heralded by him for their role in developing such important legislation, but now that they speak up against it being reviewed, they are being labelled as scaremongers by this Government even though they were the ones who helped to usher it in, in partnership with that National Government at the time. Nick Smith conclude his speech by saying: “I welcome the Bill’s progress and, as Minister of Conservation, look forward to not having to consider mining applications in those areas where nature should be able to rule the roost.”

“Why a stocktake?”, I hear the call from members on the other side of the Chamber. I tell those members that it is pertinent to consider the prescience and thoughtfulness of those people who, 30, 40, or 50 years ago, did a stocktake of the resources that lay in the north and south Taranaki bights and also on the land area of north and south Taranaki. Last year $2.8 billion worth of oil and gas was exported by this country. It was our third-biggest export earner. As we have heard, the Department of Conservation manages and oversees the conservation of New Zealand’s natural heritage assets the length and breadth of New Zealand, covering about a third of New Zealand’s land area, our marine reserves, and our wonderful freshwater resources.

The Department of Conservation administers a conservation estate in which flourish the towering tawa, the stately kauri, the glossy, green-leaved karaka, the ravishing rhododendron, and the tree that cause our foreshores to blaze with crimson fire every summer and captures the spirit of a New Zealand Christmas. I am referring, of course, to the beautiful pohutukawa. The Department of Conservation has a role in fostering recreation in areas under its management. It is thanks to the Department of Conservation that we can all go up the Panekiri Bluff, on those sturdy aluminium ladders, to gasp our way into the hut and get a refreshing draft from the tank that exists up there at the top of the Panekiri Bluff in the Ureweras, which embrace the jewel of Lake Waikaremoana.

It is thanks to the Department of Conservation that a weary tramper has a superb hut right alongside the Welcome Flat hot springs. It is a perfect spot to rest, after making the journey up the Copland River or a traverse across the Southern Alps, east to west, through the Copland Pass. We owe a great debt to the Department of Conservation’s programme of vermin eradication that a marked track runs down the true left of the Joes River in Fiordland. It is a huge advantage, as I found to my cost a little bit over the Christmas holidays that the true right is virtually impossible owing to the density of the undergrowth in this seldom-visited area of Fiordland. We have a lot to thank the Department of Conservation for.

The department is funded mainly through Vote Conservation, and in 2008-09 it was in the order of $312 million. It spent all but $2 million of that. However, one of the interesting things is that the department worked closely with various agencies—not just Government departments but community trusts, commercial operators, and volunteer organisations. In the department’s 2009-12 statement of intent the Minister of Conservation adopted the term “conservation economy”, and I think it is an important concept to understand, in order to highlight the importance of conservation to New Zealand’s economy.

The central premise is that conservation is an economic investment, not simply a social good. This premise builds on the already well-accepted social values of conservation that are reflected in the Conservation Act 1987, and in particular the intrinsic worth of natural and historic heritage. It takes this further by showing the interdependence between nature’s systems, social systems, and the economy. In its totality, conservation plays a critical role in validating the “clean, green” brand that is the market advantage on which our producers rely.

The benefits of conservation include carbon sequestration and storage, mitigation of flood risk, better freshwater quality and flows, soil retention, pollination, and bioprospecting opportunities. In 2008-09 the department began to develop a commercial framework and to review its processing of concessions. It is also developing relationships with the tourism industry and the Ministry of Tourism and collaborates on projects such as the cycle track, which we heard about earlier today in the Chamber. The department also acknowledges that public conservation land affords opportunities for economic development such as electricity generation and transmission. I am particularly interested in the opportunities that private people can have from land adjoining conservation estates through which a river flows, so that they may undertake for themselves the micro-generation of power from renewables. Thank you.

Report noted.

Department of Labour