Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill

I move, That the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill be now read a third time. At the second reading of this bill I noted that my electorate includes the vast Mackenzie Basin, our awe-inspiring Southern Alps, and a very special coastline. Not only do good people live, work, and play in my electorate; some very interesting, diverse, and rare creatures and plants live in these special places, too, and I would like to think that this bill will make their lives a bit more secure.

The bill will help the places by creating, for the first time, equal legal protection for all classes of public conservation land. The maximum penalties for offending on any public conservation land will be the same. The existing legislation provides inconsistent penalties. The same action could have resulted in a maximum of a $500 fine or 1 month’s imprisonment if it happened in a reserve, a $2,500 fine or 3 months’ imprisonment if in a national park, or a $10,000 fine or 12 months’ imprisonment if the offending took place in a conservation area. This inconsistent situation is a pure accident of history. Each Act reflects the norms of the penalties at the time it was enacted, rather than the values that are protected on that land today.

This bill remedies that situation. National parks and national reserves will still be the jewels in our crown as some of our most precious places, and sentences will be better able to take into account both the status of the land where the offending occurs and also the natural heritage values that exist on that land. This will result in fair and effective sentences. The bill will help the creatures and the plants by creating, again for the first time, increased legal protection of all natural resources, wildlife, and the places they need to be able to survive.

The penalties contained in this bill are, in many cases, significant increases to the existing penalties. Penalties for offending against marine mammals will now be similar to the penalties provided for in the Fisheries Act and the Animal Welfare Act, and I want to acknowledge and thank Maryan Street for her work in bringing this clause into the bill. We have set penalties for commercially motivated offending against wildlife at a high enough level to deter smugglers from stealing our precious plants and creatures. It will no longer be a lucrative proposition, given that they could face up to 5 years’ imprisonment and pay significant fines.

This bill will also help my constituents by supporting Brand New Zealand. Our way of life, our national identity, and our tourist industry are built on our natural heritage. By deterring people from offending against it, we will all win. By increasing these penalties and by doing so consistently, we demonstrate the value our community places on our protected places, plants, and creatures. This bill raises fines, but, more important, it raises the mana of the values that will be protected by it. We treasure our natural heritage, and this bill will help protect it better.

The Department of Conservation works closely with the tourism industry—an industry that depends largely on our conservation land and values. The department has worked hard to respond to industry needs for greater efficiency and consistency, and I do hear reports that this work is paying off. My colleague the Minister of Conservation wants to ensure that the interests of legitimate operators are protected and not undermined by cowboy operators. He hears from the industry that it wants greater monitoring and more consistent consequences for those who are not playing fair. People who make a buck by making money out of public conservation lands without authority undermine legitimate industry. We want a clean, prosperous industry. We want people to be out enjoying the outdoors. We do not want dodgy deals, overcrowding, and competition from those who do not play fair.

Through my electorate role I have become aware of how highly valued some of our endemic rare and endangered species are on the international collectors market. Our orchids and our geckos can fetch amazingly high prices. Smuggling of these items is highly sophisticated. It is difficult to detect, apprehend, or prosecute, and, of course, it is highly lucrative. The Department of Conservation, through the Wildlife Enforcement Group, has had some really good success. It is monitoring the international market and working with the Customs Service, which has resulted in seven foreign nationals being convicted of smuggling-related offences in the last 3 years. That is a good-news story. Some of the geckos they were taking were from my electorate, and those populations that are being smuggled are rare, they are precious, and they are endangered. They cannot sustain selfish, unlawful, commercially motivated predation.

Previously, it was unlawful to take these animals from New Zealand, but little action was taken outside of New Zealand to prevent their sale on the international market. The increased Wildlife Act penalties created through this bill respond to the calls of District Court judges to provide a meaningful deterrence for this behaviour. I am also happy to report to the House that the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora congress held earlier this year agreed to elevate the status of our geckos so that they now have greater protection internationally as well as nationally. European and other authorities are now likely to take stronger action against the sale of smuggled geckos on the international black market.

Although the effects of stronger fines and prison sentences in themselves may be arguable in terms of their rehabilitative effect, there is some evidence that they do serve for effective deterrence and punitive purposes. I see these new, high penalties as being the fence at the top of the cliff so we are not relying on ambulances. I want to deter offending, preventing it from happening rather than being left to pick up the pieces afterwards, and these penalties will assist in that goal.

As was raised by submitters, waving the big stick of higher penalties is only one tool in the mix of methods required to effectively protect our special places and our special species. Prosecution is only one tool in the compliance box. The Department of Conservation works hard on educating and encouraging compliance, and would much prefer to work to prevent offending from occurring rather than have to prosecute. Where offences do occur, the department works hard with alleged offenders to help develop effective, proportionate consequences, and it has a very active diversion programme in place. At times, taking the matter to court will be the most proportionate and effective consequence, and I am all for that.

In conclusion, I want to thank the officials who have worked so hard on this bill over many months and who have been so passionate about the wildlife, special places, and creatures. I again want to give my thanks to my colleagues on the Local Government and Environment Committee, who willingly applied their minds and provided useful insights to enhance the bill. Again, I want to thank the Hon Maryan Street for her contribution to the clause that includes marine mammals. It has been a pleasure to work so constructively on issues that we all seem to agree on. We all do care about our special places, our special plants, and our special animals, and we all want to make sure that they are protected.

It is well past time for those who commit serious offences against our special places and species to face serious consequences. The increased penalties that this bill creates will deter potential offenders and will increase protection of our natural heritage. I commend the bill to the House.

I call the Hon Ruth Dyson.

That is very helpful, Mr Assistant Speaker, given that that is my name. I want to share in the warm fuzzies exhibited by the member in whose name this bill, the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill, is, Jacqui Dean. I commend her for thinking of this as an initiative to put in a member’s bill, and for being prepared to listen in an open and genuine way to the submitters and to other colleagues from different parties at the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is not always the case—we know that—but the member did that. Also, I commend her for her genuine acknowledgment of my colleague Maryan Street for her specific additional contribution.

I think this bill is a good bill. It does things in terms of making the penalties regime more logical and rational around breaches of protection, whether it is for geckos or orchids, as the member mentioned. It makes sense of the whole regime, and I think it is a very good initiative. Jacqui Dean talked about it being a measure to ensure that legal protection for all classes of conservation land was comparable. I think that was a very fine statement.

If only the Minister of Conservation was applying that very same principle in regard to the land, which he seems prepared to give away in order for the Ruataniwha Dam to proceed. He said that it is not classified; it is not highly regarded. Well, that is because it has not been through that classification process, and we all know that that is like a limbo-land of conservation land rather than it being of low value.

The very same committee that looked at this bill recently heard from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment on this very topic—the issue of stewardship land. It is not that stewardship land is of low value. It is not that it has been measured against national parks or schedule 4 land. It is just that it has not got around to being classified. It is just in that holding pattern. It has never been a priority for a Minister or for the Department of Conservation.

So I think that the Minister of Conservation would do well to look at the words of Jacqui Dean in her contribution immediately preceding mine, and understand that whatever the breach is, whether it is stealing orchids or trying to smuggle geckos out of our country, it does not actually matter what classification the conservation land has; the penalties should make sense and should be the same—in the very same way as giving away land in the Hawke’s Bay so that a massive dam can be built.

