Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation Bill

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on the Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation Bill in its second reading, today. Unfortunately, and I think this is the first time that I’ve encountered this, the select committee report that came back from the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee that considered this piece of legislation had to be discharged from the select committee without amendment, and that was simply because they could not reach agreement among the members on a position, which, in effect, has meant that all of the submitters that participated in that process on freedom camping, and the provisions explicit in the bill, were not able to be included. I think that makes a real farce of the process that everyone participated in, in very good faith. The reason that the committee could not reach agreement was because there are some polarised views about some of the detail in the bill, and it hinged mainly on definition and the requirement in the bill for fixed toilets.

Now, this has always been a very contentious issue, because, with freedom camping, we know that there have been problems, and, unfortunately, the problems are caused by people who do not use the toilets. And so this bill does not take account of the fact that you can have a toilet and still not use it, but under this legislation, you cannot be prosecuted for that. So we still haven’t got to the root cause of the problems. I know it’s a minority of users that do attract the majority of complaints about freedom campers, but they are the ones who make a very sensitive issue, a very topical one in local communities. Being involved with this type of legislation for 15 years, I am fully aware of the passion that is attracted when it comes to this discussion.

But, unfortunately, this bill today—which is an omnibus bill, by the way, because it amends two different pieces of legislation: the Freedom Camping Act 2011 and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006. Now, this bill, I think, personifies or demonstrates really clearly how this Government loves to complicate and add cost to something that does not need to be, and it is synonymous with the Labour Government. But we have a problem in this country that is not going to be fixed by this piece of legislation, no matter how well-intended it set out to be.

So the problem that we had with the first piece of legislation, the Freedom Camping Act of 2011, was that it excluded Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) land and New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) land from being able to be monitored and policed for freedom camping. So councils went through a hugely complex process to identify freedom camping areas when the first piece of legislation came in, and, unfortunately, it didn’t mean a great deal because those sites were located with GPS, and when someone is driving along looking for a suitable camping spot they are not checking their GPS coordinates; they are looking for the best parking spot. And to then work your way back to find out whether the local bylaws included these particular GPS coordinates or not was not something that was ever exercised. So it still did not capture the pieces of ground that are now covered in this bill, which is NZTA land and LINZ land.

For many communities—you know, I know on the West Coast, for instance; in Tasman; especially areas up around Coromandel, they are very remote pieces of land and there are no monitors out there actively seeking to oversee the freedom camping. And I am afraid that this bill is going to fall into the same problems, in that we are still addressing areas that are very remote. You know, if you ring up and have a complaint about somebody that you believe does not have a suitable toilet fixed in their campervan, you are not going to have people driving 100 or 200 kilometres to have a look at that and, if need be, issue an infringement notice.

We have, in the bill, got some concessions around implementation. One of those is that rental vehicles—so commercial rental vehicles, campervans—will have 18 months to comply with this new piece of legislation. But the non-rental vehicles—so the ones that are owned by private individuals—will get 24 months to comply. I am assuming that this legislation will be passed at third reading whether or not there are any modifications to the bill as a consequence of submissions. It will be up to the Government, but, because they have the majority of votes, I assume that it will be adopted as it sits today without any change at all.

I think it’s worth us remembering, when we are talking about fixed toilets, they are strictly those toilets that are hard plumbed into the vehicles. So that’s where the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board will become involved, and they will be charged with setting up the database of these vehicles and they will do the issuing of the compliance certificates. So they are for hard-plumbed toilets, and that’s what this piece of legislation is demanding. But there are 70,000 other users that use alternatives to hard-plumbed toilets, and those are chemical toilets—the porta-potties that most people will be aware of. They are completely hygienic, they are suitable and adequate for the size of vehicles that they are used in. And as I started my contribution to this debate, I mentioned that it’s actually not about whether they’re hard plumbed into a vehicle or whether they are a porta-potty or a chemical toilet of any sort; it’s actually whether the users use them. And so we need to be clear that we are going to eliminate the activities for a lot of people in this country—70,000 of them that use these vehicles that won’t be able to be plumbed in. And that’s because they are simply a van, maybe with an awning that will extend out. But they are going to be excluded from using them for the activity that they specifically bought them for. And for many, that’s a very significant investment.

