Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. I rise to take this call on behalf of my colleague the Hon Maggie Barry, who has overseen the development and the passage of this bill. It is a small but vital modernisation and expansion of the Wildlife Act, which is the principal piece of legislation that underpins the Department of Conservation (DOC) and the ability to protect our vulnerable native species. The powers of this Act have not been updated for 60 years, and they are no longer fit for modern purpose.

The threat that is posed by the smuggling, poaching, and hunting of our native species is something that we cannot overlook. It is very real, and there is a lucrative international black market, particularly of our spectacular native geckos, skinks, and other lizards. I think some of you will remember a very high-profile case where a German was caught leaving the country with more than 40 reptiles, geckos, and skinks hidden in his underpants. That drew a lot of attention to this topic. These smugglers particularly target young, pregnant female lizards, and that poses a direct threat to isolated groups or clumps of these species.

Over the last few years, not only have people smuggled but they have also killed really significant wildlife—whio, tūī, kereru, kea, kākā, shags, petrels, oystercatchers, herons; any of those. They have also tried to sell blue duck chick, egg, and eggs. Of course, it is not just people. People’s dogs have killed kiwi, gulls, and weka. These species are important to New Zealanders and therefore we need to amend this Act to make sure that we can take action in these circumstances.

I particularly would like to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee, which has been very ably chaired by Scott Simpson. I think they all worked very hard to make sure that they put this bill through proper scrutiny.

I would like to state again, just for the record, that the amendment bill grants five new powers to warranted—warranted—DOC rangers. The first is the ability to take action to prevent an offence that is about to occur or is in progress. An example of that would be if a DOC ranger came across somebody in the middle of taking geckos, perhaps on a rocky outcrop in the middle of Central Otago, he or she can take action in a manner that is reasonable to the circumstances to stop it.

The second is to temporarily stop persons suspected of an offence, to allow investigation. At the moment rangers can stop and search vehicles, also vessels, bags, and other items in transit, but they cannot stop people from leaving the scene. They cannot stop them while they ensure they can get evidence of what has actually happened at that scene.

The third is to seize a broader range of evidence such as laptops, cameras, and mobile phones. The Act currently allows rangers to seize only a few types of evidence—if you think back 60 years, none of these things probably existed, and they do not cover modern technology such as mobile phones and laptops. These things are often absolutely vital to an investigation. They will now be empowered to seize any evidential material as defined in the Search and Surveillance Act 2012.

The fourth is to require the date of birth and proof of identification details from suspected offenders. As it stands, the Act allows rangers to require a name and address, but there is no provision to provide any proof of identity, and this is obviously open to abuse. Under section 66, as amended by clause 6 of the bill, rangers will be able to require proof of the date of birth, name, and address. Full-time fish and game rangers will also have this extension of powers, and they will now be able to require people to give their date of birth as well as their name and address. Failure to provide these details can result in a fine under the Wildlife Act not exceeding $100,000 or a year’s imprisonment.

The fifth amendment is that this bill grants the power to arrest, limited to serious offending against absolutely protected wildlife such as involving illegal hunting, killing, or export. Access to the power of arrest is limited to DOC’s small specialist team of enforcement officers. These are highly trained people. They are often former members of the police force, and they carry out the most serious investigations for the department. Officers from other Crown agencies such as the Police, Customs, and the Defence Force, who sometimes collaborate with DOC on joint operations, will also receive the power to arrest under the Wildlife Act as a result of this amendment.

Finally, the bill also modernises some of the anachronistic language within the Act such as the requirement that rangers can call on only males over the age 18 for assistance. It is well and truly time that that was changed.

I am pleased the bill has support across the House. I know that David Parker was disappointed in his bid to add a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) extending some of these powers to the honorary or volunteer fish and game officers. There is a very simple reason why we could not support that SOP. Honorary rangers are at arm’s length from the Government; they are not public servants and therefore they are not subject to the Public Service code of conduct, which binds DOC and other full-time Crown staff who are employed by the Crown. This is an important distinction, and it is the reason why we could not support that SOP from Mr Parker.

