Game Animal Council Bill

I move, That the Game Animal Council Bill be now read a second time. This bill is an important step in both improving the management of game animals and also recognising the recreational passion that many New Zealanders have—in fact, I think that includes the Deputy Speaker—for recreational hunting. Although those who tramp, those who mountaineer, and those who go fishing for salmon and trout are given a direct voice in their recreation, the hunters of deer, of pig, of chamois, and of tahr are effectively not included in the statutory way in which their recreation is managed.

I want to acknowledge the leader of the United Future party, Peter Dunne, who, as part of our confidence and supply agreement, has been a champion for hunters and for the recognition that the Game Animal Council will give to providing a voice for that group of recreationists. I commend the work of the Local Government and Environment Committee, ably chaired by Christchurch Central MP, Nicky Wagner. The committee worked effectively in considering the many issues that were raised by submitters and has suggested a number of constructive changes to the bill, and I thank all the members of the committee for the work that they have done.

There were 664 submissions from interested groups and individuals, which is a bit of a signal as to just how many people have a passion for hunting. The committee heard 39 oral submissions. It had hearings both in Wellington and in Christchurch. Many submitters supported the creation of the Game Animal Council as a whole-of-sector council. We need to acknowledge that there are tensions between some who have commercial aerial trophy-hunting businesses and the purely recreational sector, and I think that there is real merit in having a Game Animal Council, which is pretty consistent with this Government’s view of getting those parties round the table, and directly engaging in their recreation and their businesses, in order to come to a sensible way forward to manage.

The vast majority of submissions supported the intent of the bill, but there is a range of changes. For instance, the committee has recommended that we clearly define “public conservation land” so that it is quite plain that it does not include privately owned land or land that has been vested back with iwi as part of a Treaty settlement. There have also been amendments around the definitions of “regional council” and “game trophy” that are also constructive. The select committee has made changes to the bill to ensure that the Game Animal Council itself has the right mix of expertise to be able to make sound decisions that strengthen the voice of iwi and Māori. It has also made provision for ensuring that scientific knowledge is properly respected. And we need to acknowledge in this area that there is a real tension between the interests of recreational hunters, who wish there to be good populations of deer, chamois, and tahr so that it is an easy hunt, and the reality from a conservation perspective that those numbers need to be kept down and need to be kept limited. Therefore, we are serious about the sustainability of the forests in which they exist.

I do note in the debate on this bill that there is the polarised view that these animals must be defined either as pests, and every last one hunted to the ends of the Earth, or as valued animals. I come from the perspective, a pragmatic perspective, that it depends where they are and in what numbers. That is, it is true that these animals, if in high concentrations or in the wrong place, can do irreversible conservation harm. Equally so, it is true that they provide a huge amount of enjoyment and recreation for many New Zealanders and that, providing that is properly managed, it is possible for us to have the best of both worlds.

I announced yesterday changes in respect of the role of the Game Animal Council. During the Committee stage I will be introducing Supplementary Order Paper 395 to deal quite specifically with the tension between aerial trophy hunters and recreational hunters around hunters in helicopters shooting animals from the helicopter, of herding animals into a hunter—a practice known as hazing, where effectively a helicopter is able to chase an animal to exhaustion and then make it an easy pot-shot for a hunter. It is intended that the Game Animal Council will be responsible for developing a code of practice to ensure that there is tighter regulation of those activities. That is a specific commitment that the Government made to Peter Dunne and the United Future party, and we intend to address it in that way.

This bill is a significant step forward. For my entire period in Parliament there has been concern from recreational hunters that they are locked out from having an effective voice in the management of their recreation. This bill is a good bill, which enables those hunters to be able to be directly engaged in their sport. My experience with other bodies such as the Fish and Game Council is that when participants are included in the decision-making process, they are very responsible and they engage very constructively. That is why, fundamentally, this is a bill that the House should support.