In terms of the National Party’s position, we were very concerned that we were going to have the definition of those toilets so constrained that it did eliminate a lot of users. We felt that the definition was too restrictive, and we would have liked to have seen a bit more realistic approach to that. We also contend that the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board is probably not the most suitable entity to be running the certification process. And we also think that the ongoing prohibitive costs of having those compliance certificates issued is going to be prohibitive for some people, and they will have to be renewed.

So I don’t know that we’re going to get to much change in terms of the public pushback to the use of campervans in inappropriate areas. What we will continue to see is the pushback from communities about people not using the on-board facilities, and we will be introducing Supplementary Order Papers at the committee of the whole House stage to try and get some sensible solutions to this ongoing issue. We just want to make sure that we expand the definition of “self-contained”. We also have a great deal of faith in the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association—NZMCA. They have been great guardians of the standards of use for campervans, particularly with their own members. But we think that they should also retain the ability to certify and ensure that on-board facilities are up to the suitable standard. And so we are suggesting that they, in partnership with the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board, be able to run that certification process. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to remind the House this afternoon of the purpose, I guess—the essence of what this piece of legislation is about. It’s around protecting nature. It’s around keeping New Zealand clean. It’s around showing respect to others. It’s around showing respect to our environment. It’s around being good guardians of what we have here in Aotearoa New Zealand—being that clean, green image that we like to present ourselves with.

Now, this is legislation—and as we listened through the select committee process that I was honoured to be part of—very much around how we support local government. How do we ensure that local government has the tools and the means to ensure that they can keep many of their spaces and places, many of their parks and other areas safe and clean? The sad thing is, as we heard submissions and we listened to councils from all around the country, there were the horror stories of excrement, of rubbish, and of other things I don’t even want to mention in this House being left in places that they should never ever be left in.

This legislation, and in terms of crafting throughout the select committee process, was about ensuring that local government can rely on reducing the negative impacts that freedom camping has come to be known with. We know that most New Zealanders are responsible. We know that most New Zealanders who get out and enjoy our wonderful parks and rivers and oceans are responsible, but, sadly, there are some that aren’t, and we need to make sure that this House creates consistent legislation that will support our councils to make sure that they do, and those enjoying the outdoors do.

I was a member of the New Zealand Motor Caravan Association. I did own my own motorhome a number of years ago. I had my red and grey wings that I was very proud to have, and I was responsible, but, unfortunately, others weren’t. So we need to do this. We need to make sure we get it right. I look forward to our committee stage in terms of getting to a place where we have this legislation fit for purpose.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the Greens to speak to the second reading of the Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation Bill. I wanted to acknowledge the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for the work they’ve done to hear public feedback. And I wanted to acknowledge that the intent of this bill is to create a new framework to regulate freedom camping, which covers a huge range of land, whether it’s public conservation or Land Information New Zealand land as well.

I think we all, in this House, want to ensure that the places where the places that we all enjoy—whether it’s domestic tourism or international tourism—are clean, are available, and are there for future generations to come. There have been reports about how freedom camping as a practice—in its current state—has lost the social licence and that we need new frameworks. Now, what this bill was hoping to do was to, basically, amongst other things, require that any vehicle used for freedom camping be certified and self-contained against the new standards set in regulation. There are other things such as requiring a fixed toilet and allowing enforcements to be sent via email, for example, so that vehicle rental companies receive quicker notice and can recover infringement fees when their rental ends.

I think back to our comments in the first reading. We had multiple concerns, but one of the ones that I wanted to raise was particularly around how this legislation could, in theory, be used to target our homeless population who often live in caravans because of need. This is something that we’ve made clear, and I understand that there’s other constituents of mine and community members who share similar concerns. And so one of the things that we will be looking for in the committee of the whole House will be any moves to address this, and we hope that the Minister has listened to those concerns from submitters, and from the Greens as well, to ensure that this legislation is predominantly focused, actually, on providing a clean Aotearoa for everyone to enjoy.

We also wanted to acknowledge that, unfortunately, this is a narrow bill when it comes to its scope—and it’s limited in its scope as well, and we would have liked to go further. As we’ve said previously, ideally we would have liked to follow on the work that happened in 2017 and 2020, regarding sort of setting a framework around responsible camping, as opposed to just focusing on freedom camping altogether, because we think this would have kind of created a more holistic approach to tackling issues such as pollution and just practising camping more in tune with the natural environment that we live in.