Despite that disappointment from the Opposition, I am pleased that we have attracted broad agreement for this bill. I think it is a good example of the parliamentary process working well. Once again I would like to commend the select committee and the DOC team who helped put this together and to see it through the House. I would also like to thank submitters for the work that they have put into this process.

As a result of this bill DOC’s heroic front-line staff will have the powers they need to deal with poachers, with smugglers, with illegal hunters, and with anyone else who seeks to take advantage of our natural heritage. Thank you.

In this third reading, I want to reiterate Labour’s support for this bill and to challenge the Minister on the Government’s refusal to accept a very good, pragmatic amendment from our colleague David Parker to allow honorary fish and game people to collect date of birth details.

You would think it was the end of the world, actually, to collect date of birth details to enable prosecution to take place should an offence have taken place. This would, in fact, help rangers. It is a practical amendment. The Government, in saying that it would not support the amendment because these people are at arm’s length from the Government is a whole lot of hogwash, because the extension of the power related only to the collection of date of birth details, to help and facilitate prosecution should an offence occur. Although I have heard the explanation given through the Committee stage and in the third reading in this House, it still beggars belief to think such an amendment has not been accepted by the Government.

With that said, the other matters in terms of the extension of powers to full-time rangers is something that is well overdue—60 years overdue, I understand, in terms of the Wildlife Act in particular. The way in which there is a limited power to arrest and the way that the committee considered these matters in line with the Search and Surveillance Act, I think, is practical. I know that this particular power would not really be used in a real way unless it was in conjunction with other surveillance activities undertaken, perhaps, by Customs or Police. I guess when people might read, on paper, that this is a power to arrest, and ask why a ranger would want this particular power, it is in conjunction with other activities. In so far as the smuggling and the illegal trading of wildlife species is concerned, often at the border is where the alert is raised, and you have to track something right through to the offence taking place in order for prosecution evidence to be collected.

I do not want to take too long on this third reading. We have made the point about David Parker’s Supplementary Order Paper, identified that the extension of powers is well overdue. We would have to say, in looking at the capacity of the Department of Conservation (DOC) estate, and especially when you look at the regional conservancies and tracking the number of rangers from 2011 to 2015, and taking into account the restructuring that has taken place, it is clear that the capacity and the responsibility put on DOC rangers has increased over time with little investment in the department. In order for good legislation to be implemented, you need the capacity and capability within DOC to be able to carry out those tasks and, significantly, the support of voluntary organisations, honorary roles, and functions of groups like Fish and Game New Zealand. We support this bill to third reading.

It is a pleasure to take a call in this third reading of the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill, sponsored by the Minister of Conservation, the Hon Maggie Barry. I listened carefully to the third reading speech of the Associate Minister of Conservation, the Hon Nicky Wagner, and I was delighted to hear her give what I thought was very appropriate praise and acknowledgment to the Department of Conservation (DOC) staff and officials who had helped us at the Local Government and Environment Committee as we went through this piece of legislation.

That the Department of Conservation staff are hugely committed to protecting and enhancing our natural environment goes without saying, but this is an area of the law that is due for an update. It is an area of the law that, actually, has not been addressed by this Parliament for nearly 60 years. Over that 60-year period, the focus and the intent of illegal smuggling, poaching, and stealing of our beautiful native creatures has actually changed quite dramatically. We now have a burgeoning, flourishing, and enormously profitable trade, internationally, in some of our most precious, most vulnerable, and most at-risk native creatures—the lizard is just one that comes to mind.

In an electorate like mine, in the beautiful Coromandel, where a very large part of the electorate is managed very competently by the DOC ministry and employees, I see, literally every day, examples of how dedicated those people are to our beautiful natural environment. So this piece of legislation extends the powers of those officers to actually intervene and intercept in situations where they see illegal acts taking place. That has not been the case in the past, under the principal legislation, which, as I mentioned, is almost 60 years old, so it is very appropriate that we update it.