I listened with interest to the Minister of Conservation’s contribution on what has been a very interesting process and debate on the Game Animal Council Bill. Some of his speech is very outdated, actually, and does not reflect the deliberation and the submissions that went on during the select committee process, and I am a little sad about that because he is a Minister who is on top of his portfolio, particularly in comparison with his colleagues. He has got a good passion for the area, he understands it, and I think he has a genuine commitment, but when he described opponents of this bill as being people who could see game animals only as pests and that, therefore, the animals had to eliminated to the nth degree, he did miss the debate and the progress that was made on that particular point. That is quite a narrow view and it is not one that was reflected by people who had concerns about this bill, in the main.

I also noted that he seemed to totally overlook the fact that one of the biggest associations in New Zealand, the Deerstalkers Association, said that its concerns about trophy hunting have fallen on deaf ears. That is a very strong comment to make from the group that represents one of the biggest groups of recreational hunters. In fact, its president, Tim McCarthy, said yesterday: “When it becomes an issue that affects the stakeholders of New Zealand’s public land, and hunters are stakeholders in public land, then surely the tail shouldn’t be wagging the dog in this case.” Those are the sorts of serious concerns that were raised at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I have to say that I think the members of the select committee from all parties, in the main, took those issues very seriously and tried to do what Labour said we would attempt to do at the very start of this process, which is to look at the fact that everyone agrees that the different stakeholders and interests should work together as much as possible to get agreed outcomes on shared goals. It is not always possible, but it is clear that in some parts of the country it works very well under the existing regime. It is also clear that in other parts of the country it does not work well.

The select committee tried to find out, where it is working well—where the Department of Conservation, recreational hunters, and other users of our public land work together—what bit of magic they have produced to make that happen. Well, in a lot of cases it is about relationships and it is about the personalities and the commitment. But I think it is driven by an understanding that the Department of Conservation has the legal mandate to protect our conservation estate, our public land, but it is really obvious that it is not the only stakeholder. The public of New Zealand are all stakeholders in our public land. If any groups or individuals have interests, they should be party to shared goals of protection and then utilise their activity to further that goal. That was the approach we took at the Local Government and Environment Committee. We looked at how we could better enhance the work of the Department of Conversation through those partnerships, and build on successful models that had already been demonstrated.

When the Game Animal Council Bill was first introduced, we also said that we had a lot of concerns about it, but we did support it going to the select committee so that we could have that debate and see what could be resolved. Unfortunately, despite what I think were the very good efforts of the select committee, our time was short by just a little. Perhaps if we had had another few meetings, we might have got to a complete resolution. But, unfortunately, we were not given that additional time and, as a result, some of our pretty serious concerns have not been resolved. I am sad to say that we have to oppose the bill, just because those concerns have not been met.

I think it is also a bit of an indication to Parliament of not presuming which parties will think what and always presuming that certain parties will oppose it or support it. I do think that in many areas, if there is an agreed goal, there are genuine attempts made for compromises, to look at other people’s perspectives, and to see what resolution can be found. If we were able to do that more in Parliament, then perhaps some of the solutions that are passed into law might be more robust and might be more enduring because they would have had wider input, wider consideration, and some compromise reached along the way.

What I think this bill does now is actually create a stronger tension between hunters in New Zealand and the Department of Conservation. From my perspective, that is the very opposite of what we should do. Recreational hunters are a big part of New Zealand life. We heard that from submitters. The passion that those submitters have about the great outdoors, about being able to hunt—whether it is to feed their neighbours or feed their families in quite a serious way, as part of their budgeting. The pride and passion that they have for New Zealand and for our public land is something that we should capture and we should utilise for the greater good. I do not think that this bill does that. I do not doubt that that was part of the intention, actually. I am sure that there was a lot of wanting to utilise that passion of recreational hunters, as the driver behind this bill, but I do not think that the outcome has achieved that. Perhaps during the Committee of the whole House there might be some more accommodations reached. The Hon Peter Dunne, who drove this bill, might well consider that. I would recommend that he read the minority reports that have been produced as part of the select committee process because they do indicate a lot of support for some of the outcomes, but the serious concerns about the other outcomes of this bill are just too great.

