Freedom Camping Bill

Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to Part 2 of the Freedom Camping Bill. As many of the members on this side of the Chamber have made clear, we think that Part 2 is another example of—no matter what you call it—over-the-top, heavy-handed, or sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut legislation. Part 2 again typifies what we think is a bit of an overreaction from the Government to what we see as a problem, but not a significant-enough problem to basically take away the freedoms of Kiwis who have enjoyed freedom camping in some of our most pristine and beautiful places. Part 2 deals with where freedom camping is permitted. What is now in store for New Zealanders and visitors is that some of our most beautiful areas—beaches, vistas, and views—are no longer allowed to be enjoyed. One cannot park up, have a look around, and have a bit of a kip without having what could be called ablution police keeping an eye on us.

I would like to open up a window to the world of what it would be like to be one of those people who will be forced to police this kind of law. What exactly will they be confronted with? I think that, along with parking wardens, the people who will be tasked with policing the Freedom Camping Bill will be in one of the most hated occupations for both New Zealanders and visitors to New Zealand. These people will be in some of our most pristine areas, and they will be forced to sit in car-parks, rest stop areas, or places where one can look at some of the most beautiful views in New Zealand, and be forced to snoop on what people are doing there. So for families sitting at home now, I tell them that if they are out enjoying some time with the family at Christmas time—just as Kelvin Davis does—and they get caught short, it will now be the job of some people to whack members of those families with a $200 instant fine if they are found defecating or urinating in some of those public places—

💬 Phil Twyford: Or just camping.

KRIS FAAFOI:—or just camping; that is right. Families now run the risk of being slapped with what we think is an over-the-top $200 instant fine. We will have to hire people to do that kind of work.

As Steve Chadwick said in her earlier contribution to the bill, we do not need those people to do that kind of work. There are other means and ways to make sure we crack down on this problem. People hired by local bodies or by the Department of Conservation should not be doing that kind of work. They should not be snooping on people who are enjoying some of our most pristine areas. They should be making sure that other by-laws are being adhered to, and that some of the flora, fauna, and wildlife in those areas is being saved. They should not be keeping an eye on people who are enjoying a night out under the stars in their sleeping bags—as Stuart Nash commented on earlier—to make sure they are not defecating or urinating in public areas. That is not their job, and we do not believe that it should be their job to monitor that kind of behaviour in some of these areas. Again this bill is heavy-handed and a punitive measure that threatens the freedom to camp under the stars that Kiwis have enjoyed over generations.

I would like to pick up a point that Stuart Nash made earlier about the definition of what freedom camping is, and what short-term freedom camping in some of these brilliant areas is. My colleague Chris Hipkins pointed out that he has been on a number of camping expeditions where he has done that. I would like to know what will happen to the surfing expeditions now. It is not unknown for a young bunch of lads to jump in a car on a Friday night, head to the beach, and camp out for an early start on a Saturday morning to make sure they can get the early waves. Now, under this legislation, what will happen to that? It is unclear as to whether that is freedom camping. A lot of surfies will be sitting at home wondering what this National Government is doing to the freedom that they, and their parents, have enjoyed for many years, which is to go and sleep under the stars, or in their cars, in some of those areas close to the beach so they can get the early morning waves.

It also raises the possibility of freedom camping being effectively outlawed in large parts of the country, and I think that is a sad by-product of this bill. It leaves uncertainty in the minds of Kiwis—can we park here, can we sleep here, or will we get a $200 fine? Now that uncertainty is there with many Kiwis, and it will leave a lot of confusion for many Kiwi families who enjoy some of these most pristine areas.