A ratepayer-provided dam for private benefit, including giving away part of our conservation estate with no arrangement to enhance the value of conservation land in other parts of Hawke’s Bay is, I think, a mistake. It is just one in a very long list of mistakes that the Hon Nick Smith has made in regard to that Tukituki plan change and the Ruataniwha Dam.

I want to comment briefly on the contribution that Maryan Street made in regard to this bill, and that was to propose a new Part 6 to this legislation to add the penalty regime of the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978. As I acknowledged before, Jacqui Dean did not say “Oh, this is a Labour idea. I’m going to oppose it.”, as is sometimes the case. We are all a bit party politically petty, actually, in that regard. She was well above that. She said that it was a sensible suggestion, it added additional weight to her bill, and she was going to propose that the committee accept it. That is the second example of good behaviour I want to acknowledge the member for. She set an example that all of us should follow, actually. So that has made what was already a good bill even better.

The select committee did a few other things, but I think that was the most substantial. There were some other improvements, as you can always have with a bill, but everyone in the House agreed that the idea of this bill was sensible, and the fact that it came through as a member’s bill is just Jacqui Dean’s good luck. I guess it would have been hard to make it a priority for the Government. However, I have noticed every day for the last, I do not know, 5 sitting weeks that when the Speaker asks whether any bills have been presented, there is a big silence. Maybe the member could have got it through as a Government bill, seeing that there is a big vacancy for Government initiatives at the moment, but regardless of that she had the vision to put it forward.

When you come from an area as beautiful as she has described, where you have got the Mackenzie Basin and the Southern Alps, which are a beautiful part of our country—not as beautiful as my own electorate of Port Hills, but getting close—and when you are surrounded by that beauty and understand the threats within your own electorate, then I guess you might feel a bit more passionate than others who do not have the good fortune of representing an electorate such as that.

I also want to comment on the other members of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I think everybody worked really hard on this bill. It was not complex or challenging, but it did still receive good attention, the sort of attention that a member’s bill deserves, so I want to commend the other members of the committee. I also commend the officials, who put a lot of effort into making sure we understood what we were doing and that we looked at comparisons with other penalty regimes. I think they gave us very sound advice and we got it right.

The officials have been working under huge pressure. In the last 5 years the Department of Conservation has had massive cuts from its budget. We have been told that of course this would not affect its ability to work, but you cannot take millions of dollars off a departmental budget and reduce staff significantly, and then put your hand up and say: “Well, that won’t have any impact on the work that’s being done.” Of course it does.

From the very first Budget under the National-led Government in 2009, $54 million has gone whoosh out of the Department of Conservation budget. Then it had to try to redress its priorities, try to work out what it was going to cut back on. That equated to about 400 job losses, and every year since then we have seen further budget cuts and further job losses to the point now that when you look at the Department of Conservation’s annual report, which has just been presented, it is just not meeting its key performance indicators. It is not doing the job that this Parliament expects it to do. I think it is because it has been cut past the tipping point. However, that was not reflected in the quality of advice from the Department of Conservation officials on this bill. They were really competent, really hard-working, and I guess they went well above and beyond the call in terms of delivering support to the committee on this specific bill.

The other issue that I am sure the committee will be considering in future, in light of the thinking that has gone on behind this bill, is just how few of the threatened species that we have in New Zealand are actually under active management by the Department of Conservation, and what the last 5 years of budget cuts and job losses have meant to the ability of the Department of Conservation. It is the one department that is charged with protecting our threatened species. What difference have those budget cuts made to the department’s ability to do it? At the moment it is monitoring and managing only about 250 of the over 2,500 threatened species that we have in New Zealand.

It feels to me like we have a generation of leaders in our current Government who are just surrendering their responsibility to make sure that our children and our grandchildren, and their children and grandchildren, are able to enjoy the great outdoors, including the species that we have within our land. Many species are threatened. Many species are very critical to being totally extinct. We have heard, of course, about animals like our beautiful Māui’s dolphins, which are so critically close to being extinct. Only 55 adults are left. So we have a big responsibility in that area to ensure that the roles that we are privileged to have in this Parliament are taken to the utmost benefit of future generations not our own.

I think this bill goes a step towards that. It is not going to change the world overnight, but it is a bill that has passion behind it. It is a bill that has very good intention and values. It is a bill that will get to the heart of part of the protection mechanism that is needed, and that is the penalties that apply when people breach the conservation provisions in our country.

It is not the whole picture. We do need to beef up the ability and the resources of the Department of Conservation for it to perform its job properly. It needs to be able to do that, to give us the outcomes that we want to see. But this bill will be a big help to those at the other end of the spectrum, in the sticks. I just want to end by saying to Jacqui Dean that this is a good bill. Well done for the content and the manner in which you progressed it. I look forward to its final passing.

I too rise to support the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill in its third reading. I would like to concur with the member who first presented this bill to the House, Jacqui Dean, that it is very much about deterrence. The reality is that many of the species endemic to New Zealand that are traded offshore or otherwise killed here or destroyed in this country are threatened species. They are dwindling in number, and deterrence really is the only practical way to go. Locking someone up or sending them a $10,000 or a $100,000 fine will not bring that species back if it is pushed to the point of extinction due to foul play or, in fact, trade.

What was interesting about this bill, for the Local Government and Environment Committee, was that, as originally submitted, it was to change the penalties and provisions across five Acts. In doing so, it was informed by three other Acts. There is an Act of Parliament that remains untouched by this piece of legislation. I would like to take members through those five Acts. Originally, as introduced, amendments were proposed to the Conservation Act 1987, the National Parks Act 1980, the Reserves Act 1977, the Wildlife Act 1953, and the Wild Animal Control Act 1977.

At the second reading of this bill, a number of changes were incorporated following the select committee process, and were confirmed at the Committee of the whole House stage. The key change was to include the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978. The penalties in that Act are also being changed through this legislation. So six Acts are being changed.

The committee asked the question of what the contemporary penalties were in recent Acts of Parliament where punishments were handed out by judges. What recent Acts were they informed by, or should we be informed by, in setting these penalties? We looked at three current Acts in order to make that judgment, the Animal Welfare Act, the Resource Management Act, and the Fisheries Act—these outline penalties that are fairly contemporary; ones set within recent years—in order to set comparable penalties for those people or corporations that are discovered to be, basically, destroying our fauna and flora. What has not come through is that this particular bill does not apply to the Marine Reserves Act. In fact, penalties in the Marine Reserves Act will be addressed through separate legislation, to be introduced by the Minister of Conservation. Although three Acts informed the levels of penalty to six Acts, in fact, the Marine Reserves Act has been left out of this legislation, and rightly so.

The bill now sends a strong message that we take the protection of New Zealand’s wildlife in natural areas very seriously. Actions that damage or endanger our wildlife in natural areas put our protected species, our excellent international reputation, and our tourism industry at risk. This most comprehensive reform is needed. The conservation penalties in our legislative history did need updating. Some penalties have not actually changed since the 1970s, so Jacqui Dean did a good job here in identifying the need for this legislation. It provides serious consequences now for serious offending. The proposed penalty levels are benchmarked against the other legislation that I outlined. It will deter commercially motivated offending but will not in any way undermine legitimate commercial activity. It is worth noting that there are a large number of commercial operators on the conservation estate or elsewhere in New Zealand that come head to head with our natural flora and fauna. They operate legitimately in important tourism businesses, in particular, in New Zealand, and they achieve outcomes that are good for conservation and good commercially. This bill, though, will make it harder for cowboy operators to compete with or undermine legitimate concessionaires—those who hold concessions to operate on the conservation estate.