I have also heard that there is some concern that the Supplementary Order Papers that have been tabled go too far or are based on an extreme view of what might happen. Actually, the Supplementary Order Papers produced by Eugenie Sage that I have seen so far do not do that at all. I will obviously talk more about them in the Committee stage, but I just want to put on the record for consideration by the other members of the House that her Supplementary Order Papers, from my reading of them, do what the select committee assumed would happen anyway, so it is a belt and braces approach, rather than something that is going to a real extreme. So I would ask that serious consideration be given to all the Supplementary Order Papers, rather than members making an assumption that any member is trying to trip up the process. What we tried to do, from the perspective of the Labour members—and we put a lot of effort into the select committee process—was just address the concerns that we had. We were upfront about it. We listened to the submissions. We moderated some of our views as part of the process and hardened up on others where those concerns had not been met. Some of the areas are quite obvious. Where you want to create a partnership, you do not set up another structure and have it often in competition with an existing organisation. You work out how to have a structure that would better enhance the relationships that are so necessary for us.

When you look at the way the Department of Conservation is operating now, it is obvious to see that it is under huge financial pressure. It has been forced by the nature of the budget cuts to move into better partnerships, as they are called, with community organisations. What concerns me is that they are not genuine partnerships with shared goals, where different groups in our communities say: “We care about the public estate. We’re not DOC. We’re recreational hunters or we’re fishing people.”, and whatever their activity is, they have a passion and a genuine love and concern for the well-being of our public land. They should have a part to play. But the partnerships that the Department of Conservation is undertaking are almost ones purely of a business arrangement, where it is asking for money in order to perform its fundamental duties. I do not think that those are the sorts of relationships that will enhance the work of the Department of Conservation; in fact, they may well undermine it. We certainly do not want to have a department that is responsible for pest control, for example, putting out the begging bowl and saying: “We think there’s a stoat on Kāpiti island. Would anyone like to sponsor some pest control?”. That is the position that the National Government has put the Department of Conservation in.

We have seen an even more recent example in Hawke’s Bay where the proposal for the Ruataniwha dam has the potential to turn the Tukituki River toxic. That should be a major concern to people in Hawke’s Bay. In fact, to people over the rest of the country, that is exactly what the model says. That is because it does not manage nitrates. That is exactly what the model says, and the Department of Conservation was absent from any contribution to that. So we want this bill to be reflective of the genuine partnerships that we need to better protect our public land. We tried really hard through the select committee consideration to get to that, but, unfortunately, this bill achieves the opposite.

Today is a red-letter day for recreational hunters in New Zealand for a couple of reasons. First, there has been—and I think the member who has just resumed her seat, Ruth Dyson, alluded to this in part—a measure of suspicion amongst many of them as to whether the Game Animal Council would ever eventuate. After all, it is almost a year since this bill, the Game Animal Council Bill, was reported back to the House, and some of those advocates were deeply suspicious that that was as far as it would go. So today is important to give reassurance on that score. It is also important for them because, as the Minister of Conservation said in his introductory remarks, this Game Animal Council effectively parallels for game hunting interests the role of Fish and Game in terms of freshwater fish, etc. So upon the passing of this bill we will for the first time have integrated approaches to the management of the major recreational sectors in New Zealand. I think that is a very positive step forward.

But it has been a long journey. I want to take some time this morning to rehearse some elements of that journey. In United Future’s 2005 confidence and supply agreement with the then Labour Government there was a special committee established to review pest management issues. That committee was chaired by my former colleague and very good friend the Hon Margaret Austin, who is well-known in this House. The Minister said earlier that this bill attracted 660-odd submissions. That is a fraction of what the Austin committee attracted by way of submissions. There were 4,500 submissions to that committee, which met in the period of 2005-08. One of the strong recommendations that came forward from that committee was that there be a move towards the establishment of a Game Animal Council. So this morning I want to immediately acknowledge the work of Margaret Austin and the earlier work of her committee in getting us launched on the journey.