I am referring to clause 16, “Public notification of freedom camping notices”. Subclause (1) states: “A freedom camping notice is published in accordance with this section if a summary of the notice—(a) is published in the Gazette; and (b) is published in the following newspapers: (i) in a daily newspaper circulating in each of the cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin;”. My concern is for overseas tourists who land in New Zealand and have not happened to pick up a copy of a daily newspaper in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, or Dunedin, in which that freedom camping notice was published. The chances are that they would not have seen it, or that they would not even look in the section where that sort of thing would be published. So those freedom campers—free independent travellers—will be journeying around New Zealand and will have a nice surprise when they pull up somewhere and wonder who the person is approaching them and saying that they have committed an offence that is liable for $200. That is not the face that we want to portray to our travellers from overseas, but I think we are risking that.

I know that ignorance is not an excuse, but how can we expect people from overseas to turn up to New Zealand and know exactly what these regulations are? I hope there will be some sort of full-blown education campaign, so that international travellers will know what the circumstances are, and so that they will not be stung by that sort of thing.

I note clause 11A, “Bylaws must not absolutely prohibit freedom camping”. This is similar to clause 11(2)(a). Clause 11A(1) states: “A local authority may not make bylaws under section 11 that have the effect of prohibiting freedom camping in all the local authority areas in its district.” Subclause (2) states: “This section is for the avoidance of doubt.” But the doubt still exists—the doubt that our colleague Phil Twyford raised earlier. What is a blanket ban? The provision says that a local authority may not make by-laws that have the effect of prohibiting freedom camping in all the local authority areas in its district. Will the local authority not have that provision, then, in just one area of its district, or in two areas of its district? I think there are still some vagaries there that will allow overzealous local authorities to sting all and sundry, in a roundabout way. I do not think that subclause (2) removes the avoidance of all doubt.

Clause 11(5) states: “The local authority must use the special consultative procedure set out in section 83 of the Local Government Act 2002 (as modified by section 86 of that Act) in—(a) making a bylaw under this section; or (b) amending a bylaw made under this section; or (c) revoking a bylaw under this section.” So regarding the special consultative procedure, section 83 in the Local Government Act 2002 states: “Where this Act or any other enactment requires a local authority to use or adopt the special consultative procedure, that local authority must”—and in subsection (1)(e) it says—“give public notice, and such other notice as the local authority considers appropriate, of the proposal and the consultations being undertaken;”. The part that is of concern is what the local authority considers appropriate, because we are concerned that some local authorities may be overzealous, just go too hard, and, as we already said, use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. So it comes down to what is appropriate according to one local authority and what is appropriate according to another local authority when they refer to the Local Government Act 2002. There are vagaries and there could be confusion as to what the local authority considers appropriate.

I will pick up where my colleague Kelvin Davis left off and make some comments about the second clause in Part 2, which is about the bylaw-making power of local authorities. To borrow the turn of phrase from Stuart Nash, I think it was, we could drive a housetruck through the wording in some of these clauses. Subclause (2) of clause 11 says that “A local authority may make a bylaw under subsection (1) only if it is satisfied that—(a) the bylaw is necessary … (i) to protect the area:”—to protect the area. I mean, that is ridiculous. That is so wide-ranging and so lacking in any kind of concrete meaning or specificity that it just makes a complete mockery of the bill. A council can make a by-law if it is satisfied that this bill is necessary to protect the area. Well, what is it protecting the area against—or whom? It is an absolute nonsense.

Paragraph (b) of clause 11(2) states: “the bylaw is the most appropriate and proportionate way …”. Well, there is an irony right there that this entire bill is disproportionate. That is the problem with it. It criminalises a whole class of people and a whole class of activity unnecessarily, when it could actually be focusing on the problem—that is, people who dump waste in scenic places. The by-law is supposed to be the most appropriate and proportionate way of addressing the perceived problem—but perceived by whom? If there is a perception that there is a problem, a council can pass a by-law to outlaw freedom camping across all but 100 percent of its territory. The legislation is absolutely ridiculous. It is heavy-handed and it is punitive. So if there is a perceived problem and a council thinks it needs to protect an area, then that is justification enough under this bill for the council to pass a by-law that will outlaw freedom camping; a freedom that generations of New Zealanders have enjoyed will be able to be outlawed across large swathes of territory.