This is a good piece of legislation. It has been put to the House not before time. It is a comprehensive bill. It proposes serious consequences, as I say, for serious offending—bigger fines and longer jail sentences for people who endanger our wildlife or damage our protected natural habitats. The current penalties are too low. This bill raises them. I support this bill.

It gives me great pleasure to rise to speak to the third reading of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. I want to congratulate Jacqui Dean, the member in whose name this bill stands, on getting it through to this stage and very shortly on to the statute book. It is a worthwhile bill. It is something that came out of the member’s own concern for those wildlife and natural and historic resources that abound in her own electorate of Waitaki. In the course of defending things that she sees and lives with on a regular basis in the Waitaki electorate, she has chosen to do something that benefits the whole of New Zealand, and for that I commend her. Her original intention was that those resources would be better protected, and I think this bill will achieve that in law.

There are two components to it. One is that it will give us consistency across all of those pieces of legislation that are administered by the Department of Conservation. When the bill was introduced, as the previous speaker, Phil Heatley, has just iterated, it amended a number of Acts, as I say, that are under the remit of the Department of Conservation—first, the Conservation Act 1987, the National Parks Act 1980, the Reserves Act 1977, the Wildlife Act 1953, going back further and further in time, and the Wild Animal Control Act 1977. All of those pieces of legislation had various penalties for the abuse or the misuse or the harm or destruction or some other kind of ill being done to our natural, historic, and wildlife resources.

In the course of the discussion at the Local Government and Environment Committee about this bill, Ms Dean was generous enough to entertain the possibility of an amendment. She has subsequently been repeatedly generous in acknowledging the amendment that I proposed, which resulted in a new Part 6, “Amendments to Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978”. The intention of the bill, which we all supported, was to provide consistency across these Acts and to provide increased penalties that would make these Acts more effective and could be complemented by the addition of the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The marine mammals were the ones that were left out. Everything else was included, and with some judicious drawing of members’ attention to these issues, the Marine Mammals Protection Act became included for amendment. In other words, it was entirely possible, under Jacqui Dean’s original bill, to protect and defend native orchids, geckos, and other flora and fauna of this country from harm, destruction, and smuggling, as has become more commonly experienced in recent times. But although those things were able to happen, it did not cover marine mammals like whales, seals, and sea lions. Those mammals require special protection in our environment.

I think that the Minister of Conservation’s willingness to accept my amendment does him credit, and the member’s willingness to accept my amendment to include marine mammals is important. Just recently, we have seen two cases brought before the courts where people have been charged with, and convicted of, harming marine mammals. The bashing of seal pups in the name of hunting was never going to stand as a defence, anyway. Everybody could see that. Those kinds of crimes attracted lesser penalties under some Acts than others, and therefore charges that were brought under the Wildlife Act were going to result in different penalties from those under the Marine Mammals Protection Act. That will never be able to happen again, because the punishments will be the same. They will be standardised, and they are substantial. They have moved from simply $500 or 1 month’s imprisonment to $100,000 or $200,000 for individuals and daily penalties on top of that, which are very substantial, and, in addition to that, hefty prison sentences. There has been a seriousness about this bill that has been laudable.

The select committee has applied itself to this bill with care. There has been no dissension between us on this issue. I would be very keen to see when this bill is passed whether, in fact, there was any evidence to show that seismic testing did harm to marine mammals and whether or not there is a risk here for the Minister, who was so generous in including the amendment, that suddenly he might be hoist by his own petard. At this stage in proceedings, I am keen that this bill be passed by this House, because all parties agree that protection is required and that consistency is needed across all of the legislation that the Department of Conservation administers, more thinly and with greater difficulty now than when it used to have a more adequate budget and greater staffing. However, it still applies all its efforts to ensuring that the legislation that is within its remit is complied with properly and completely.

I think, probably, as well as the consistency across other laws, which is desirable, it is the extent of the punishments that is going to be one of the interesting factors to pursue, just to see whether, in fact, it does act as the deterrent that we seek. Whether it is $100,000 or $200,000 for an individual with an ongoing daily penalty of up to $10,000 or $20,000 or whether it is the prospect of a maximum term of 2 years’ imprisonment for individuals and 5 years in other circumstances where commercial gain is the factor, it is going to be interesting to see how effective these penalties are in deterring the kind of behaviour that we have seen to date. Now, people who bash seal pups will be subject to the same penalties as people who smuggle geckos, and that is as it should be. I want to finally commend again the member whose name this bill is in for bringing this bill to Parliament’s attention. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Green Party, again, is pleased to speak to the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. This will be a short call on its third reading. I have previously described the bill as useful tinkering. It is certainly that because it does seek to improve compliance with conservation legislation. Maryan Street enumerated the Acts that it applies to, the Conservation Act, the National Parks Act, the Reserves Act, the Wildlife Act, the Wild Animal Control Act, and the Marine Mammals Protection Act. It does this, in terms of attempting to improve compliance, by increasing the penalties, in terms of both imprisonment and fines, and providing for a more flexible sentencing regime.

Certainly, there needed to be legislative change, because a lot of the penalties in the legislation are quite old. In the Reserves Act, for example, they had not been changed since 1977. They are inconsistent. The same offence in different types of protected area can end up with different penalties. The penalties are often not proportionate to the significance of the wildlife. People who are smuggling our species like gecko could earn more from selling gecko internationally than they would be penalised under the Wildlife Act.

It was quite problematic—these pieces of legislation and the enforcement and penalty regimes they established—so we do congratulate Jacqui Dean on her work in bringing this bill to the House and to the Local Government and Environment Committee, and for the very constructive way in which the select committee operated.

The legislation is useful also because the department has reported a number of offences in areas as diverse as encroachments on conservation land, illegal whitebaiting, people taking dogs into areas that are closed to dogs in order to protect the kiwi there, and people injuring wildlife. In the case of the bashing of seals that Maryan Street referred to, I think it was actually a prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act, rather than conservation legislation. But all of these sorts of things happen on conservation lands and to our protected species, and people need to know that there are strong penalties and that they will be dealt with appropriately.

There are some wider problems with the actual implementation of this bill, and that is because of the significant underfunding of the Department of Conservation and the restructuring of the department. It has moved away from being a place-based organisation, centred around field centres, area offices, and conservancies, to having much bigger regions. I question whether there will be enough staff on the ground and whether they will have the capacity to actually respond promptly to potential breaches of the legislation. Certainly, the Department of Conservation has a hot line that the public can report anything to that looks a bit dubious and to report registration numbers. The public does have a key role in providing the department’s eyes and ears. But when you have a department that has had its funding cut by $54 million under this Government, does it have the resources to ensure that staff are out there in the field, vigilant about potential offences, and that the department then prosecutes those potential offenders? We have seen in the Ruataniwha case the department saying that one of the reasons it did not make a proper submission was that it was concerned about the cost of bringing expert witnesses and others in front of the board of inquiry. So cost is used to undermine the department’s statutory advocacy responsibilities. How do we know that it is not going to do the same here and that there is no risk that it will not be enforcing the legislation and these increased penalties?