When the change of Government occurred in 2008, we included in our 2008 and 2011 confidence and supply agreements with the current Government provisions, firstly, for the work of the Austin committee to be advanced, and, secondly, as it happened, for the Game Animal Council to be introduced. What happened after 2008 was that an establishment committee, chaired by Garry Ottmann from the Game and Forest Foundation, was set up to take those recommendations from the Austin committee and start to develop the basis for a Game Animal Council.

The establishment committee consulted widely in New Zealand. It consulted with similar agencies in Australian states. They are not entirely comparable, but there were valuable insights to be gained from them. By the time of the 2011 election, we were on the way to preparing the legislation that comes before the House this morning. So I want to acknowledge the work of Garry Ottmann and successive officers of the New Zealand Deerstalkers Association—more particularly, of recent times, Tim McCarthy, and before him, Alec McIver and Bill O’Leary, who has been a constant advocate right throughout. I want to acknowledge all of the work these people have done in bringing this proposal to the stage where, firstly, it becomes legislation, and secondly, it is about to be passed by the House today.

I listened to what I thought was a relatively constructive speech from Ruth Dyson. I do not agree with everything she said, and I think that some of the concerns that she expressed may well be dealt with once the council is established, but I think there were some important points. I do not see the Game Animal Council being set up to be a competitor to the Department of Conservation in that sense. Rather, I see it as part of the devolution of responsibility to a range of interests. One of the things that strikes one when you look at the whole recreational sector in New Zealand is that it is not particularly well-organised at this time. There are a series of responsibilities that sit in different places. They are not well coordinated and are a little hard to understand. One of the issues that the Game Animal Council will face will be to be the focal point for bringing together a lot of matters that relate to the game animal sector—and to the hunting sector, in particular—not just in terms of the physical act of hunting but for issues like the promotion of safety.

That brings into prospect the work that the Mountain Safety Council does and how that can be better coordinated and plugged into existing systems. The Mountain Safety Council is an extraordinary organisation. It has been around for 40-odd years. It does not actually formally report to anyone. It is funded on the basis of contracts from the public sector—the police, search and rescue, etc.—but it does not have a physical home. What it is crying out for is some form of integration with the work of agencies like the Game Animal Council.

The issue that has arisen over time in tandem with this has been the question of what used to be known as heli-hunting, which now has the more grand title of assisted aerial trophy hunting—it is somewhat of a euphemism, I think, for what actually happens. There has been a constant dispute between the recreational hunters and the purveyors of assisted aerial trophy hunting services about whether the playing field is level.

As part of our confidence and supply agreement in 2011, there was provision for the phasing out of assisted aerial trophy hunting through making restrictions to herding and hazing, etc. When, as Associate Minister of Conservation, I received the applications nearly 3 years ago from that sector, I made a condition of the permits that were granted that there be no herding and hazing. Having told me that this was a practice that they never engaged in, those in that sector promptly took me to a judicial review for having put into their agreements the things they said they never actually engaged in. We won that position in court, but the issue arises again as these permits expire in February of next year.

The solution that will be proposed by way of a Supplementary Order Paper a little later today—effectively charging the Game Animal Council with monitoring the application of those provisions and then developing a code of practice—is, I think, an elegant one. It is an elegant one for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it will resolve an issue that has caused so much tension. Secondly, it will ensure—and this is really the platform on which I believe the Game Animal Council needs to be launched—that the council will have an effective role in terms of future issues that affect the recreational hunting sector. One of the great fears in the early days of this debate was that we were setting up an agency that would be a talk-shop that would do very little and would have little connection to what was going on. The fact that we have been able to identify this particular issue as one that sits neatly within its purview is, I think, a good indicator of what will happen in the future.