💬 Louise Upston: It doesn’t outlaw it, Phil. Do you remember the bill?

Louise Upston has occasionally opened her mouth in this debate. She refuses to get up and take a call. I do not know why. She sits there on the backbenches on the Government side, saying “Read the bill. Read the bill!”. Well, I know from the select committee discussions that Louise Upston had grave concerns about this bill, as did Cam Calder. They had serious concerns that this bill is punitive and heavy-handed, and that it threatens the freedom of New Zealanders to enjoy the great outdoors. I challenge Louise Upston to get up and take a call. At least the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Conservation, had the good grace to get up and engage in a little bit of debate, and I thank her for that. But, to be honest, I was mystified, because all the Minister did was repeat what is already in the bill, supposedly to avoid doubt, and that was the statement that this bill does not allow blanket bans. Well, we have already asked the Minister what percentage of a ban is acceptable. Is 98 percent OK? Is 95 percent OK?

💬 Hon Rick Barker: 99?

Maybe 99 percent is, if there is a perceived problem that needs to be remedied by the council.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: What about freedom camping in a council car-park? That might be it.

I thank Rick Barker; that is a very good suggestion.

The Minister also said that the bill specifically protects freedom camping unless it is outlawed. But that is a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland logic: if one says that it is so, then it must be so. Well, it is not. The status quo makes it quite difficult for councils to outlaw freedom camping across large areas of land. It does. It makes it quite difficult for them to do that, and it is not easy for them to enforce it. But with this bill Minister Wilkinson is not, as she said, handing councils one small tool in a tool box. She is giving them a powerful and efficient tool to outlaw freedom camping across large swathes of New Zealand, and to enforce that ban in a heavy-handed way, with $200 instant fines for people who happen to find themselves parked up and sleeping overnight in a prohibited area. What punitive, bureaucratic, and authoritarian streak lies at the heart of the National Government that it thinks it is OK to deal with this problem, this specific problem of people dumping waste in some of our country’s scenic areas, by imposing this heavy-handed regime? It is way beyond what any normal person would consider to be a proportionate response to this problem. It threatens a fundamental freedom that New Zealanders have enjoyed for a very long time.

💬 Louise Upston: It actually makes it more pleasant.

All I can assume from that outburst from Louise Upston is that she has never gone away for a weekend surfing, tramping, or hunting, and has never slept on the side of the road or pitched a tent in some beautiful part of New Zealand as she has gone off climbing mountains, tramping, or fishing.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Five-star hotels in Europe.

That is right. It must be that she stays in five-star hotels, and that she does not give a damn for the thousands and thousands of New Zealanders who spend their retirement travelling around this beautiful nation of ours in self-contained campervans, enjoying the great outdoors in this country, and who are fearful that this bureaucratic and punitive law will crack down on their freedom to enjoy New Zealand.

I know that Cam Calder is a man of the world. He has travelled around. I bet he has slept on beaches. He has probably slept under hedgerows, has Cam Calder. He does not like this bill, but why will he not get up and take a call? Why will he not get up and take a call and explain why he is voting for this heavy-handed, bureaucratic legislation?

I move, That the question be now put.

I refer to subpart 2 in Part 2 of the Freedom Camping Bill, which relates to details of freedom camping on conservation land. It starts off very well, I have to say. Clause 13 states: “Freedom camping is permitted on any conservation land unless freedom camping is restricted or prohibited on the land.” Clause 14(1) goes through a process of: “The Director-General may, by erecting a sign, …”, etc. Clause 15(1) states further: “The Director-General may, by notice published in accordance …”. Then it goes on to say how the good people of New Zealand will be informed of this, and states that a notice must define the conservation land, and then it must be published in the Gazette. Well, that is a good publication.

💬 Hon Rick Barker: Widely read.