This bill also won’t necessarily increase the extent of the data that we collect on this problem, since it doesn’t necessarily require local authorities to report infringements on these issues, and so we think that more work could have been done on this. But as I said at the beginning of our statement, the key concern that we continue to have is the use of this bill to target our homeless population, and our support of this bill hinges on the ability to make changes that will ensure that our homeless population isn’t targeted. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to make a few remarks on this bill and on our position. I will start by acknowledging the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee for the time and enabling all the constitutional requirements that enabled the submitters to express their views, the majority in opposition, and it’s a shame where the select committee process ended up, because I think the bill that we have here today has suffered for that.

Now that the bill has been considered by the select committee and that people have had their voices heard, ACT has adjusted its position and will be opposing this bill at second reading. It is clear that the bill just doesn’t add up, and, while it has good intentions, we have to look at the policy outcome, and question whether the bill is good public policy. Will it solve what it’s actually trying to solve? We don’t think it does. It unduly burdens travellers, be they domestic or international, for the actions of a few, and others have spoken about this behaviour component of this as well. We need to ask what it’s trying to solve and whether it will solve it, and we don’t believe it will.

The problem, as others have said, is something we mostly agree on: poor behaviour leads to bad outcomes which negatively affect the enjoyment of what New Zealand has to offer, but this bill won’t solve it. It will put a significant cost on those doing the right thing, and those who don’t do the right thing will probably just wind up ignoring the law anyway.

So the focus is on the wrong place, and, really, this should be about the behaviour of these people and the context of that behaviour, which is the lack of public toilets up and down this country, which is not the fault of freedom campers. So, based on the research by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), the law change would affect, potentially, up to 130,000 self-contained vehicles, based on initial estimates. Converting a van could cost between $1,200 and $5,000. Then there are other fees every few years for the certification, and then the monitoring levy that they would have to pay once every four years at the time of accreditation to recover those costs.

Most territorial authorities who shared infringement information with MBIE generally noticed a decrease in the total number of infringements that were being issued over the past few years in any event, and this coincided with more education around this issue, and Ricardo spoke about the social licence that may have been lost here, and certainly this has been in the media, and perhaps this has actually influenced behaviour as well.

There is no consistent nationwide understanding of what a self-contained vehicle is, and it seems that each territory has a bit of a different understanding of what that means and what they’re going to do about it. What might be totally fine in one area and not gain an infringement might not be in another area, and I just think it’s too much to expect freedom campers and tourists, particularly international tourists, to know the difference between the different territories and the different bylaws. So there are certainly issues there.

As I said in my opening, the select committee process didn’t end up the way it probably should have. Most submitters opposed this bill, and I’ll give just a few highlights from that. The New Zealand Motor Caravan Association supported the intention—again, it’s something that a lot of us agree on—but were concerned over the costs, and they are significant. Tourism Holdings Ltd was concerned over the bill’s focus on vehicles rather than poor behaviour, and that’s certainly our position on this. The Responsible Campers Association opposed the bill entirely, with the founder, Bob Osborne—and I know he’s been quoted already—telling the committee that proposing fitted toilets won’t guarantee that people will use them.

Realistically, how many people currently get infringement notices for this issue? I think the issue is that when it comes to this behaviour and putting this massive cost on freedom campers, actually, if they get toilets installed and then up doing poor behaviour and not using them for various reasons—because they don’t want to clean it or whatever the issue may be—then they’re not covered by this, but for those who don’t actually go to that cost could be covered by this, simply because of the lack of public toilets.

So the summary is that we think this bill has the wrong focus. There is too much red tape. It won’t solve the problems that it’s seeking to solve, and it won’t change behaviour. It will just add cost and compliance for those that are doing the right thing already. So ACT will not be supporting this bill any further. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on the Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation Bill, an important piece of legislation to maintain our clean, green image that we have here in New Zealand. I will attempt to flush away some of the odour from the Opposition from what we’ve heard this afternoon.

The Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation Bill is an omnibus bill that amends the Freedom Camping Act 2011 and the Plumbers, Gasfitters, and Drainlayers Act 2006 to improve the management of vehicle-based freedom camping. Now, we’ve heard from speakers across this House—some who agree with the bill; some who don’t. There does appear to be consensus around the fact that the non - self-contained vehicles appear to be losing the social licence to operate. People doing their business in the woods is not something that we accept as New Zealanders. Obviously, there’s arguments from different sides around whether this bill will fix that, our side of the House believe that it will fix that, and obviously that’s why we’re putting it into legislation. The Opposition have a different view and that obviously remains to be seen.

