Freedom Camping (Infringement Offences and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Freedom Camping (Infringement Offences and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill.

Firstly, I’m going to acknowledge the work of many councils around this country, the Tourism Industry Association, the rental companies, the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association, the Holiday Parks Association, the Department of Conservation, the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA), and all of the other groups that I’ve worked with over the years on the challenges and solutions to freedom camping rules. Now, it is a challenging topic, balancing the freedom to enjoy New Zealand and its pristine environment with the need to protect the environment that they’ve come to visit. I would point out that I don’t believe that this bill is going to be working against any of the work that is being done by the Government at the moment; in fact, I think it will complement the work that is being done.

Now, my journey with the Freedom Camping Act began back in my local government days, when the pressure was on some of our special sites around Westland that were being fouled by the actions of a few people who were camping without access to toilet facilities, and, every day, I would travel along State Highway 73 and State Highway 6. Also, living in a rural area, it became abundantly clear that the pressure on some of our pristine sites was going to destroy the very thing that our visitors came to see and enjoy, and that is clean, green New Zealand. So I sought the support of Community and Public Health, and they undertook to provide me with a report. After surveying every layby, every pull-off point, and every picnic area along the length of the State highways in Westland and at other significant points like at rivers and lakes—and their work involved visiting every site during the off-peak season, noting what they saw there, and taking photographs—they repeated that exercise during the peak tourist season, and the bottom line revealed what most of us expected, which was there was a human health issue that needed to be resolved.

Now, this evidence led me to promoting the need for legislation that would give councils authority to control freedom camping in their districts and cities. So I took a remit to the local government AGM, where it was supported. Along with that was the prospect of the 2011 Rugby World Cup being hosted here in New Zealand and the anticipated influx of freedom campers that was being talked about quite a lot in those days. The then National-led Government adopted that concept, and the Freedom Camping Act 2011 was passed into law, sponsored by ACT’s Rodney Hide.

Unfortunately, though, the Act omitted to include Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) land and NZTA land, so the State highways weren’t captured in that legislation. Now, for places like the West Coast, where you’ve got a ribbon of State highway that runs along the length of the region, this was a major omission, and even more so for Grey District and Buller, who share, according to the Lonely Planet, one of the top 10 highways in the world, along the Great Coast Road, and there are many other examples across New Zealand, such as State Highway 1, up the Kaikōura coastline. So this bill that we are talking to tonight inserts Crown-managed land, LINZ land, and NZTA land into the Freedom Camping Act, and that enables controls over the use of that land for freedom camping.

Now, another issue with the original Act was the transfer of unpaid infringement fees to the rental vehicle company. This was an issue that was identified early on in the Freedom Camping Forum that I was a part of, and that was hosted by Geoff Ensor, when he was at the Tourism Industry Association. Now, there was initially a really good understanding that the rental vehicle company held the credit card details of anyone that did receive an infringement notice, but they often left the country without paying that. So the company could recover it, but the legislation had made it quite cumbersome to recover that fee but also, then, the rental vehicle company had to deal with their customers, they had to add on an admin fee for the recovery of that fee, and it wasn’t particularly good for their reviews. So that system was not particularly fit for purpose.

The original bill did give the ability for those companies to write into the rental agreement that they could add on some administration costs for recovery of those fees, but for the infringement offence for freedom camping, they had to, within five days, send a copy of the infringement notice off to the permanent address of that hirer. Now, if someone is touring around in a campervan, the chances are that they are not at their permanent address and not receiving mail. So this bill will address that process by authorising that a new infringement notice can be made out to the rental company, and the customer’s original offence notice would be then revoked.

Now, there is one issue that has been consistently raised within communities where freedom camping is more popular and that is an issue around the human waste, and that is the key focus of this particular bill. Now, there is a human health imperative in addressing freedom camping, and I suggest in this bill that non - self-contained vehicles must be parked within 200 metres of a toilet. Now, during submissions, I’m very open to debating that distance and whether people deem it to be appropriate or even workable, but for vehicles that are fully self-contained, then this requirement does not apply. This bill also gives powers to enforcement officers to enter and inspect a vehicle to make sure that it is indeed fully self-contained. I’m sure that most of us have heard stories of sleeper-van campers defending their self-containment status by saying that they have a bucket and a lid. This does not meet the standard and it does not meet community expectations.