I want to just make mention of a comment that the Hon Nanaia Mahuta made in her speech regarding David Parker’s Supplementary Order Paper 243. What the committee actually did do in terms of Fish and Game was we extended, I think appropriately and correctly, the ability for rangers to be able to require proof of date of birth, name, and address. Full-time fish and game rangers have had that extension of power given to them as well. So the distinction here—and I think the point that the Hon Nanaia Mahuta missed—was that it was the volunteer personnel from Fish and Game to whom we have not extended that opportunity and right to require proof of date of birth, name, and address. So full-time fish and game personnel and officers have had that extension granted to them, and I think that is an appropriate course of action. I think that extending it further beyond that to what are, essentially, well-intentioned volunteers, is actually a step too far in terms of the appropriateness of what are quite significant powers to stop, to hold, and to arrest.

So it is about getting the balance right. I think this piece of legislation does get the balance right. I think that the select committee has done very good work, and I want to commend the work of my colleagues from across the House on this bill. They worked assiduously to get a good bill out of the select committee in terms of it being a better bill. So this is a small but really important piece of legislation in terms of helping to protect our native species from the poachers, from the smugglers, and from those who seek to profit illegally at the expense of our beautiful and unique native creatures. It is my very great pleasure to commend the bill to the House.

I am really pleased to support the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill, and I want to acknowledge the member who has just resumed his seat, Scott Simpson, and thank him for the considerate way in which he chaired the Local Government and Environment Committee, which considered this bill.

I also want to acknowledge the outgoing Prime Minister, the Rt Hon John Key, and say that even though we obviously have serious political differences, he has led our country with dignity, and I wish him and his family the very best in his retirement, or into whatever role he transitions from here. I know that any of us in this House lose a lot of family time, and none as much as the Prime Minister, so I hope that he is able to catch up on some of that time with his family.

We have got a lot of big issues facing our country. We know that we have a serious funding shortfall in health. We know that we have got the same in education. We know that our police are feeling really stretched. I hope that the incoming Prime Minister is able to get her or his head around those issues and prise some money out of the Minister of Finance so that we can start properly supporting the people who do so much amazing public service for our country.

The member Scott Simpson quite rightly acknowledged the amazing contribution that the staff of the Department of Conservation (DOC) make in so many areas, and I would certainly add my voice to that acknowledgment, and my thanks. DOC is significantly under-resourced for the work that it is already empowered to do by legislation—required to do, actually. The amount of land that it is able to oversee as our guardian and supervisor has diminished significantly over the last 5 years, because in many areas you just cannot do more with less, and that is what the Government has continued to ask of every Government department and agency.

Although I am supporting this legislation, because it is sensible to update legislation that is well over 60 years old, and look at what current powers should be given to public servants or honorary rangers, as we have debated in relation to the fish and game rangers, none of the contribution from the Minister or the Associate Minister has given any commitment at all to adding additional resources to the Department of Conservation, which would marry up with the additional work that we are requiring it to do. So this bill gives it additional powers. That means it will have more work to do. It should get funded for it. It cannot continue to do more with less, and that is a very strong concern that I have in relation to this legislation.

So the new power that the DOC rangers are getting is the power to seize a wider range of evidence. That is clearly needed. Smarter applications are being made in order to commit crimes in the conservation area, and we should empower those whom we have given the guardianship of those responsibilities to, the legal power, to use every tool available. The rangers will now have the power to stop a person; they currently do not have that. They are able to stop vehicles, they are able to stop vessels, and they are able to take bags, but they are not actually able to stop people. So that is an addition that I think is sensible. They are allowed to stop those people for the time that it would take to do an investigation. So, obviously, we have entrusted our Public Service to not take advantage of the powers that we are giving them. We know that they do not want to detain people for no good reason, but it is specified in the legislation that it is to allow investigation of suspected crimes.