The other area where there is a major concern is that the Government has not shown itself to be committed to the effective management of our natural heritage. Here in this bill you have new penalties created for offences like affecting the spawning areas of fish and for putting substances or devices in the water that will harm fish. Yet you do not have the same department that is responsible for enforcing this legislation being able to make a substantive submission on the Ruataniwha Dam application that will make the Tukituki River and other tributaries potentially toxic because of elevated nitrate levels and will kill fish. So we have an offence to kill fish and increased penalties under this bill, but we have the department not being active to prevent a major irrigation scheme that will kill fish. So there is a double standard there.

You have the Ministry for Primary Industries in that same Ruataniwha case making an 18-page submission about how the scheme will benefit agriculture, but you do not have the Department of Conservation doing its work. This Government is not interested in the department doing its job properly, and we have seen that through the major cuts to funding and through the significant restructuring in the department.

💬 Maggie Barry: Rubbish.

It is true and it is borne out by the department’s annual report, which was tabled last week. Under that annual report it highlights that we have got a biodiversity crisis in New Zealand, which the Government is blind to. The Department of Conservation gets $157 million annually—that is all—for natural heritage management. It was able to do possum control last year on only 184,000 hectares. Yes, this bill is a good one in terms of improving the penalties, but the wider issue of effectively managing our conservation lands and adequately funding the department to do comprehensive pest control is not being given the attention it deserves or the funding it deserves by the Government. You have the department haemorrhaging staff as a result of the restructuring, so will there be the staff on the ground to recognise when offences are occurring? Will they follow up those offences? We are not sure, because of the major loss of expertise and staff numbers, the move away from a place-based department, and the department’s failure to undertake its statutory responsibilities in terms of statutory advocacy and our freshwater fish management.

Yes, the bill is a good one, but it is a small area that it is dealing with, and there may not be the adequate funding for the Department of Conservation to undertake its compliance and enforcement responsibilities effectively.

I rise to speak at the third reading of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. This is its third reading. I have spoken at all the other readings, and I am a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee, which has heard this excellent bill through all its very many stages. As others have said, this is a bill that updates all the penalties across the conservation areas and across many pieces of legislation, with the sole and laudable aim of better protecting our native species, our flora and our fauna, and our creatures. Jacqui Dean, the sponsor of this bill, who has done a magnificent job of representing a local issue and making it relevant and applicable in the wider sense, has also been telling us about the geckos. We were shocked by some of the submissions that we have seen around what they will actually fetch, in terms of the price, internationally. There are considerable incentives for people to do the wrong thing—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Ask John Banks.

—and that is why it was vitally important that we did an update on the penalties. After all, they have not been updated since the 1970s—much like the member who is whingeing in the corner over there opposite me, who lives in the past.

This is a bill that—unlike that creature, who wallows in the wilds of the Waimakariri seat he will never win again—does improve penalties, and it improves things in a way that is consistent. Once again, that is something that is a bit of an unknown to the Opposition benches. Six key pieces of legislation are involved in this bill. It is about increasing the protection for most public conservation land and protected indigenous wildlife, and marine mammals, which was a positive contribution—a rare creature indeed—from the Opposition. These are the sorts of things that actually make a piece of legislation relevant. It has, as a bill, enjoyed widespread support, cross-party support, but, of course, there have been some political points scored today, so I would like to counter some of those.

If you were unwise enough to listen to the peculiar utterances of the Greens, for example, you would think that the Department of Conservation is an organisation that can do nothing to protect our environment and is on its knees and weakened. That is rubbish, like much of what the member Eugenie Sage, who sat down just before my speech, often says—in select committee too, regrettably, but mostly in this House. I would just point out to those of you who are interested in the facts that the budget for Vote Conservation is now $444 million, which is almost double the $226 million it was back in 2001 and 2002. So, once again, although there is a great deal of rhetoric from tired old Labour people, they did nothing much at the time. They went along with this bill because it is an excellent piece of work, and even though they cannot find fault with it, they still continue to try to stand up and bash the Government around these sorts of things.

This is a Government that is investing well in recovery programmes. Across our national conservation programmes we want to protect some 35 percent more threatened species. We are also, as a Government, intending to review New Zealand’s threatened species management framework. Those are all laudable aims, and they are also things that we actually do. We do not just sit around and gripe about it when we have already lost the opportunity to do it, which is what happens with Opposition members. It will probably be a very long time before they ever get the opportunity to do anything about this sort of thing again, because they are never going to get the Treasury benches with the kinds of antics that they are coming up with at the moment.

People have talked about the flora and fauna, but I would like to remind this House and people who are supportive of this bill that it is also very important for the preservation of human life. I would like to remind this group here today about Rosemary Ives. That is a name known to us due to the tragic nature of her death. She was killed as a result of a bullet being fired without due caution in the wrong place at the wrong time. We all know, or if we do not, we should, that it is unlawful to discharge firearms at night or over public conservation land. But it happens. When it happens, it needs to be punished. There is currently very little consequence on the statute book for such actions. This was something that the coroner highlighted in particular as something that he was aggrieved about and felt needed addressing. That is, in part, what this bill does, because what happened to Rosemary Ives, that terrible tragedy, is technically just a breach of a condition in a permit. This bill changes the penalty for such actions from the current maximum of a $10,000 fine to a maximum of 2 years’ imprisonment or a $100,000 fine or both. It is too little and too late for the tragic situation of Rosemary Ives, but it is significantly better than no change at all.

So this bill, which has been ably led through the select committee process by a very competent and able chair, Nicky Wagner, and proposed by a very competent and able member, Jacqui Dean, has brought together the very best of what needs to be done to protect our flora and fauna. The question remains why it has taken so long to get to this stage. It is a bill that is fit for purpose, enjoys widespread support, needs to be passed, and needs to be done. I commend this bill to the House without hesitation or reservation.

I recognise the honourable member Andrew Williams.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am glad that you recognise me. Even though this week I have not had a haircut, you still recognise me. That is very good.

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in the third reading debate on the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. We also commend the member Jacqui Dean for bringing this bill to the House. This bill certainly has a great deal of merit, in that it addresses many concerns that most New Zealanders have—certainly those who are conscious of the effects on our flora and fauna and, in terms of our wildlife, the risks that it suffers.

A few weeks ago I attended a conference in Auckland. It was very interesting. It was not to do with wild animals; it was to do with companion animals. At that conference, involving the SPCA, it was made very clear to all in attendance that we are the guardians of animals. Animals cannot speak for themselves. They are unable to stand up for themselves, and humans are their guardians. It is interesting that in terms of ownership of animals, they no longer talk about owners of cats or dogs or owners of horses and other animals; they talk about guardians of animals.

In that respect, in terms of this bill, we are also guardians of the well-being of wildlife. Therefore, it is very worthy that this bill addresses many of the issues where we have had the likes of geckos spirited out of the country by foreigners for illicit gain, and where we have also had other species of endangered animals and birds taken out of the country. This bill addresses that by greatly increasing the penalties for those who would perpetuate those crimes. It also deals with crimes relating to fauna and what would happen in terms of the natural environment.