The other issues that arise with freedom campers is the loss of access by locals to their special places and not being able to, say, launch their boats at the river or parking area, get to their fishing spot, or even walk the dog or go for picnics because the area is crammed packed full of campervans and sleeper vans. Now, if those areas are devoid of any toilet facilities, what this bill will mean is that those non - self-contained vehicles will not be able to park there, and that will, in turn, ease the pressure. Now, the mess that is left behind is something that irks local communities, and the tolerance for constantly cleaning up after campers is all but exhausted.

Now, I’d like to take note of an issue that was raised with me several times during the development of the original work on the 2011 Freedom Camping Act, and that’s the impact that it will have on families who want to enjoy our great outdoors with their family or their friends as part of a tenting holiday. These groups are not the target of this bill. We want Kiwis and visitors to be able to still continue to enjoy our back country experience. As we know, there is very little negative feedback received relating to this type of camper. They are the ones who traditionally leave only their footprints behind.

But with up to 250,000 people in 2019 who were spending part of their New Zealand holiday here freedom camping, we recognised that most of them do not cause any problems. However, when there is a human health issue that has been identified, it is, I believe, that we as a Parliament have a responsibility to respond and ensure that we include some of the most well-used freedom camping grounds and that we protect those pristine areas that people go to to camp. I believe that this bill does that by capturing LINZ land, Government-controlled land, and NZTA land, and it fills the gap that the original piece of legislation left. As a result, I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and, look, I would like to thank that member Maureen Pugh for supporting changes to a practice that I feel has very real potential to harm New Zealand’s “clean, green” “100% Pure” brand and is fast eroding or has already eroded tourism’s social licence to operate in many of our towns and our cities in our tourist spots around our wonderful country. This is something that I have spoken on often, both as the Minister of Tourism and in the past in Opposition and in other ministerial portfolios. It’s something I’m very passionate about, our brand, and this is something that I think we can do to help maintain and enhance our brand as borders open. We need to make changes now.

But the member must be very well aware—she must have been aware—that, as the Minister of Tourism, I am doing a lot of work around this area. She must have been aware when she put this bill into the ballot that discussion documents were out and it was very high on my work programme, as I have articulated right across the media many times.

But, having said that, her passion for this issue is commendable, and I thank her very much for supporting an issue that, as she knows, I am also very passionate about myself, and I’m making an assumption here—I hope I’m right. I’m making an assumption that the discussion document that we put out to a whole range of stakeholders on the change in freedom camping, the member submitted on—and even though I couldn’t find her submission, I’m sure she did—because what I did do was I put out a comprehensive public discussion document canvassing a number of issues on solutions on how we can deal with the problem that is freedom camping. We received a lot of feedback on proposed options for changing, and I’ve taken all these into account when designing a regime that I will take for Cabinet approval. It is a well-set-out and heavily consulted on document, and I believe the proposals will make a difference in an area that I am very passionate about.

Can I give the House some stats: only 74 percent of freedom campers and budget vehicles or purchased vehicles have access to an on-board toilet. Of those 74 percent of freedom campers that did have a toilet, only 28 percent used it. So they either used facilities—which this Government has significantly invested in, in partnership with local councils through the Tourism Infrastructure Fund—or they’ve gone outside. There is no reason for this, and the reason I say that is dotted all around our fantastic country, there are camping grounds and there are holiday parks, within easy drive of each other. There’s a whole network of them. The vast majority are very cheap, they’re accessible, and they have all the facilities that people need when they are travelling around our fantastic country on a budget holiday.

This does contrast with the premium end of the market, which has fixed toilets. These are the big campervans we see traversing our highways. They do have fixed toilets, and over 74 percent of the people in that premium end of the market actually say that they use the facility.

So whilst freedom camping is a wide area and has a very wide definition under the legislation, the area that we are really concerned about when we are looking at changing the law and really tightening it up are those vans that you see, and you see the little blue sticker on the back that says “self-contained”, and you go, “No way—that is not self-contained.” They often just have a bucket, I’m told, with some gladwrap over the top, and I’m also told that sometimes if they return this with the gladwrap still there, they get their deposit back—hardly an invitation to use the facilities and hardly self-contained, by anyone’s definition. This is what we’re looking to change.