Widely read in New Zealand circles. I know that all my hunting, fishing, and surfing friends always read the Gazette. But to be fair, and we have to be fair to the Minister, clause 16(1)(b) states the notice can be published in the following newspapers, of course: “(i) in a daily newspaper circulating in each of the cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin; or”—not and—“(ii) if the Director-General is satisfied that the notice is of local or regional interest only,” in a local paper. So we are to have laws that, for the most part, affect areas in regional New Zealand, but there may not be a requirement for there to be notification in any of the newspapers in the areas where freedom camping will be banned. What sort of consultation process has there been? What sort of authoritarian regime are we setting up here? It is just bizarre.

I know now that regional and provincial newspapers quite often get up in arms about the lack of consultation and about the arrogance of the “shiny bums”, as they say, who sit on their chuffs in Wellington, make these laws—I guess we are some of them now; we spend long enough here—and impose them on the good people up and down this country. They are the people who understand nature and who go out and enjoy it: the fishers, the hunters, and the surfers—all of those people. Yet the people—and I have to say it is National and the ACT Party people who want to impose this law—have said that it is OK and that we can notify people—

💬 Phil Twyford: And the Māori Party.

—and the Māori Party too, that is right. Actually, that is scandalous. I have just realised that. Māori people will be criminalised for parking up and camping on their beaches and by their rivers. How could the Māori Party support this bill? How could they support such Draconian, authoritarian, and quite arrogant legislation? It is understandable, National and ACT members supporting it. They might have three or four toilets in their own homes and cannot understand why people should not be able to go somewhere and go to the toilet. But not all Māori—many of them in Northland, in particular—have ready access to toilets in their homes, so they understand the ways of working with nature. One could call it composting or whatever, but a good shovel and a spade can address the issues of effluent.

I can understand that National and ACT members cannot quite get their heads around it. They have said that a notice in the newspapers circulating in the cities will be good enough to inform people of the areas that will be banned from freedom camping. That is outrageous. It goes right to the core of Wellington arrogance. The kind of criticism that we as politicians get every single day when we are out in the provinces is that we in Wellington do not understand and that we have no idea what is going on. That is what the people say, and they will be quite right in this case. In fact, those good people do not always hop in their cars and rush to the city for a holiday. Many of them travel down the road to another part of beautiful New Zealand and to the wilderness—for example, from Westport to Punakaiki, or from Nelson down to Fox Glacier, or to Gillespies Beach, or anywhere like that.

There are many, many options, but they may not know, and may have had no notification whatsoever, that the area is conservation land until they arrive at the place, and there may or may not be a sign there. So their planned journey and experience in wilderness New Zealand or beautiful New Zealand will come to a grinding halt. They will have to make a call on whether they commit an illegal act and stay as they were planning to do, yet have no impact on the environment. They might have brought a shovel or be self-contained—who knows? But someone in Wellington, in conjunction with the local council, or the Minister of Conservation in this particular case, has decided that it is conservation land. The Minister has decided, having been given advice from the Director-General of Conservation, that these areas shall be out of bounds and banned for camping. The Minister or the department will then issue a notice in a daily newspaper that circulates in each of the cities of Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin.

What about Nelson? Did the Hon Nick Smith insist on Nelson being included? Maybe he should have, given that he brought this legislation into the House. What about Timaru, Invercargill, Westport, or Greymouth? None of those places will have mandatory notification in their newspapers, because the bill states “or if the Director-General is satisfied”. Can the Minister get up and give an absolute guarantee that the provincial newspapers and the people in the provinces will have fair notice of her Draconian legislation to ban people from the conservation estate that they fund, that they have fought for, and that they uphold as being sacred in this country? The Minister is going to ban them from staying overnight on that land.

Well, I have to say, this is what the legislation says, and if the Minister can get up and guarantee that notice will be given in all of the provincial papers, then maybe we have gone one step forward. But the legislation as stated here does not say that. Just as my colleague Stuart Nash said, there will be interesting legal battles over what is a short-term park, or a long-term park, or whatever, and the difference between what is perceived in provincial New Zealand and what is perceived in urban New Zealand. There is a huge void that is not covered by the legislation, and the Minister has not risen and attempted to answer that in any way.