There are very complicated issues regarding access to land, and the member who preceded me, Ruth Dyson, alluded to those. There are always delicate issues regarding the quantum of hunting being allowed in particular sectors. I am aware of certain management plans that work well, and others that are challenged by hunters, who see other people from outside their particular geographic location coming in to steal their bounty, if you want to use that term. The Game Animal Council will be in a much closer position to monitor, to regulate, to recommend, and to cajole behaviour in those particular areas.

I think what we will see once this legislation is passed is not fears being realised. These fears are understandable at the moment because this is new. I think what we will start to see once the council is appointed—and I think getting it up and running early in the new year is a priority—is a process whereby for the first time we have a genuine forum where the issues that affect recreational hunters can be put on the table, can be debated, and can be understood by conservation authorities, by the Department of Conservation, by the Government, and by Parliament as a whole.

So this is a red-letter day. It is a very important day for the recreational sector in New Zealand. I think it sends a signal, and it is this. This was an unusual, perhaps unique, and certainly not especially popular campaign when we began it back in 2005. It was seen as being a little quirky. The reality is that hunting is a mainstream issue for New Zealanders. What this bill demonstrates is that by commitment, by tenacity, and by perseverance you can make change and you can achieve positive outcomes. It demonstrates that you can give a sport that is enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders a proper place and a way in which it can be recognised, its talents and attributes can be respected, and the input the people who partake in that sport have into broader conservation policy can be given credibility. So I welcome the second reading of this bill. I am looking forward to the debate that will ensue and to the bill being passed by this House, hopefully a little later on today.

It has actually been a while since our select committee, the Local Government and Environment Committee, considered this bill, the Game Animal Council Bill. I think the Hon Peter Dunne must have all the patience in the world, given how long it has taken to get to this point. I had to dig out all my notes and refresh my memory in terms of all the very, very in-depth conversations we had at the select committee around the various aspects of this bill.

It is disappointing that Labour is not able to support this bill. I think it is an opportunity lost. There is very definitely the potential in here for doing some very, very good things, from building on existing relationships, creating relationships where those relationships do not currently exist, and fixing relationships where, in fact, things have not gone so well, and there was a range of ways that this bill could have been approached.

I note that it was the advice of the officials that going down the path of creating stand-alone legislation, as we have done here, carried with it the most regulatory burden and the most cost, and there were other ways that we could have approached this bill. Under section 5 of the Wild Animal Control Act, of course, the Minister of Conservation is able to establish any type of committee that is relevant to the purpose of the Act, and, clearly, managing those tensions between recreational hunters and pest control and the preservation and stewardship of public conservation land is relevant to the purpose of that Act. But, of course, there were concerns raised that in doing that the Minister could also then very easily disestablish any such committee, and they felt that that was perhaps too much power to be giving to a Minister of Conservation when we have a committee that everyone agrees should exist and when we have identified common goals, as Ruth Dyson said. We appreciate that point of view, but this could have also been done through making an amendment to the Wild Animal Control Act. That would have set up a committee that the Minister did not have the power to disestablish, but would have been far more consistent with the legislation that the Department of Conservation already works under. So there was a range of different things that we could have done.

I note that this goes right back to when we were in Government. I think that Steve Chadwick was the Minister of Conservation when an advisory group was set up to look at how this might be done. Well, I think they were one of the first submitters that we heard from, from memory—going back into the distant past—and they were not happy with the bill. In fact, they said that this is pretty much exactly what they said not to do, and they think that this will increase tensions, not reduce them.

Although I agree with a lot of what the Hon Peter Dunne said about what his party wants to achieve and what he is trying to achieve, it is not as simple when you are dealing with an area like this, which relies on relationship-building—very, very much so—and this is not going to work if those relationships are not taken into account. You cannot simply, through legislation, just force that relationship-building, and that was our concern the whole way through.