In fact, I found out in the consultation that these are called sliders, and the reason they’re called sliders is in the middle of the night, you can hear that door slide open as they go outside to go to the toilet, and you can hear it slide closed again. Like I said, that’s hardly the sort of activity or the behaviour that we want to see right across our pristine country.

Certainly, when I went hard on this in the media upon becoming the Minister of Tourism, about 75 percent of the correspondence with my office was in favour of reform of this practice. It’s one of the reasons why I’ve gone very hard, and it is an issue that many Kiwis have a strong opinion on, because the last thing we want to see, if I’m to be quite blunt, is toilet paper in rest areas, on the side of streams, and on our reserves, and it’s one of the reasons where, only this week, the Napier City Council—and I applaud them for this—has banned freedom camping on the Westshore reserve, because there were too many instances of people defecating in this reserve, which is used by families and kids, and it’s a fantastic tourist spot.

The last thing we want is people using the Westshore reserve as a toilet, and no doubt those who are watching this have numerous examples of where they have been around this country and they’ve seen toilet paper and defecating in our forests, for example. It is the last thing we want to see, and apart from a health risk, as the previous member outlined, it is just a really bad look and there’s no reason for it. It’s the reason why we’re changing the rules.

We recognised that this was a major issue when, actually, we first came into Government in 2017. The previous Minister of Tourism, Kelvin Davis, in 2018, set up the Responsible Camping Working Group. It was a group of mayors and engaged stakeholders who provided a whole lot of information and feedback to the Minister on what he could do to implement changes around this freedom camping space, and, in fact, he put together a fund of about $25 million, which helped deal with the issues. I just felt, upon becoming the Minister of Tourism, we had to take things to the next stage. I felt that we needed a legislative solution.

Maureen Pugh, I won’t be supporting your piece of legislation. That’s not because I don’t believe there needs to be change, but, as the Minister of Tourism, I am bringing my own legislation on this. I have to take it to Cabinet. It is very well thought through, it is heavily consulted on, and it deals with a lot of the issues. It deals—

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, just—come on.

Oh, “Come on.”—Mr Bishop, you know how this works. You’ve got a member’s bill, which is really good in principle, but I have consulted widely with all the stakeholders. It is very well thought through. I understand the issues because I’ve been out to the people and I’ve heard what they’ve said, and I’ve come up with solutions to what all the stakeholders are talking about. It’s what we have done.

But what I can say—and I actually heard Mr Woodhouse speak very clearly and articulately on this in a forum I was at, and I see Mr Todd McClay over there, as the Opposition spokesperson for tourism. So what I am expecting is that when I do bring a bill to the House, very, very soon after it goes to Cabinet, I will expect the full support from the House because this is an issue we all know needs sorting.

So, Maureen Pugh, thank you very much for this, but my bill—[Interruption]—Todd McClay—is a bill that actually deals with the issues that all the stakeholders, up and down this country, and not just the West Coast but including the West Coast, because I’ve spoken all your mayors—a fantastic group of people who have engaged widely, and I applaud them for that. I really enjoyed my time with your mayors, but they’ve told me it’s a really big issue.

So I won’t be supporting this bill, but I support the philosophy and the premise behind it, and I fully expect Maureen Pugh, Todd McClay, Chris Bishop, and the National Opposition to support mine when I bring it to the House. Thank you very much. Kia ora.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Thank you. I’m pleased to speak on the Freedom Camping (Infringement Offences and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, and congratulate Maureen Pugh for having the bill pulled and also for the thought that has gone into it. It is a serious bill and it does try to fill some gaps in the 2011 Freedom Camping Act.

Back in 2011, around the time of the Rugby World Cup, the number of freedom campers was estimated to be in the tens of thousands. Now, as others have noted, it’s more likely—before COVID, before the lockdown—to be in the vicinity of 250,000. That has brought significant problems, and I think one of the issues has been the way in which Aotearoa New Zealand has been advertised. These big motorhomes with blue sky, the wide expanse of the Mackenzie Basin—this notion that these big motorhomes are free to pull up anywhere, and even the term “freedom camping” suggests that. So I prefer to use the words “vehicle camping” because that is what it is. It’s either with a motorhome or with those sliders, the little vans that the Hon Stuart Nash was talking about.