Although it is very worthy that National Party member Jacqui Dean has brought this bill to the House—and we congratulate her on doing that and on standing up for her principles and for wildlife—New Zealand First does have concerns in terms of the wider picture. We have already heard in the House today, and through the previous readings of this bill, that there are concerns out there about the significant cutbacks by this Government in terms of the Department of Conservation, and the flow-on effects of that in so many areas. So it is a situation where there is giving on one hand but taking on the other. This is very much a bill that is giving on one hand and helping that situation, but on the other hand we are seeing cutbacks.

My colleague Tracey Martin brought to my attention the other day at caucus the situation of the great spotted kiwi, the largest kiwi in the country—it was highlighted on a television programme the other day—and the effects the situation is having on it. Great spotted kiwi are found in north-west Nelson and in the northern part of the West Coast. They are an endangered species; in fact, they are listed as being vulnerable.

The New Zealand Community Trust, it was shown, is struggling with funding to continue providing its hatching arrangements and its incubation arrangements to ensure that the eggs and the young chicks survive the important first year or so, through to when they can be released into the wild, so that they are not eaten by predators in the wild and also do not suffer as a result of the habitat destruction in parts of that area. So it is very concerning to hear from the likes of the New Zealand Community Trust that it does wonder how, when its funding is getting increasingly smaller, it will survive after the next 2 or 3 months and how it will continue to do work on behalf of the great spotted kiwi.

The trust says that funding from the Department of Conservation is, regrettably, reducing because of the pressures on the department, with its reduced budget. It is not necessarily the department’s fault. It is being given strictly controlled budgets and reduced overall budgets across the whole of New Zealand, and its front-line staff and the people actually out in the wild are very much under pressure to provide the services they do with the funding they are provided with.

This particular instance, where great spotted kiwi numbers have declined by 43 percent in the last 45 years, is quite alarming. I think that every New Zealander would be shocked if they knew that there was not sufficient funding to support the likes of the ongoing work of the New Zealand Community Trust. They would be shocked if they knew there was no assured funding to support that trust so that the very largest kiwi in New Zealand, with the largest eggs, is assured of a healthy and long existence in New Zealand.

However, having said that, we acknowledge that other parts of this bill do address the important area of smuggling. Interpol has estimated that the smuggling of endangered species is in the order of—it is quite a large figure—anywhere between $10 billion and $20 billion a year worldwide. New Zealand has a unique situation. Because we are such an isolated country—we were cut off from Gondwanaland, the rest of the land mass, many millions of years ago—we have species here that are unique to New Zealand but are prized and sought after in other parts of the world. Therefore, in that respect, we are the guardians, as I said at the beginning of my speech, of those species. We New Zealanders must ensure that those species are well protected. We are very proud to live in a country where we are so fortunate to have such a wonderful array of flora and fauna, which the rest of the world envies.

So this bill does go a long way to address that issue. It will ensure that the right message is sent out worldwide—that New Zealand will come down heavily on people who break our regulations, and that any corporations, people, individuals, or anybody else participating in any activities of that nature will be heavily fined. Also, it is good that this bill is addressing the marine mammal situation. Again, we have seen some terrible situations, with the clubbing of seal pups and other terrible acts such as that. Again, this addresses that situation, and it is long overdue, because those atrocious sorts of situations cannot be allowed to continue.

So we do commend Jacqui Dean for bringing this bill through. This is a good member’s bill that is worthy of being supported by all members in this House. New Zealand First is very pleased to support it. We see this as a valuable addition to the conservation estate, and we commend it to the House.

I am very pleased to take a call on the excellent Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill, brought to the House by Jacqui Dean, who is a very fine member of Parliament—a strong and staunch member of the Bluegreens, a promoter of the Mackenzie agreement, a well-known personality in Wanaka, and chair of the Law and Order Committee. And it is that commitment to law and order, and upholding the law, that I think lies behind this piece of legislation that she has brought to the House, which is, indeed, extending that concern for law and order to the area of the geckos, the skinks, and all the critters of this piece of the world that we call New Zealand, which we are talking about today.

It is very pleasing to see the Greens supporting this legislation, supporting tough penalties, and being tough on law and order. It is a pity that they do not carry that logic across to other crimes, but we do celebrate their support in this instance today.

I just wanted to remind us all that, indeed, New Zealand was the last significant land mass to be populated on the Earth, apart from Antarctica. It was only 700 or 800 years ago that the first Māori arrived in this country, and prior to that it had lived in splendid isolation for millions and millions of years with no people around. I remember very well going down to the Catlins one time with Simon Upton when I was working with him back in the 1990s. We stood beneath a great rimu tree, a very ancient tree that had been grazed by moa. It was that old—an 800 or 900-year-old tree. It just brought home powerfully the fact that we just missed what must have been one of the greatest shows on Earth by a split second in geological time. So New Zealand does have to accept the fact that so much has been lost, due first to a wave of extinctions after Māori arrived and then to another wave after Pākehā settled in these lands. And we have lost so many birds due to the forest clearances. My favourite place is a little place called Huia, named after the rather beautiful bird that we lost only 100 or so years ago. So we have had great success in this country building our prosperity by developing the country, and we enjoy that today, but we look back with regret that previous generations were so quick to burn and clear the forests and lose so much of our biodiversity.

So what do we do today? We certainly have a huge commitment to preserving the environment, and that commitment is widely shared across the House. It is certainly not the preserve of just the Green Party. It is widely shared and deeply embedded in the beliefs and attitudes of the National Party and shared by countless New Zealanders who, on their private land, protect areas of natural habitats and make sure that they do everything they can. We also have a massive investment in the Department of Conservation, which runs to well over $300 million per year.

Of course, it is often forgotten that we have over one-third of the land mass of New Zealand set aside in the Department of Conservation’s area. One-third of the land mass has been set aside to preserve our forests and our natural habitats. We also have 13,000 square kilometres of marine reserves, up from only a fraction of that figure 10 years ago. Indeed, we also have 111 threatened species under active management, up from only 42 a few years ago. So we do have a massive investment in conservation in this country.

That brings us, finally, to the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill, which we are talking about today. What are we trying to achieve by this bill? The purpose of the bill, indeed, is to update the penalties across six conservation-related Acts in order to better protect public conservation lands and protected native species. It is expected to act as a deterrent to those who would engage in illegal activity. It is expected to act as a deterrent. We were shocked—we were shocked—in the Local Government and Environment Committee consideration when we were listening to lots of information from people coming through about where, and in what ways, people smuggle geckos in and out of the country. It was illuminating and it was interesting, but we all agreed that conservation offending poses a serious threat to our natural heritage. Such offending includes smuggling protected species, killing marine animals, illegal hunting of protected species, logging trees and draining wetlands in protected areas, and releasing potential pests into protected areas. So increased penalties are proposed across the board for illegal, commercially motivated activities as well as for non-commercial offending and breaches of by-laws and regulations across all six Acts. That is a singular achievement by Jacqui Dean in bringing this bill to the House. I am sure it will make no small contribution—a large contribution—to sending the message that New Zealand has no truck with people who will go into our conservation areas, into which we are investing such huge sums across the nation and which we are so determined to preserve, in order to make their own money in nefarious ways.