There was a lot of common ground. What became very apparent at the select committee was that between all the groups and what we might call competing interests, there was actually a hell of a lot of common ground that we could have built on, to come up with a solution that did not exacerbate some of the tensions that do exist. I do not think there is anyone in this House—well, I hope there is no one in this House—who is going to stand up and claim that this bill is going to see those tensions disappear, because it will not. This is still going to require an awfully large amount of relationship-building. But in that room we also heard from recreational hunters in parts of the country where they work incredibly well with the Department of Conservation, where they have worked between themselves to develop management plans that met the objectives of pest control but at the same time provided herds of a significant enough size for recreational hunters to be able to get maximum benefit out of that. And it works very, very well.

We also heard from parts of the country where it is an absolute dog’s breakfast, where there is a complete breakdown in the relationship between the department and the recreational hunting community. I think a lot of it comes back to what the Hon Peter Dunne was saying about how the recreational hunting community is not particularly well-organised at the moment. So you have some parts of the country where it is very strong—certain herds that are stronger than others—but across the entire country it is not particularly well-organised. So, I guess, then it becomes the question of whether we put the cart before the horse with this piece of legislation.

Could we have done this differently? At the moment we are asking a sector that by our own admission is still in its infancy in terms of organisation to carry out an incredibly important task. Maybe, had we gone down another path of that relationship-building, it may well have been that this is where we ended up. But we might have ended up there, first of all, by building on existing relationships, developing those relationships, and using them as an example where those relationships are very good, and learning from negative experiences where those relationships have been very bad. We could have done this as an amendment under existing legislation. It may well have been that we would have got to this in the end, once we had built up the capacity within the recreational hunting sector to be able to carry out the tasks that we are handing over to it.

The National Party represents extensively provincial New Zealand, where pest control is incredibly important not just for people who value conservation land but for farmers and for many others. If we do not carry out pest control effectively, if we let that get away from us, that has enormous implications for our economy as well as for our environment. So when we start to devolve responsibility away from the department—

💬 Shane Ardern: Have you ever shared that with your colleagues before, Moana? You have? They’re not listening. Tell them again.

—that currently does that, then we have to be very, very clear that those same things, those same activities, those same roles are going to be carried out. Mr Ardern was not on the select committee. I actually wish he had been on that select committee, because I think the experience he has would have been very, very useful. A lot of the discussions we had were very relevant to his area of expertise. I do not believe that with this piece of legislation we met the concerns that were raised at the select committee. That is all I am saying.

I think there was probably, I guess, an intermediate step that we could have taken, as I said, perhaps on the way to a stand-alone game animal council bill with its own legislation, that would have allayed the concerns of those who felt that devolving those powers right now was a bit soon and that the people we are devolving them to do not quite have access to the resources in order to be able to do that. But we want to build up that capacity with the Department of Conservation and with the Government, and eventually, yes, we could potentially see far more devolution of some of this stuff to a game animal council. That is not far away from where actually the advisory committee that we set up when we were in Government to look at this was—the advisory committee that the National Government continued; the advisory committee that came before the select committee to tell us its thoughts.

I note that if members read the regulatory impact statement, they will see that these are all concerns that have been echoed right through the regulatory impact statement. Under “Problem definition” it says: “There is no information clearly establishing that current institutional arrangements in the management regime for wild animals requires change to improve participation among the different groups with interests in these animals and their effects on the environment. Differences in values and viewpoints between the relevant stakeholders are longstanding, well understood within the sector and have not been resolved over many years. There is no evidence that current user groups and organisations (for example the Deerstalkers’ Association) are deficient in representing their members’ interest.” So I think the regulatory impact statement itself clearly says that the problem definition that the Government has done in justifying the need for this bill does not really represent reality.

One of the issues that we spent a lot of time on at the Local Government and Environment Committee was how we were going to pay for this. It is always one of the more difficult things, as you can come up with new councils—

💬 Hon Member: There were a lot of ideas.

Well there were a lot of ideas. You can come up with a whole range of new committees and councils, but someone has to pay for them. Ultimately, when the rubber hits the road, it is often the case, unfortunately, that everyone wants it but no one wants to pay for it. We looked at a range of options. The Government was not prepared to stump up the total funding for the board. There was some establishment money and, I think, $50,000 a year, but that $50,000 a year ongoing—so, $100,000 in the first financial year and then $50,000 in subsequent years—comes from reprioritising existing Vote Conservation funding. So it is not new money. It means that the Department of Conservation, which is under enormous financial pressure at the moment as it is, is going to have to find this money from somewhere else.