So this vehicle camping has really undermined the social licence that tourism had pre-COVID because of the impacts it was having on communities—particularly areas like Queenstown, the Mackenzie Lakes, the West Coast—which were overrun by motorhomes using locals’ favoured sites to pull up for the night. The whole issue with poor toileting and faeces and not having adequate on-board facilities, and also the primary economic issue that in a number of regional centres you have motor camps and low-cost motels—those businesses were losing out because people were choosing just to park up anywhere and not pay for services they could get in a motor camp or a small motel.

I had the pleasure last term of working with the Hon Kelvin Davis as Minister of Tourism. From very early in the term, he recognised the issues around freedom camping, calling together a meeting of mayors to find out what councils were experiencing in those key areas, and then establishing the Responsible Camping Working Group which came up with a very useful report back in July 2018, and one of the key recommendations in that report was the need for investment in infrastructure. So, over the course of two years, there was about $27 million that Government invested in working with councils to ensure that there was appropriate infrastructure for vehicle camping.

In Queenstown Lakes, which is the second-most popular area after the Tasman District for vehicle camping, Mayor Boult had regularly had locals ringing him with issues around vehicle camping. But there, with the help of Government funding, they set up both in Wānaka and in Queenstown a facility where people can have showers, do their washing, get free Wi-Fi for an hour, and a washstand for washing dishes. That meant that the vehicle campers were able to use these facilities and were less likely to be found trying to wash dishes in local toilets. There was much better engagement with Te Papa Atawhai—the Department of Conservation—because if councils ban vehicle camping from local reserves, they tend to go off down the road to our public conservation land.

So that funding of around $27 million has been really helpful in providing response, on the ground, in terms of facilities. Minister Nash has carried on that work with the discussion document that was issued and people have responded to, but was interested in the Queenstown Lakes District Council (QDLC). It says that the review that Minister Nash conducted was a missed opportunity, that the recommendations are too narrow, and that they fail to implement a system-wide approach to change, and QLDC is hoping that there’s a review of the Freedom Camping Act in its whole and of the self-containment of motor caravans regulations and the Camping-Grounds Regulations 1985.

So the Green Party won’t be supporting Maureen Pugh’s bill, because we want to see that comprehensive solution that Minister Nash talked about. But we hope that the Labour Government listens to the concerns raised in submissions—particularly by groups like Queenstown Lakes District Council—and makes it more comprehensive. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and talk about freedom camping. I’m a converted freedom camper. I absolutely love going for a campervan holiday.

Four years ago, for the first time ever, my husband and I and our two kids, we got in a campervan—a self-contained campervan—and we hired it. We went away for three weeks and I had the time of my life, and, I have to say, I had a very, very happy husband. I had a happy husband because my husband loves surfing. He’s a great surfer. So what it meant was we could drive up to the surf and he’d be happy all morning or all afternoon, and I could just relax, read a book, hang out—tell you what, it was freedom. Right up north, all the way to Cape Reinga, we did all the beaches, and honestly, we just had a ball, and no arguments—no arguments—and that’s what freedom camping is all about.

So when I talk about camping now—[Interruption] Look, I’m speaking to Maureen Pugh, who started this off, but, really, the National Party’s just going to be going through the motions tonight because, as we have already said, we’re going to be voting this bill down, because we’re going to zhoosh it up even more. We’re going to make sure that this bill really does the business for New Zealand.

Now, when I read the bill, Maureen Pugh, I was pleased to see the stuff that was coming through, and one part that I took particular notice of was that the Attorney-General gave a report into a serious side of this where there would be automatic ways to just go in and do an inspection. An enforcement officer could come in and do an inspection, and under the Attorney-General’s opinion, he said that “For the reasons above”, he felt that it was “unreasonable to exercise this sort of unreasonable search grounds.” So that was something that I thought was quite interesting, and I think that will come through as we talk about the bill that Mr Nash is looking forward to putting through Cabinet.

Obviously, this is an opportunity to talk about some of those things that will be coming through. We don’t know what they’re going to be yet, but we know what was consulted on, and it was very, very timely this week because, yes, the Napier City Council—I read in the local paper, the Hawke’s Bay Today, the regional paper from the electorate of Tukituki and for Hastings, that they had decided to close down Westshore Beach Reserve for two years because people hadn’t been very clean. They haven’t been doing the business where they should be doing the business. That is what this bill has really hit home, and it’s just not good enough, is it?