I suppose one of the other questions that lingers is why we have longer jail terms and stronger fines. There is no question that it does send a strong signal that there are serious consequences for those who choose to break the law, but it also sends a message that New Zealand takes the protection of our species and native species seriously. That is a strong message to get across internationally, particularly at a time when we are trying to advance our cause on all sorts of international bodies. In the sense of New Zealand being an isolated set of islands in the South Pacific with a whole lot of endemic species that are unique to this country, we do not, indeed, take our responsibilities, that kaitiaki, lightly, but we make every effort that we can to ensure that we deserve that distinction.

For some offences the potential gains for people if they are not caught are highly lucrative, which acts as an incentive to offend. So we do need to match the potential gains of this lucrative trade with the maximum penalties, because there is no point undershooting on these issues. The options of longer jail terms also mean that when serious offences are committed, international offenders can be refused re-entry into New Zealand. There is no point being soft on people like that who go around smuggling geckos in their underpants on the plane, who come back and get caught, and then letting them have another go. Most people would be surprised that this is something that people would build their career doing. I think the average New Zealander would not expect or understand that this was the sort of thing that people would choose to make their life’s vocation, but, surprisingly enough, it is a highly lucrative business, and we do need to clamp down on it. I stand here and commend Jacqui Dean for this piece of legislation, which is now approaching the end of its third reading.

I will just say that another question that lingers is whether the maximum penalties will, indeed, be imposed. That is not something that we can have full control over, because it is up to the courts to decide. But we have given the courts the flexibility to impose a sentence proportionate to the seriousness of the offending in each particular case. So the court is required to take into account the seriousness of the type of offence committed, the circumstances of the particular offending, including aggravating and mitigating factors, and the circumstances of the offender. I think that all makes good sense.

So on that basis, I would be very pleased to commend this legislation to the House and to commend Jacqui Dean, the MP for Waitaki since 2005, for this very good bill. Thank you very much.

It was quite something to hear Paul Goldsmith, the man who has done much to protect that most endangered of political species, John Banks, revealing a very soft and sensitive side to his personality that he has hitherto never revealed to the House: this deep concern that he has for endangered species. I must say that it makes a nice change—it makes a nice change—from his sort of flimsy, fiscal, conservative face. He is the man who will surely be the future member for Epsom—who will surely be the future member for Epsom if he can just stop people running around putting up hoardings—

💬 Iain Lees-Galloway: With his own name on them.

—with his own name on them. It is very good to follow the future member for Epsom.

It is interesting—I noticed that the last two National Party members who got up to speak, in spite of warbling endlessly about what a wonderful member Jacqui Dean is and what a great bill this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill is, both appeared to be asleep when the call was available. Actually, both of them—Maggie Barry and the future member for Epsom—did wonderful impersonations of Gerry Brownlee when he is having his afternoon nap and the dinner bell goes. They jumped up from their seats, all kind of confused and disorientated, shuffling through their papers, desperately trying to work out what bill it is that they should be talking about.

I thought that the member Eugenie Sage actually made a very good comment in her contribution, which was that this bill really is useful tinkering. I do not think that anybody is going to disagree that consolidating the penalty provisions across half a dozen different pieces of legislation to improve the protection of our conservation and natural heritage is a good thing. That is fine. But I was sitting here listening to the earlier contributions, thinking about Eugenie Sage’s comment, and reflecting on what it is that really makes this National Government tick. What is it really all about?

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Money and privilege.

Money and privilege, my colleague Clayton Cosgrove says. So when the Government members are not actually selling off publicly owned assets—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: And botching that.

—they are indeed botching it—when they are not rewriting our employment laws at the behest of Warner Bros, when they are not handing $30 million over to Rio Tinto—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: There’s no jobs.

—with no job guarantees, when they are not rewriting our gambling laws as part of a deal to get Skycity to build a $400 million convention centre, when they are not creating Draconian new penalties at the behest of Anadarko against the right to peaceful protest on the high seas—when they are not doing all these sorts of things, well, what are they doing, actually? What are they about?

We can make some observations about what they have done in the environmental and conservation area. What we have seen under this Government since John Key became Prime Minister is a systematic undermining of the environmental protections and bottom lines. We have seen the gutting of our climate change policy, and the Kyoto Protocol walked away from. We have seen countless numbers of pieces of legislation that they brought to this House that weaken the protections in the Resource Management Act for the natural environment and the right of communities to have a say. We have seen the systematic weakening of local government and, really, a determination to tilt the playing field in favour of developers and in favour of capital, and away from the environment and away from people. The recent fiasco around Nick Smith and the Ruataniwha Dam, about which he gagged his own department—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): Order! It is a third reading speech.

Yes. I am coming back. I am coming back to the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill, which has been described as a piece of useful tinkering. It would be remiss not to observe and remark on the difference between this bill and the Government’s record generally on conservation and the environment. Nothing reveals that more than the fiasco around the Ruataniwha Dam.

This bill does some good things. It does some little, practical things to actually improve the administration of the protection of our natural heritage. But there is a huge irony in the fact that the bill actually increases the penalties for things like illegal whitebaiting and fishing in marine reserves, and yet this Government presides over the systematic overfishing of many, many marine species in New Zealand under the quota system.

💬 Jacqui Dean: No.

It does. There is a huge irony in that. This bill actually increases the penalties for people who illegally fence off a slice of national park and chop down a few trees. Yet it was this National Government that recently stripped out the protection for urban forests and has deliberately hobbled the ability of local councils to use tree protection rules to preserve urban forests. If that is not an irony, I do not know what is.

The Local Government and Environment Committee agreed with Maryan Street’s amendment to incorporate the Marine Mammals Protection Act along with the various bits of legislation whose penalty and compliance provisions are consolidated by this bill. Yet this Government has consistently refused to do anything substantial to protect either Māui’s or Hector’s dolphins, our two most endangered marine mammal species. So there is no shortage of irony in this debate.

It has to be remarked that although the member is happy to bring a bill to the House that will increase the penalty for people who are cruel, violent, or abusive to, for instance, a baby seal washed up on the shore, this Government has stripped out resources from the Department of Conservation. It is worth pointing out that in the 2009 Budget the Department of Conservation had $54 million cut from its budget over a 4-year period. There have been 400 jobs cut from the Department of Conservation under this Government. That is around one in six staff. In September 2011 the Government announced that it was restructuring again—cutting 96 members of staff and saving $7.5 million. So it is just not on for members on the National Party benches to get up and warble about their commitment to the conservation estate and their commitment to the natural environment when, time and time again, they have presided over, and voted for, legislation in this House that weakens our environmental protections and has cut resources from the Department of Conservation, which is the very agency that New Zealanders have charged with the responsibility of protecting our natural environment and protecting endangered species.

Having said that, we are voting for this bill. We do think it is worthwhile to create a consistent, consolidated, two-tier schedule of penalties that will both act as a greater deterrent for people who are behaving in a destructive and abusive way to our natural heritage and also make it easier for the authorities to deal with the seal clubbers, the people who smuggle geckos and tuatara out of the country illegally, and the people who mill a stand of trees on the edge of a national park. It will make it easier for the authorities to deal with those kinds of offences. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. The Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill sets out to better protect our special places and species by increasing penalties for non-compliance with laws administered by the Department of Conservation. It also implements a consistent approach to penalties across the amended laws. The bill proposes serious consequences for serious offending against our natural heritage. The bill proposes bigger fines and longer jail sentences for people who endanger our wildlife or damage our protected natural habitats. That includes theft and smuggling of our taonga.