But the important aspect here is the fact that if anyone goes overseas and they have a look at an advertisement for New Zealand, you’ll often see pristine nature at its finest, often the likes of the Milford Sound. But the reality is: are people, when they come here, receiving what they’re being shown on an image? And the fact that, prior to COVID, the Milford Sound had around a million people going through there every year, which is not sustainable. This is just another example of us holding true to the image that we put out there to the rest of the world. Because tourism is absolutely vital for our economy, it’s vital we protect it. It’s vital that we do it well. I’ll leave my call there, I know others would like to contribute. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m the member of Parliament for Coromandel, and in pre-COVID times—and, indeed, in times before our roading infrastructure was so decimated by weather events—freedom camping and mobile homes were a very big part of the tourist industry in the Coromandel, part of the infrastructure, and very much part of what made the Coromandel, the Coromandel. Sadly, occasionally, there were some people who didn’t act appropriately and decided to use our beautiful natural environment as their personal toilet facilities. And so we in the Coromandel have been very concerned about some of the actions of a minority, I have to say—of a small minority—of freedom campers who have in the past abused the hospitality and the natural environment afforded to parts of the country like mine in the Coromandel.

We, of course, on this side of the House, do agree that there needs to be tighter controls and better behaviour, but this bill actually focuses on the wrong issue. This is a bill that focuses on hardware rather than behaviour. And it’s the behaviour of the campers rather than the facilities that might be fixed or not fixed to the vehicles in which they traverse regions like mine around the countryside. So I am inclined to agree with the previous speaker, Jamie Strange, who said that the focus should really be on behaviour, on human behaviour, rather more than the hardware that goes in the mobile homes and the freedom camping vehicles.

Now, what’s worse about this bill is that, in typical Labour Party fashion, it focuses on a centralised ideological approach that doesn’t take into account human nature, and sets in place a heavy-handed regulatory system that is going to be administered by none other than the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board. A worthy organisation, I’m sure, and members will know from past debates in this House relating to the administration of that board that it’s not been without its problems. I just don’t think, and nor do my colleagues on this side of the House think, that this is an appropriate regulatory authority to be, basically, monitoring these new statutory requirements that this Act will bring to bear.

So we are opposed to this piece of legislation, essentially, for three main reasons. Firstly, we think that the definition of “self-contained” is too restrictive and we think that Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board is fundamentally unsuited as an entity to run the certification process that will be required by this piece of legislation. And then, thirdly, we think that this piece of legislation will impose unnecessary and prohibitive costs on the vast majority of responsible freedom campers.

In my part of the world, we’re looking forward to welcoming them back. We are looking forward to having international tourists, in particular, come to see us, but we want to see domestic tourists as well. The vast majority of those people are responsible, they do respect the natural environment, and they are responsible for a very careful use of facilities, whether those are in-vehicle or publicly available in terms of their own convenience needs. But it’s the small number who don’t that we want to focus on. And I’d go so far as to say that, actually, this piece of legislation needs to be rethought, reconsidered.

Now, on that note, I didn’t sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee, but the select committee clearly went through some kind of metamorphosis as it was considering this bill, because initially it seemed that the Labour Party was going to use its absolute majority and just push through a select committee recommendation on the legislation. They were going to do it quickly, get down and get dirty and do it fast. Well, the make-up of the committee changed during the process and the net result was that the committee reported back with no change, no report.

So this is a rushed piece of legislation. It doesn’t do the job that I think it’s intended to do. And it’s a good example of ideology versus good practical environmentalism of the sort that we have here in the National Party. We in the National Party are opposing this legislation at second reading.

Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. As a keen camper—but rarely a freedom camper, because I do like the Department of Conservation (DOC) sites and their well-appointed facilities—I am delighted to stand up and take a short call on this matter, although I was not privileged to be a member of the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. It seems to me that the Opposition are fundamentally missing the point, and what they seem to be wanting to do is in some way close the toilet door after the user has fled. There is not a lot of point with suggesting that we try to catch these people after they have done what they do in the woods. That is going to be remarkably difficult and may require some quite advanced DNA testing as well, which I just don’t think that we want to foot the bill for.