So the serious side in zhooshing this up and taking this a bit further, Maureen Pugh, is what the Labour Party is going to be doing through Minister Nash. One of the things we consulted on was to make it mandatory for freedom camping in a vehicle to be done in a certified, self-contained vehicle. We’re making it mandatory for freedom campers to stay in a vehicle that is certified self-contained, unless they’re staying close to a toilet, and that makes sense, doesn’t it? That’s the part that I think is great.

Across my holiday, there were so many good spots that you could park up and there were good toilet resources, and I can tell you just another thing. There was a bit of a trick with our campervan trip, because the family said that we didn’t really want to clean out the self-contained ablutions, so we made sure that the first person who had to use it would have to have that job. So we made very sure—very sure—that we went and used areas where there were good toilet facilities.

I can tell you, go for a freedom camp. They’re absolutely brilliant—one of the best ways to see New Zealand. Unfortunately, though, I’ll be voting this bill down and looking forward to the next bill through the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the previous member Anna Lorck for that graphic description. Anyway, I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to make a few brief comments about this bill. We do have some concerns on the details of this bill, but I think there is more than sufficient public interest and stories and things we’ve seen in the media of poor behaviour to at least send this bill to select committee so that it can get a fair hearing and the public can give some feedback, and councils, etc., because we don’t want people to be going around the country and ruining it for everybody else.

Despite the construction of new and upgraded facilities around New Zealand, concerns do remain. People still raise issues, and actually having a working enforcement programme might almost incentivise the construction of new facilities as well. So that could be interesting.

As I said, I do have a few concerns. There is the scope of discretion, because officers will inevitably come across a whole raft of scenarios and different situations, and in some cases a verbal warning is more appropriate. We need to uncover any potential unintended consequences where people might be issued fines when they’re not actually freedom camping—you know, the odd occasion where somebody might pull over in their van to get some rest and fall asleep in the middle of the night, and what happens there. We need to have a good look at the granting of power to officers to conduct a search of a vehicle for the purpose of ensuring compliance, and so the concern there is simply around privacy and whether or not this could be an avenue for wider prosecution if they find other things while they’re doing it.

I did want to query as part of this the issue of the notices being sent to rental companies. That was likened to what happens when you’re in a rental car and you’ve got a bit of a lead foot and you go for a bit of a hoon, you go past a speed camera, and then the rental company receives an infringement fee in the mail for $630 or $30, and then they send it to you. So that was interesting, because I would have thought for this regime it would be more likely to be on-the-spot fines as people are searching your vehicle, so that’s something that I was sort of querying.

So, as I said, I think it’s fair and reasonable for these concerns and others and for the public to have their say on this issue because, clearly, the problem still exists. It’s less of a problem at the moment because of the border situation and the pandemic, but I’m sure this will come back. I guess the last thing I would say is how did I know that the Hon Stuart Nash would oppose this, despite it being right up his alley. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I rise today, yet another time, this time to speak on the Freedom Camping (Infringement Offences and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. When I first came to New Zealand as a young child, one of the things my family did was travel throughout the country, top down, visiting different towns and cities, trying to take in the beautiful sights of New Zealand. It’s something that we’re all very used to doing here in New Zealand, enjoying our beautiful landscape, but also what we’ve noticed is with the number of tourists increasing over the years, there has been a significant rise in people who do freedom camp.

In 2000, we had about 10,000 visitors a year who were freedom camping. This number grew to 54,000 in 2013 and on last count, in 2018, it was 123,000. So I’ll show you a little graph. I don’t know if you guys can see it from here—it’s a little bit small—but the numbers are rising. The numbers are rising and what this means is the impact of freedom campers on our infrastructure, especially in smaller towns, is getting worse, which means you see more and more people using the public toilets. You see more and more people park their cars in supermarkets, making it worse for small-town citizens, who then have to actually go around and clean up after these people.

So, in principle, I think we all agree around the House that something does need to be done about all these issues that have gotten worse because of our increased tourism, which is not a bad thing. But we do need to have a way of getting this under control, especially as the country opens up after this global pandemic is sorted out.