We have had theft and smuggling of our beautiful resources this year and last year, but in previous centuries we had mass smuggling and theft of our taonga. Can you imagine standing in a room this size at the Australian Museum and seeing on the shelves our taonga—beautiful taxidermied weka, rows and rows of weka? Can you imagine looking on those shelves and seeing taxidermied beautiful takahē, rows upon rows of them in the museum? Can you imagine reaching out and touching the feathers of tīwaiwaka, and touching the feathers of kiwi? That is what happened to our taonga centuries ago: theft and smuggling because people could. This bill ensures that they now will not.

Our flora and fauna are an important part of New Zealand’s culture and our heritage. We need to protect ourselves, our species, and our special places for future generations. What that means is that this bill is a kaitiaki of those tamariki within Tāne Māhuta and those that fly between Tāne Māhuta and Tawhirimatea. We are continuing to improve the environment and build a cleaner, greener, and brighter future for all New Zealanders. It was heartening to see the Tūhoe settlement come into the House today and to have the members here talk about their relationship with Te Urewera. There is no more special place than Te Urewera. Within those boundaries and upon that whenua we have our taonga, our beautiful flora and fauna. Within those boundaries as well we have the patupaiarehe. They are those beautiful taonga who live within those reaches of Tāne Māhuta. This bill will protect those stories and those pūrākau around our taonga, such as the gecko.

I hear my colleagues talking about the beautiful gecko; we know them as mokomoko. We also know that a lot of our tattoos, our tā moko, are based on the designs of our moko. Our tattoos, our moko, are also named after the god of earthquakes, Rūaumoko. It is the ridges within the landscape when he moves, tosses, turns, and breaks up the landscape that are also the ridges and turns upon the backs of our mokomoko and our tuatara. So this bill not only protects the physical taonga but also entrenches in law what we know to be our spiritual taonga associated with our beautiful species of flora and fauna.

I think that at this time, when looking at this bill, I will also pay tribute to our rangatira who work in this area: the beautiful Dell Wīhongi from Ngāpuhi, and Dame Ngāneko Minhinnick and Joe Harawira, who also worked very closely across the conservation areas. They also fight and struggle to maintain our heritage, which is what this bill will do for us.

It is about kaitiakitanga and it is about the physicality of our conservation. We hope that this bill will also bring about a retelling of our history. I talked about our tā moko, Rūaumoko, mokomoko, and tuatara. This bill should also bring forward into our education system the telling of these stories—why these taonga are so important to Māori, why they are so important to iwi, and why they are now very important to all New Zealanders. It is about the sharing of our natural history. It is also a telling of our history in stories across the centuries and across people. So while we debate this bill, in its practicalities, in its legislative framework, where there are lots and lots of words, deep in the heart of this for us, for Māori, is intrinsically our taonga, our roots and threads that bind us to this land and to each other.

This bill—going back to the legislation—is comprehensive. As introduced, it applied to five pieces of conservation legislation, which my colleagues have already talked about. On the recommendation of the Local Government and Environment Committee it now also applies to the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The bill does not apply to the Marine Reserves Act. A consistent approach to penalties across the laws administered by the Department of Conservation will ensure appropriate and effective penalties, punishments, and enforcement. I suppose that on the one hand we are lucky that it is about penalties as in monetary repayment and also incarceration. Perhaps if we had introduced pre-colonial penalties, it might be a whole lot more severe. I do not think we would want to revisit that.

We New Zealanders pride ourselves on our clean, green image. It is imperative, then, that we look after our natural environment, and this bill will assist in doing that. Vote Conservation is now $444 million, almost double the $226 million in 2001-02. We are investing in recovery programmes for 35 percent more threatened species. Under this Government we have done that. We also intend to review—

💬 Maggie Barry: Quite right.

That is right. Thank you. We also intend to review New Zealand’s threatened species management framework. Under this Government we will do that. Our natural environment is a valuable resource that we need to protect and preserve.

I would like to congratulate my colleague Jacqui on bringing this bill to the House, and I congratulate my colleagues and those on the select committee on supporting this bill. Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora.

I understand that the next call is a split call—Moana Mackey.

Can I acknowledge the fine words from the member Claudette Hauiti, who has just resumed her seat. I wish National Party conservation policy even vaguely reflected the words she just spoke. Unfortunately, it does not, and this bill, the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill, does not do any of the things she was talking about. That is not to say that it is not a good bill and we should not be supporting it, because we are and I do not want to take away from Jacqui Dean’s fine moment. But none of the fine things that were being spoken about in that speech are being achieved by this bill, and none of them are to be found in the conservation policy direction of this National Government. I hope that Claudette Hauiti takes up a more senior role within the National Party so that she can further those conversations, because she obviously has a lot to contribute.

This bill, as I think Eugenie Sage said, is some tinkering around the edges, which is positive, but that is all it is. Really, I would say to the Government members who have been speaking so passionately about how wonderful this is that if it is that wonderful, why did you not put it in Government legislation? Why did you leave it to a member’s bill, put it in a ballot, at the whim of the ballot, and then go through a process that is much slower because we have members’ days only every 2 weeks? If this is as important and crucial and game-changing as the National Party is making out, then why did it not make it a Government bill? Why did it not make it a Government bill? I will tell you why. It is because it wants to block up the members ballot so that Labour Party and Green Party bills that will actually do something about conservation in this country do not get drawn. That is why this bill is being dealt with on a members’ day instead of on a Government day, which is where it could have been dealt with far more quickly than through this process. But, as I said, I am not wanting to take away from Jacqui Dean’s fine moment in the sun. I congratulate her on bringing this to the House, but if the National Party really cared about conservation, it would not be a member’s bill. I just make that point.

I want to also raise the concern that penalties are only as good as enforcement. It is all very well. You can have a trillion-dollar penalty, but if you do not have the enforcement capability, it means absolutely nothing. Our concern is the cuts we have seen, where one in six conservation staff has lost their job and there has been a $54 million drop in budget over 4 years—what are they going to do to the capability of the Department of Conservation staff to actually enforce the penalties we are putting in place here? The penalties are only as good as our ability to enforce them, and we have serious concerns that the National Party has on the one hand lifted penalties, and on the other hand taken away the ability to actually police those penalties and enforce them. That is not just in Vote Conservation; it is actually in terms of the funding for biosecurity, which is also being cut. My colleague Damien O’Connor has raised consistently in the House concerns around our ability to police biosecurity, which has to be one of the most important things for an agriculture-based economy. So it is all very well to raise penalties, but it means nothing if the enforcement capability is not there.