The simple, elegant solution is to require the small percentage of people who don’t already have toilets fixed in their vehicles—and I believe about 85 percent of freedom campers currently do, so we have a small percentage here—to do the right thing: have their fixed toilet, and then do the right thing in the right place. It seems to me that this is a sensible proposal, because, apart from anything else, I note that we have 200 DOC camping sites up and down the country. It is not as if those who do not manage to do what they should do and fix a toilet in their vehicle are going to be disadvantaged, because they will have many fine options. I say this as the member for Whangārei, undoubtedly the best place for camping in New Zealand, and I would just point to the wonders of the Uretiti campsite, the Waikahoa campsite near Mimiwhangata—a beautiful place—and, not least, the Puriri Bay campsite, all of which have excellent facilities, which I would suggest any freedom camper not able to fit a vehicle might want to use. On that note, I take my seat.

The only issue I have with the speech from my colleague Dr Emily Henderson is around which is the best camping part of New Zealand. I have just been on a wonderful road trip across what we call region six in the Labour Party, so through Clutha district, through to Queenstown, up to Ōāmaru and down, and it is absolutely stunning—the best weather in New Zealand and some of the best camping sites. But the communities there are frustrated with freedom campers. In fact, Tess Brunton, on a Radio New Zealand story last year on 30 November, quoted a Wānaka resident—Debbie—remembering finding unpleasant surprises around her community and its tracks. It quotes, “You find toilet paper and all sorts of stuff around, and it’s not good.” So that is the experience, and I would remind this House that, actually, it was local authorities and communities who requested this legislation—the ones who had freedom campers coming through.

As far as the argument about hardware versus behaviour goes, if we look at what we would call the theory of change with the logic around why we are doing this, there is a logic to assume that when people have the hardware to be able to go to the loo, they will use that hardware. That’s what this is based on, and, in fact, the stats bear it out: 98 percent of those who have fixed toilets use them, and that’s in the 73,000 self-contained vehicles. So 85 percent of them have fixed toilets, and 98 percent of them use them.

So the best way to change the behaviour is actually provide people with the toilets or make sure they’ve got them and then they will use them. Certainly, toilets are provided up and down New Zealand, as Dr Emily Henderson said—200 Department of Conservation sites. There is funding available for local authorities to be able to get more. So the question is: do we want to keep New Zealand clean and green? Do we want to have a brand proposition that is pooey and gluey? I would say clean and green, and so I support this bill.

Oh, thank you, Madam Speaker. It seems a very long time since I’ve been in the House, I actually—

💬 Anna Lorck: Oh, where’ve you been?

I had the last week of the sitting block in Australia, actually looking at renewable gas. I had, on that occasion, to go to two sewage treatment plants, one just south of Melbourne, which handles half of the sewage for Melbourne, and one in a place called Logan City, just out of Brisbane. So it seems ironic that we’re talking about sewage, in a way, in my first speech back, which, as I said, it seems a very long time ago since I was here.

But I want to actually approach the logic, as a very good member—Ingrid Leary—just mentioned, who just took her seat, for this problem and how we approach it. And I want to tell you a little story about my experience with a constituent in Kiwa Road in Kaikōura, where there’s a wonderful beach for surfing there, now, after the earthquake had lifted up the coastline there. All of a sudden, they’ve got extra surfing beaches that they didn’t have in the past. A family living right on that beach—across the road is the beach, and a lot of freedom campers use that site. They have young children—well, not that young but they’re at the end of their primary school years, and they’re quite good surfers. Getting across that road is fine, but then across to the beach, where all the freedom campers are, is really a hopscotch through human waste, and it is appalling.

The logic that I’m coming to is that most of those campervans have contained toilets—plumbed-in toilets—and people just don’t use them. And they don’t use them often, because they have to pay a fee to get the toilet cleaned if they’ve used it—they don’t if they don’t use it. I know it’s crazy, but that’s what happens. Humans do that. It’s outrageous what’s happened there. It took us a long time to try and get that dealt with. But that’s happening all up and down the country. People do those sorts of things.