We are enabling the rangers to seize items such as laptops, mobile phones, and cameras. When the original legislation was passed in 1953 we did not have laptops and mobiles phones; now we just laugh at the thought of being without them. We did have cameras, but not the modern sort that we have now, including on mobile phones. So we are giving the rangers the power to seize things that they actually need to seize, which were not envisaged because they were not even made at the time of the original legislation.

We require suspected offenders to provide identification details, and that is where Labour and other parties—New Zealand First and the Greens—differ, I think, with the National Government. It was a very sensible amendment that David Parker proposed during the Committee stage, and I regret that—you know, I think that it was just because it was from an Opposition member that the Government declined it, and that is stupid politics, actually. I am always of the view that regardless of what party people are from, you should be able to look at the proposal they are making and determine on a basis of fact whether it is a good idea or not.

Currently, to enable a successful prosecution under this legislation, a person’s date of birth must be provided, otherwise the case cannot be successful. We give all the other powers to the fish and game honorary rangers, but we do not provide them with the one power that was proposed in the Supplementary Order Paper, and that is the power to require somebody to provide the honorary ranger with their date of birth. So prosecutions under this legislation will fail because that critical bit of information is not required to be provided. So if a person just says “No, I’m not going to provide it to you.”, the honorary ranger has no backing of the law to ensure that that person complies with what they would have to comply with if it was a DOC ranger, and therefore the prosecution would be successful. I think it was a foolish decline of the proposal. I actually think the select committee should have picked up that error and amended it. At that stage it did not do that, so that was a slight failing in the select committee process, then. It declined to take up that opportunity during the Committee stage, so the third reading, for all the support it is going to get, is not giving our Parliament as good a bill as it should.

I just want to comment on the earlier contribution that I made in relation to the stress that DOC workers are under. We know that DOC employees do amazing work for our country. We know that they are working in partnership with many corporations, many other Government departments and agencies, and thousands of volunteers throughout the country. Everywhere we look around New Zealand, we see groups of people who just care about their local area and their community and do good things, often under the leadership of DOC workers. DOC would not be able to survive and do the work that it does without that partnership with volunteers. So as well as commending the DOC staff, I also want to commend the organisations that sponsor them—they get good kudos out of it, but so they should, actually; they are putting good money into the department when the Government has refused to do it—and, of course, also the volunteers who do so much not just in this area but in many other areas as well.

I know that many academics and people outside the political process have raised concerns about the additional stress on the Department of Conservation and the lack of funding. In 2009 we had 803 DOC rangers in New Zealand; today there are only 637. That is a significant reduction in the amount of front-line conservation staff whom we are expecting to do this work.

In 2009 the DOC budget was cut by $46 million. That is a huge cut in a baseline that was already pretty marginal, actually. You know, they got by, but we require it to do so much under statute and then the National Government cuts its budget. In each of the successive years there have been cuts to the budget. There was significant restructuring of the department, which proved to be a major disaster, actually. There was a lot of centralisation of the activities of the Department of Conservation, which, although it gained some efficiencies, undermines the partnership that Department of Conservation staff must have with local communities in order to generate that trust and shared vision, which provides us with the volunteers whom I mentioned earlier. DOC staff deserve to be better recognised by this Parliament, but that recognition needs to be backed up by the funds that they need to do the job.

So here we are in the third reading giving the DOC rangers the additional powers that they need to do their job well, and I just call on the Minister, whoever the Minister of Conservation is next week—there will probably be a new Minister—to call on whoever is the Minister of Finance. And who knows whether it is going to be a new finance Minister or not. It is quite hard to pick at the moment. But I call on both of those Ministers to back this legislation up with funding so that DOC staff can do their work properly resourced.

Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Huri noa i Te Whare nei, e mihi atu ana ki a koutou katoa. Tēnei te mihi a te whanauka o Te Waka o Te Moana-nui-ā-Kiwa. Ngā mihi.

[Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I acknowledge you all throughout this House. I, this kin who belongs to the canoe of the great ocean of Kiwa, salute you. Congratulations.]

I just want to take a brief call to reiterate what others have said. This is a very sensible bill and I am glad it has revealed widespread support in the House.

We are very fortunate in New Zealand to have such wide expanses of preserved wilderness that remain as habitats for our native wildlife. We also owe a lot to previous generations of politicians, who have ensured the ongoing protection of these areas through the creation of national parks and other conservation areas, and indeed through the work that has been done on breeding programmes, eradicating pests, and protecting our remaining species.

We can also be grateful for the work that the Department of Conservation (DOC) and also its rangers do to maintain and protect our precious conservation areas and native species on a day-to-day basis. So it is appropriate that we should pass this bill that we have in front of us here today and to update the powers of our dedicated DOC rangers and ensure that they can deal appropriately with offenders who could cause harm to protected wildlife.

I think it is somewhat perplexing as well that, in a country that values our native species and natural areas so highly, we need to be dealing with the issue of people who would cause harm to those areas and also to our wildlife. However, we have to face the fact that this is a real threat to our wildlife, and this bill takes the appropriate steps to deal with that threat. On that note, I would like to commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

The Green Party is really pleased to be supporting this Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill. We have a biodiversity crisis, with over 800 of New Zealand’s precious and unique species listed by the Department of Conservation (DOC) as being at high risk of extinction. Our native wildlife needs all the protections that it can get. So we are supporting this bill because it gives extra enforcement powers to DOC rangers.

I would just like to echo the comments that have been made by many previous speakers honouring the commitment and dedication of DOC rangers, many of whom do face, sadly, unacceptable levels of abuse while going about their daily work protecting our unique and precious wildlife.

But the bill ignores the elephant in the room that other speakers have spoken about, which is the under-resourcing and underfunding of DOC. It is stating the obvious that if you do not have enough rangers on the ground monitoring and checking what is going on, then all the enforcement powers in the world are not going to make a difference, because there simply is not anyone on the ground there to do anything about the offences or witness them. We know that smuggling is occurring. We know that smugglers are not getting apprehended, and it is going to take far more to protect our native wildlife then chucking a handful of extra enforcement powers at DOC. We have to increase the number of rangers on the ground as well, and that means significantly increasing funding for DOC.

Let us be clear. DOC’s budget has gone down by an average of about $55 million each year since National came into power in 2008. We are very aware of multiple cases across the country where DOC is not fulfilling its responsibility because it is so cash-strapped. We have seen massive job losses and, worst of all, DOC ranger numbers have dropped significantly. How can DOC ensure that wildlife is protected when the number of rangers has dropped? There has been a cut of over 40 rangers in the last 5 years. What this means is that DOC is increasingly reliant on volunteers and private funding to do its core work of protecting our precious species. This is the wrong way round. Volunteer work and private funding should be the icing on the cake to ensure that wildlife flourishes. It should not be what is needed just to save them from the brink of extinction, and that is what is happening.

The Green Party is completely committed to restoring and increasing DOC funding as the first step towards ensuring that our native species thrive, because without these sufficient numbers on the ground our wildlife is suffering. In addition to restoring DOC funding, we will implement a taonga levy, a levy on tourists entering the country, which will help fund the predator pest control programme and make the much-hyped goal of a predator-free New Zealand a reality.

It is also apparent that we need a much wider review of the Wildlife Act than just simply increasing extra powers to rangers. As my colleague Eugenie Sage has mentioned previously, it is hugely frustrating that there is no protection in the Wildlife Act or any of the statutes for any of our native freshwater species. It is a serious failing when you consider how vulnerable our native species are, with 74 percent of native fish species facing extinction, and four of the five main whitebait species. So you have the bizarre situation where we have legal protection for introduced species but none for our native fish species. It is hugely disappointing that the Government has failed to close this gap to ensure legal protection for our native freshwater species.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 1 p.m. (Wednesday)