This is just one of the many, many flaws in legislation that is a sledgehammer attempting to crack a walnut. The Minister should just wind back and perhaps take on board the Supplementary Order Paper put up by my colleague Phil Twyford and say that we shall have a law around harming nature and harming the conservation estate, but we will not make a judgment on the input side of it, whether people are staying in a V-Dub—as many used to in the old days—a combi, a Bedford van, or nowadays a fully compliant and self-contained Mercedes van. Technology has moved on, and we have found better ways of mitigating the impact of all of our behaviour—for example, reducing carbon and getting better at saving energy, and indeed in the area of camping we are better able to manage the potential effects of it. That is what we should be moving to do, to encourage people and to give fair warning by notice. We should not impose a penalty for something that is at the heart of the New Zealand way of life and something that many have fought for and expected to see for their lifetimes. Unfortunately, in this subpart 2 we now see potential behaviour by the Minister of Conservation and the department that through notice in the main newspapers of the main cities they will deem areas to be out of bounds for freedom camping. I think it is outrageous. The Minister should get up and explain why she is doing this, or change it and take on board the Supplementary Order Paper put up by my colleague Phil Twyford.

I will pick up on a couple of points made by my colleagues. I think they were very, very well made. I turn to clause 16(1) in Part 2 of the Freedom Camping Bill to pick up the point that “A freedom camping notice is published in accordance with this section if a summary of the notice—(a) is published in the Gazette;”. In all of my time as a tramper and a hunter, the very first thing we did before we did anything else—before we examined the weather forecast and made a plan—was read the Gazette, because we knew that the Gazette was the most important part of our information requirements for going on any trip. It is a very widely circulated document, and is avidly read by New Zealanders every day. I am surprised the Gazette is not in the newspaper awards as one of the most widely circulated documents!

Let us face it: this publication, as far as the public is concerned, is published in secret. It is a secret publication. How many New Zealanders have ever read the Gazette? I ask how many parliamentarians have ever read the Gazette.

💬 Hon Kate Wilkinson: I have.

The Minister in the chair says she has read the Gazette. I want to ask her what was on page 2 of today’s publication. I bet she cannot tell me. Let us be honest: most people look at it as a quaint document that no one has ever heard of. To publish in the Gazette is to have a decision of the old-fashioned Star Chamber. It is in secret. It is a closed society. No one will know about it.

To make sure that people have some notice of freedom camping restrictions, the writers of this legislation go on to say—it is hilarious—that the notice will be published in papers in the following areas: Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Well, everybody knows that those papers go to all the camping areas of New Zealand! How much freedom camping is done in the city of Auckland? How much freedom camping is done in the city of Wellington? I would say it is next to zero. Not only will we have publication of documents in secret but we will have publication of documents that are completely irrelevant to the places where people go freedom camping.

But it gets even better! I could not believe this. The third option put up by the drafters of this legislation said it would be “published if the director-general is satisfied that the notice is of local or regional interest only, in a newspaper or newspapers circulated throughout the locality.” That means effectively that it will never ever be published. There is no place in New Zealand where freedom camping could be undertaken that is only and exclusively of interest to the people in that area. For example, if we are to have a publication about freedom camping on the West Coast, it would be impossible to argue that it was of interest only to people on the West Coast. The people of the West Coast live there. They have houses there. They will never go freedom camping there. Freedom camping on the West Coast would be of interest to people who live in Auckland. But because it is of interest to Auckland people, it cannot be published in the local paper, because it is of interest outside of the West Coast. By logic and definition the director-general cannot publish it in the local paper, because something that is to happen on the West Coast of the South Island is of interest to the whole of New Zealand. Because it is of interest to the whole of New Zealand, it is not of interest only to West Coasters; it is of interest to all New Zealanders. By definition, the man or the woman who is the director-general cannot publish it in the local paper.