So the question, obviously, around that is, what has got to give in order to pay for this? There were really two main options. One was a levy on the export of trophy heads, which was the path the select committee went down in the end. Submissions reflected concerns that this was unfairly targeting one group of hunters over another, and that is a fair point to make. That could, again, create tensions within the hunting sector as opposed to trying to relieve them.

Then the other option that we looked at was to put a levy on all hunting permits. There are about 34,000 of these issued a year, but they are currently free of charge. I guess there was a feeling in the select committee that applying it to everyone might again create a number of tensions within the hunting community. I think the discussion we had around operating costs actually reflected largely the discussion we had around the bill, which is that we want to reduce tensions and not increase them. Unfortunately, this bill does not achieve it.

I am pleased to take a call on the Game Animal Council Bill. The Green Party certainly supports recreational hunting on public conservation land. As Moana Mackey said, there are 34,000 hunting permits issued each year by the Department of Conservation. Many Kiwis get immense enjoyment from getting out into the back country and going hunting because of the physical challenges involved and the stamina required, and actually just from being out in the back country, being up on those scree slopes, and being up on the tussock tops enjoying the views, waiting for deer and scanning through binoculars for chamois.

It is a long tradition that New Zealand has of free access to conservation land to go hunting. We understand that, and recreational hunting is just as valid a use of our back country as tramping, mountain biking, fishing, or any other opportunity out there. But we have a big problem with this bill because it is not about strengthening the Kiwi tradition of going hunting. It is not about boosting hunter numbers and encouraging more young people to go hunting. The regulatory impact statement made it quite clear that there was not any evidence that the current institutional arrangements required change in order to improve participation of people in hunting as a sport.

This bill is primarily about catering to a small group that can afford to pay for helicopters and guides to go trophy hunting. It is about giving them management control and considerable influence over the management of conservation land. The Government’s Supplementary Order Paper 395, by stripping out of the bill any references to recreational hunting, makes that quite clear. This bill is likely to make it both more expensive and more bureaucratic for Kiwis to go hunting.

There is no reason for this bill, as other Opposition colleagues have noted. There are alternative ways of giving a better voice for the hunting fraternity. It is only going through because it is the pay-off to United Future for its support of the Government’s asset sales legislation and it is part of the confidence and supply agreement. The bill does not recognise what the Department of Conservation is doing to improve relationships with the hunting sector. It does not recognise improvements to the hunting permit system or the outreach that a lot of the conservation boards are doing, and it is unnecessary, as the regulatory impact statement made very clear.

We already have the Wild Animal Control Act. The purpose of that Act is to achieve coordination of hunting measures and it is to provide for the regulation of recreational hunting, commercial hunting, and wild animal recovery operations. It was an option—which many parties supported, such as the Conservation Authority—of setting up a ministerial advisory committee under the Wild Animal Control Act to advise the Minister on hunting. That would have achieved much better integration with the current legislative framework and with the current structure of managing hunting, rather than this stand-alone bill and stand-alone agency.

We could have also got a greater voice for hunting through additional appointments to the Conservation Authority or to conservation boards. We had a very interesting submission at the select committee from the Tongariro/Taupō Conservation Board, which talked a lot about how it was working to ensure that hunters’ interests were accommodated. If you use existing agencies in existing legislation, you are going to get that cooperation, that collaboration, amongst the different stakeholders. Setting up the Game Animal Council as a single hunting organisation will not see that collaboration and will not foster it. It is likely to create significantly more conflict and division in the management of conservation lands. So that is one reason we are opposing it.