As the Minister of Tourism has said, the Labour Government has been working on this for quite a long time, and the key difference between what the Government is proposing and what the Opposition has proposed is that the Government has taken quite a comprehensive review of this and has involved various stakeholders and a full round of public consultation, which hasn’t happened in this space. That is quite important because these communities need to be able to get their word in on how the laws will be made around this, because it does affect these people in their various communities.

I’m just going to mention a few of the things that the Government has done already to make this more sustainable. So if we look at the establishment of the Responsible Camping Working Group, where the Government put in $25 million in 2018 to better manage the freedom camping system, there was also an introduction of a data and technology pilot to provide real-time information on the capacity of selected campsites, which saw over 20,000 people check the live availability of the trial sites at that time.

In addition to that, there were a lot of education campaigns run by Tourism New Zealand about responsible camping behaviours—[Pauses while another member listens to Parliament TV on his cellphone]—sorry, I was just waiting for the other member to finish watching his video—and in addition to that, there was provision of free access to self-contained vehicle standards, saving users around $70 each to allow people to see what was required for certification as a self-contained vehicle. There was also commissioning of research to better understand the number, profile, and value of visitors, both domestic and international, who go freedom camping throughout the summer.

As you can see, the Government has done quite a lot of groundwork already in addressing this issue, but the missing piece has been the public consultation, which the Government did start in April and, as I understand, it has now taken place, and all that information will be used in making this legislation even better. So while I do thank the member of the Opposition for bringing this bill to the House, I think there are lots of missing pieces which can be addressed and which the Minister himself has agreed to look into as we move forward.

So I would like to say no to the current bill as it stands, and I look forward to the bill that the Minister of Tourism will be bringing to the House in a few months’ time. Thank you so much.

Mr Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this bill this evening. There’s nothing like the last hour of a members’ day as we head towards the close and the final couple of speeches of the night. Hopefully, this speech will be sufficiently interesting that members will be focused.

Obviously, we’re looking at the freedom camping bill, and I’d like to acknowledge Maureen Pugh for her work on this bill. It has been widely acknowledged from all parties that there is a significant issue in this area that does need to be addressed, and so the member is certainly accurate in her assumption of the issues. We heard from the Minister there—the Hon Stuart Nash, the Minister of Tourism—around his plans, and his view was quite clearly that there are important issues in this area but that he does not want to block up the select committee process with this bill. But he will be bringing a bill to the House soon.

I’d like to touch on an aspect around tourism and just explore our brand that we have. We have a very strong brand in New Zealand which has been built upon by successive Governments over many years, and that brand is very much around “clean, green” pure New Zealand. We have built that brand very well. It’s been a consistent brand for many years, and, look, by and large, it is certainly an accurate brand. However, we can always do better, and I think most people in this House would acknowledge that, and the area of freedom camping is an area that we can do better, and those arguments have been quite clearly outlined tonight in terms of some of the issues. The member Maureen Pugh accurately highlighted some of them, and the Minister has also talked about those.

Now, this aspect around “100% Pure”—there is a rather unique opportunity that we have at the moment as a country in this COVID environment in that we don’t have tourists coming to New Zealand. Now, tourists will start coming again from overseas, hopefully, soon. We’re obviously all working together towards that, when it’s safe to do so, and when tourists do start coming back to New Zealand in a safe manner, we have the opportunity to look at what sort of tourism sector we want to have in New Zealand. Normally, there’s not an opportunity for a reset like this, so this is fairly unique. So I would like to acknowledge the work that the Minister is doing in this area to, effectively, reimagine tourism in terms of what type of tourist we want, where we want tourists to go, and, particularly, the impact that tourists have on New Zealand’s environment.

There is an aspect around the social licence as well for tourists, and this social licence is granted by local communities. We have heard from some local communities that that social licence prior to COVID appeared to be running a little bit thin, and, certainly, many of us heard that, particularly in this area of the freedom camping aspects. So there’s the aspect of a social licence and the aspect of the opportunity to reimagine tourism in New Zealand. There’s an opportunity for us to protect and restore our natural environment moving forward.

I understand that prior to COVID, we had around 800,000 people per year go through the Milford Sound. Now, when you go overseas, you often see that Milford Sound on the advertising brochures—it’s normally the Milford Sound in Hamilton on the advertising brochures that we see overseas, so these two areas are particularly important for our branding. Some members are saying that they haven’t seen that one. I can certainly assure all members that that’s certainly accurate when you’re overseas.