The other thing I want to raise is that the promoter of this bill has said that she wants to see New Zealand’s wildlife and natural and historic resources better protected. Again, that is a very laudable vision, but I have to look at what is happening in the conservation estate in terms of handing over half of the decision-making powers over oil and gas and minerals exploration in the conservation estate to the Minister of Energy and Resources. I wonder whether the Minister of Energy and Resources is going to be subject to the penalties under this piece of legislation if, in fact, he approves a project that results in unlawful reduction of wildlife or harming of wildlife in the conservation estate. I have to say, when I saw Minister Bridges’ performance on Campbell Live last week, I do not have a whole lot of confidence that he is ever going to say no to a mining company. I do not think there is a mining company in this world he is going to say no to. I think that that is of deep concern. It is one of the reasons why Labour will be repealing that role of the Minister of Energy and Resources. As someone who works in the mining sector, the Minister of Energy and Resources cannot be seen as neutral in making those decisions, as opposed to the Minister of Conservation, who is there to protect and preserve the conservation estate. They are the appropriate person to be making those decisions. Will the Minister of Energy and Resources be subject to these penalties if the activities he is approving—or she, if that changes—result in the kinds of infringements that Jacqui Dean is trying to address here in this piece of legislation?

I want to finish off by just pointing out that the biggest threat to our conservation estate is, in fact, pests. In fact, only one-eighth of our conservation estate is currently being actively controlled for weasels, for stoats, and for possums. If the Government was serious about protecting the conservation estate, it would do something about funding for the Department of Conservation and increase its ability and its capability for pest management, which would also be great for biosecurity and for the protection of our agriculture industry when it comes to bovine TB and other such things. But we will be supporting this bill, and congratulations to Jacqui Dean.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I will take just a brief call on the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill, which the Green Party is happy to be supporting. I understand that Jacqui Dean has worked hard to get it to this point, and I know that that is an excellent effort. I would agree with Eugenie Sage that useful tinkering is one description. If we put it in the context of conservation as a whole, it is more like dancing on the deck of the Titanic, in terms of the effects of the cuts that have taken place in conservation. So with those provisos we do support this particular and very specific and valuable effort.

I looked up how people do some of the smuggling. It is quite fascinating. There are people who strap iguanas to their legs, and people who are stopped at customs and asked: “Is that a snake in your pants, or are you just pleased to see me?”. There are people who are running baby shark smuggling rings out of churches. There are birds of paradise that have leapt out of suitcases at customs. There are leopards found in people’s backpacks and monkeys down people’s trousers. I mean, this is the international scene of $10 billion worth of endangered species smuggling. It is pretty bizarre stuff. Added to it, our own precious taonga and our own endangered species are also smuggled in bizarre and interesting ways. It is clearly a very bizarre group of people who make a lot of money out of ripping off our unique taonga. Our country, being even more unique in many ways, is vulnerable to those kinds of very strange and depressing behaviours, which do need penalties, and we support the increase in penalties.

In my first reading speech I talked about the sanctioned theft of the taonga of Aotearoa, which the member Claudette Hauiti also referred to, and some of the historically sanctioned rip-offs that took place and that fill the museums of the world. I will not go on about that again. But I think it is important to remember that the greatest threat to our endangered species in Aotearoa is not smuggling but pests and the loss of habitat. The conservation estate is clearly under great stress. So we welcome this measure to protect individuals, but like much of the Government’s programmes, dealing with individual violations does not change structural and systemic violations. It does not change structural risks and collapses of species. When you cut 400 jobs and rely on the market to do conservation—sorry, not you, Mr Assistant Speaker; when the Government does—there is a real problem, because the market is not consistent, and the market is going to do what it feels like, when it feels like it.

The corporatisation of the Department of Conservation will result in even less rigorous and consistent pest control. The finest example of a bad policy is the proposal to mine the Denniston Plateau, where the two wonderful endangered species that are at risk from smuggling—the green gecko and the great spotted kiwi, to name just two—are at risk. They are at risk not because smugglers are rushing down there to find them—and one of these species was found only during a Forest and Bird bio-blitz last year—but because this place is going to be turned into an open-cast mine. That is conservation and heritage destruction. It is not going to be saved because we have put some penalties on smugglers. It is going to be lost because of the Government’s economic policy and because it refuses to acknowledge the broader context in which this bill sits. That is very, very disappointing.

Smuggling is directly evil, but greenwashing is no better. Let us not pretend what is really going on when we talk about the biosecurity cuts, and when we talk about the cuts to the Resource Management Act, and the Crown Minerals Act, which, as Moana Mackey said, has created joint decision-making on the Department of Conservation estate, putting more species at risk—all of those changes that the Government has brought in in the last few years that put endangered species at high risk. So we cannot replace a commitment to conservation at Government, State, and community level with the prioritisation of the Department of Conservation estate and expect that we will actually protect these species.

However, we are happy to support the bill. We are glad that we have got to this point. I think that it is really important. These species are intrinsic to our identity—the mokomoko, the gecko, the ngārara, the reptiles, the manu, and the marine life. We should be protecting them at every level. This bill does take a tiny little step forward. I welcome every step, but I would like to see the Government drop its belief system that destroying the environment will support the economy. It is simply not true. Our environment is our economy, as indeed are endangered species.

I would just like to say that we support this bill in any way that it makes good progress. We will support good things. We have always voted for things that are worthwhile, but we will not pretend that this solves the problem of the conservation crisis that faces Aotearoa New Zealand right now. Thank you.

It is a great honour for me to take the final call in this final stage of what I think is a very commendable bill, the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. I am delighted to be able to add my support to it and to commend my hard-working colleague Jacqui Dean, the member for Waitaki, who has put considerable effort into bringing this bill to the House and seeing it through all its stages. It is a great credit to her that it is on the verge of being passed this afternoon. Those of us who have members’ bills in the ballot who have been unlucky enough to this point not to have had them drawn are always a little bit envious of those who have enjoyed that success. But it would be churlish to be jealous. I think it is just a fantastic achievement for her, and, in particular, because she is focusing on something that is such an important issue.

I want to thank all members who have spoken in this debate and who have supported the bill right through its passage through the House. We have all acknowledged something that we share, and that is that, as New Zealanders, we do hugely value our environment and we appreciate the importance of conservation. There will always be political debate between the parties as to priorities and whether the correct focus is being given to this issue or the other, but we are pretty universally concerned when we hear some of the dreadful things that happen. Catherine Delahunty, who has just resumed her seat, referred to some of those things, and other members who have spoken before me have done likewise.

We are outraged when people try to smuggle our treasured and endangered species out of the country, when dreadful acts of cruelty are inflicted upon precious birds or animals, or when our native flora is in some way abused. The vast majority of New Zealanders love the outdoors. We love being able get out into our superb environment to take advantage of living in God’s own country. I choose that phrase deliberately because I do not think that I have ever visited another country that is as naturally appealing as New Zealand. There are many other countries with wonderful places to visit and beautiful environmental attractions, but it seems that wherever you go in New Zealand, we are blessed with an abundance of greenery and of relatively clean air, and we all want to protect that.

As I say, I want to thank Jacqui Dean for the fact that she has focused on an issue and brought a solution to a problem that many identified as being long overdue for a remedy. The fact that—and I think some speakers have mentioned it—there has been no significant change in the penalties for several decades indicates that there probably is a real need for this bill to come into force as soon as possible. I note that a number of the submitters particularly supported that aspect.

So, as this is the final stage, I want to thank all who contributed to this debate. I want to acknowledge the many parties across the House that have indicated their support for the bill. I want to thank Jacqui Dean again and congratulate her. This is a very significant day for her, in what has already been a very successful political career, and I am sure all members of the House would want to congratulate her on her achievement and, more important, thank her for what she has done. Well done.