The bill is also setting up an unnecessary quango. We already have liaison committees under the Wild Animal Control Act, and they have a significant influence on how hunting is managed on conservation land. You only have to think of the Himalayan Tahr Control Plan Implementation Group, which I was on in a former life. That was dominated by hunters. That was very influential in determining how tahr were managed and making sure that hunters actually got a real privilege in getting helicopter access to wilderness areas. There are existing mechanisms like those liaison committees under the Wild Animal Control Act.

One of the other reasons we oppose the bill is the significant cost in establishing the Game Animal Council. As the regulatory impact statement said, the council would have the highest costs in terms of time and resources, as well as being the least aligned to the current wild animal control regime and legislative framework. The Government is proposing to direct at least $100,000 annually, and potentially $200,000 annually, to establish the council. That is a significant cost for the Department of Conservation when the push is for it to be engaged in effective spending, and we know because of the funding cuts that it is very much under financial constraints. Where we have seen these stand-alone councils established elsewhere, such as in New South Wales, the council failed to break even and the state Government there had to subsidise its game animal council to the tune of $3.5 million.

So here, if the Government does not subsidise the council to that amount, we are likely to see significant fees imposed on recreational hunters. Originally, the council was to be funded just by levies on the export of trophies. The Local Government and Environment Committee amendments to the bill include a power for the council to recommend to the Minister how it wants to recover its costs, and then there is a power for the Minister to impose fees and levies. The Green Party’s concern is that the combination of those powers, plus the stripping out of any reference to recreational hunters through the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper, is going to mean potentially that the council will set very high levies to hunt animals in herds of special interest that only the trophy hunters can afford.

At the moment the Department of Conservation does not charge people to go hunting. It recovers its costs for hunting permits, but that is generally only about $30 a permit. So the Department of Conservation at the moment supports that Kiwi tradition of going hunting. The Game Animal Council is likely to undermine that because of the need to recover the costs of running an 11 to 12-member council and its costs in doing research and other work on these herds of special interest.

The State Services Commission, Treasury, the former Ministry of Economic Development, the former Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, and the former Food Safety Authority all opposed this bill. The Government normally takes the advice of these agencies. National’s rhetoric is all about cutting through red tape and bureaucracy, yet in establishing this stand-alone agency with significant management powers, it is setting up more red tape and bureaucracy.

But our major reason for opposing it is that it introduces multiple use management on the public conservation estate and that it is at odds with the whole thrust of conservation legislation and the Department of Conservation’s statutory purpose, which is to protect and preserve natural and historic resources and our unique indigenous biodiversity. Because animals like tahr and deer are being changed by this bill from being recognised as a problem and as having an impact, through their browsing on our high country soils, on our indigenous species, into being seen as more of an asset of value, we are going to see significant conflicts between the Game Animal Council and the Department of Conservation when it wants to undertake culling and control operations and when it wants to do aerial 1080 operations to control possums. The Game Animal Council, in seeking to protect its stakeholder interests, is likely to oppose that.

So the whole desire of the Game Animal Council to maximise hunting opportunities will conflict with the management of conservation lands and pest control. That is obvious from the fact that there is nothing in this bill that prohibits the Minister from establishing herds of special interest in our highest-category protected areas like national parks, nature reserves, and ecological areas. That is why there is Supplementary Order Paper 400 in my name to amend that. If the Minister is genuine about continuing to protect conservation values, there should be a clear commitment that these herds of special interest not be established in national parks, nature reserves, scientific reserves, and ecological areas because of the damage that introduced browsers cause.

There is significant international concern about this bill. The Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand attached to its submission a letter from the vice-chair, Oceania, of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. That was from Penelope Figgis and the deputy vice-chair, Bruce Jefferies, to the Minister of Conservation. It emphasised that there is “significant deep-seated apprehension that the legal and philosophical principles that underpin New Zealand’s conservation management systems would be both undermined and compromised if introduced animal management is taken over and driven by the interests of commercial game animal groups and a limited number of recreational hunters.”

We have a lot more to say about this bill, which we will do in the Committee stage. Thank you.

Debate interrupted.