There’s been some very good initiatives from KiwiCamp in Marlborough, in my electorate, actually, where it started, where they’ve put in camping grounds where people buy a token, they get into the camp—they have to pay to get in—toilets are free, but if you want a shower, you have to pay with a token; if you want hot water to wash your dishes or do laundry, you have to pay. The rationale for free toilets: quite simply, if you have to pay, they won’t use them. Though, they have no choice to get a hot shower but to pay for it, but if they have to pay for the toilet, they simply won’t. It’s just outrageous that people treat things that way. But not everybody’s a reasonable person. And I think that’s the thing we have to remember.

I didn’t actually sit on the Economic Development, Science and Innovation Committee. I am on the select committee now, but I wasn’t there to hear the evidence of the submitters, unfortunately. But I understand everyone’s got the right outcome in mind, it’s how we’re going to get there that’s the issue.

These chemical toilets that were talked about before—the porta-potties, I think it was called—they also work and will work well. The issue is behaviour; it’s not the hardware, as has been mentioned. I think, absolutely, campervans should have a toilet of some description in it. But to set up the Plumbers, Gasfitters and Drainlayers Board as an entity to police this is just taking a really bureaucratic approach to a problem that is really unnecessary. It’s far better just to prosecute people that behave badly. That is the issue, and it’s been the issue all along with this freedom camping.

Freedom camping’s fantastic for people to get around New Zealand. It started out very well, it’s grown so quickly, and the reputation has grown around the world. Trying to get Kiwa Road identified—as are many other places which have problems with freedom campers—as somewhere that you’re not allowed to go without an installed toilet in your vehicle is a long process. It takes a long time, it’s difficult to deal with, and then, even when you get there, they ignore it. Fortunately, there is now a KiwiCamp in Kaikōura that people can go to if they choose to, and a hot shower draws people in. So I think there are other solutions than this bureaucratic one that we have.

It’s a great pity that after all of the people gave their evidence—took their time out of their day to come and give evidence to the select committee—the select committee reported back without any recommendation. I apologise to those submitters because I think that’s a great pity, because their opinions are valued, and I think that’s something that was not done lightly, but it was done for a good reason.

I think the three things that were mentioned before by my colleague, who just spoke earlier, that we don’t think that this is the right thing to regulate the hardware, we don’t think that’s the right way to do it, we don’t think the plumbers, drainlayers, and gasfitters—I got that in the wrong order, but it won’t matter—are the right entity to police this. All we need to do is police bad behaviour, because we will still get it anyway. That’s what has to be done quite vigorously to stop this sort of behaviour ruining our beautiful places that we have in New Zealand. I have been to Central Otago, I didn’t know it was in region six, but, as it turns out, it was a lovely area. I didn’t freedom camp there, though, but I did freedom camp going to Bathurst, to the great race, a while ago. If you want to hear about that, I could give you 10 minutes on it.

Anyway, with that, I will end it there. But we oppose it in this form. This is not the right way. This is a sledgehammer to crack a nut and certainly unnecessary. Thank you.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. It is a pleasure to rise and take the final call on the second reading for the Self-contained Motor Vehicles Legislation Bill. It’s been interesting hearing about people claiming to live in the part of the country that has the best spots for camping. It is difficult for me, living in a place with the most amazing tomos and wild west coast and a beautiful maunga, so I’m torn just within my electorate, let alone amongst other electorates—just saying.

It’s been really interesting hearing about how we solve the problem that we all agree on. We’ve heard that education has helped. The Tiaki Promise that we have brought to our visitors has seemed to really help, but it is not enough. Suggesting that we simply police those who behave badly is a really interesting proposition when most freedom camping spots are quite remote. So it’s a really interesting idea to think that we’re going to get our rural cops out there—who are pretty much sole-charge—to suddenly be going off and policing bad behaviour.

Education is not enough. As my esteemed colleague Ingrid Leary suggested, we need to provide them with the loos. It’s pretty simple. It isn’t enough, and it is important, because the cost is being borne by our local communities and by our visitors. Even though we have invested in a lot of loos in Taranaki - King Country—more than $1 million—Mōkau, Pirongia, and in Te Papakura o Taranaki; for those of you who don’t know, that’s the fabulous new name for our national park. That was great, tripping off the tongue.

What we need to make sure is that we support the people who are camping to do it right by making sure that they’ve got the equipment they need so that when we go and enjoy our beautiful remote places, as locals or as visitors, they are clean and green and fabulous. I support this bill. Thank you, Madam Speaker.