So what do we have as a notification? We have a notification processed by the Gazette, which is read by nobody. It is a publication in secret. We have a publication in newspapers that is completely irrelevant to the areas in which it is published, and then we have a clause that means it is impossible for the director-general to justify publishing it in a local paper, because it is not of interest only to those people in that area; it is of interest to people across the whole country. This is a nonsense.

We then get back to the other point made very well by Phil Twyford, that under clause 11A by-laws must not absolutely prohibit freedom camping. Well, there is an easy way to get around that. Councils can simply set a small part of a council district as a freedom camping area. It could be the council’s backyard that has a big fence around it and is locked so that people cannot get into it. As long as it is designated as a freedom camping area, that justifies the council having the whole of its district wiped out from availability to freedom campers. The Minister shakes her head, but she has not thought of the inventiveness of local councils.

What we have now is a Freedom Camping Bill that means that a council, if it is hostile to freedom camping—and some may be—will designate an area that is hostile to freedom campers and say it is the freedom camping area. It effectively means that it then has a freedom camping area. It can be 0.5 percent of the area available, or it could be 0.1 percent, but as long as the council has one area available, it can say it has not absolutely prohibited freedom camping. There just has to be an exception to prove the rule. It does not have to be a certain percentage. Just one exception justifies the council saying it has not absolutely prohibited freedom camping.

On the other side, the council makes the decision, and who will be able to challenge the council? The council makes a decision to designate one minor, small, inconsequential, hostile area to freedom campers. The power rests with the council. A freedom camper can turn up, get a $200 fine, then go through the council’s by-laws and say that they have done all the right things. They have gone back and read the Gazette, and they made sure they did that before they went. They have gone through all the back issues of the New Zealand Herald before they left to go to the South Island, and made sure they checked all the public notices to find out all the information they needed, but missed it somehow. They get themselves there and are then confronted with this. Will they take the council—firstly, I presume—to the District Court? If they fail there, can they go to the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court, thereby exercising all their legitimate options? Let us face it. Councils are litigious. If they lose, they will appeal. We will have a freedom camper with a $200 bill for camping trying to overturn the council’s policy decision, and having to go all the way to the Supreme Court because the weight of bureaucratese will be with the council. There is no balance in this.

I find this extraordinary, coming from National, which pushes itself forward in the public as the party of freedom and the party of choice. National lauds itself as the party of freedom and the party of New Zealand, and of protecting New Zealand’s heritage. What a load of bunkum. National has set up legislation that ensures that the information is held in secret: it is published in the Gazette or in a paper that is irrelevant to where freedom campers are. It is a notice that cannot be put in the local paper, because, as I said, it has to be of interest only to the people in that area to be published locally. If people outside the area are interested in it, it cannot be published locally.

Then the bill says a council has to have only a small aspect of its council area available to freedom camping to show that it has not absolutely banned freedom camping. It needs only one example to prove it. It could be beside the rubbish dump, it could be beside—I do not know—the sewage station, the sanitation plant, or the oxidisation ponds. Here we are: here is a place that freedom campers can have beside the oxidisation ponds. Because the council has designated that place, it has not banned freedom camping absolutely. It can find all sorts of hostile places, such as a mill that works 24 hours a day. A sawmill can go for 24 hours a day and be completely hostile to freedom campers, but as long as the council puts up a sign saying “Freedom campers welcome”, it has not absolutely banned freedom camping.

This bill goes far too far. There is no balance, logic, or reason in it, and I think the process of consultation has been abysmal. This legislation is from a party that says it is there for individual freedoms and individual rights. What a load of rubbish. This shows the paradox in National. National members talk about being anti - nanny State, then they introduce nanny State policies. They talk about getting the Government out of people’s lives, and then they put more government on people. They talk about having less bureaucracy, and what do we have? More bureaucracy. In fact, they are taking people’s freedoms away by stealth, and by orders of that well-read paper, the Gazette. I cannot believe it. It is impossible to believe.

I move, That the question be now put.