So, look, the reality is that having 800,000 people through the Milford Sound is not sustainable, so we must protect our natural environment. We must ensure we can deliver a high-quality tourism experience, and the Minister is absolutely committed to this. I’m sort of running out of time to go into it, but the Minister did a consultation document and the document received extensive feedback, and that will form the basis of the legislation he will bring to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Well, thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s getting late on a member’s evening, as Jamie Strange, the last speaker, indicated, and it’s a time, I guess, when the Parliament is sometimes at its best and sometimes at its worst.

I want to commence my contribution in this debate by congratulating my friend and colleague Maureen Pugh for bringing to this Parliament a well-thought-out, well-considered, practical piece of legislation that can be implemented now if the Government decided to get off their high horse and stop being so arrogant and assuming that they know the answer to everything and that only they are the fount of knowledge and wisdom on all matters. If they took an occasional opportunity to seek the input, the contribution, and the wisdom of other members in this debating chamber, then they would be doing well for all New Zealanders in terms of solving what is a real problem.

I’ve got the honour and privilege of representing the beautiful Coromandel in this Parliament. Just as my friend and colleague Maureen Pugh has in her part of the country on the West Coast, we get an awful lot of tourists visiting the Coromandel when they come to New Zealand from overseas, when they’re allowed to, and we hope that sooner or later that opportunity will arise again. But, as other members have already indicated, there are ongoing issues in terms of so-called freedom camping, and I actually quite like the suggestion that Eugenie Sage had about the renaming of the system. It’s not too often that I agree with her, but occasionally I think she has a reasonable point, and I quite like the term “vehicle camping”, because that actually does more accurately sum up the issue that is at hand.

But one of the things that struck me from the Minister of Tourism’s contribution, apart from his natural and very obvious arrogance and inability to even consider for a moment the input and thoughts of other members who have gone to a lot of trouble and come up with a sensible, pragmatic, practical solution for an issue of the sort that exists in many parts of the country, including my own—around the beautiful Coromandel. It was that, actually, apart from some consultations and some meetings and submissions, nothing has been done. Not a thing—zip, nothing. Four years of failure—nothing has yet been done.

So where is the sense of urgency? Where’s the sense of passion that the Minister so eloquently and so energetically brings to the House, but he delivers, in practical terms, nothing—zip, nada, zero, nothing—and here my colleague Maureen Pugh has a piece of legislation ready to go. I would have thought that in the best interests of parliamentary democracy, the sensible thing to do would be to actually send this bill to a select committee to hear submissions, to have the benefit of a select committee scrutiny, to give it the justice that I think it deserves, and to give the credit to the member that she deserves for bringing it to the House and for having the good fortune to have it drawn from the ballot, particularly when the Government seems so slow to move at all.

Actually, that would be a good thing. That would add something to the net knowledge and net potential benefit for regions like mine and others around the country where there are lots of vehicle campers who move around and, frankly, many of them create an obscene, filthy, disgusting mess. It’s very obvious in some parts of the country, mine included, and it’s simply not good enough. The aspect of social licence has been mentioned by other speakers.

So I am very sorry that the Government has, yet again, decided to take it upon themselves to be the fount of all knowledge and to absolutely not consider the input of other members, and not to consider the input of other submitters, not to give this bill a select committee hearing, and not to use the process that this whole members’ bill system is designed to achieve of giving good ideas an airing and a thought.

Now, it may not be absolutely perfect, this bill. I think Maureen Pugh would be the first to concede that maybe there were things that could be improved by her bill, but I think to give it at least an opportunity for an airing and a hearing would be a good thing—get it under way, get something done, and actually achieve something. So instead of having grand, energetic announcements that achieve nothing—zero, zip, nada—actually do something practical.

So here we have, again, late on a members’ bill day, the Government—arrogantly, in my view—simply deciding that they know best and that the opinions of others in this Chamber are not worth considering. That will ultimately be the demise of this Government, because they do it on so many issues. This might be just a matter to do with camping, but it’s a signal of this Government’s attitude.

Members, this debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Pō mārie.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.57 p.m.