Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): I rise to speak to the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill at its Committee stage with great pleasure. Before I address Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 243 which has been preoccupying some of the members in this Chamber I will reaffirm that this is a primary piece of legislation empowering the Department of Conservation (DOC) to do something very specific indeed and that is to protect vulnerable native species. This is not about mallard ducks. This is not about black swans. It is not about the kind of work that the fish and game rangers voluntary or full time do as their core business. This is about vulnerable endangered species that smugglers and others could take away with them. We are very clear on the purpose of this bill.The Wildlife Act is an old piece of legislation no longer fit for modern purpose so we have carefully thought through and targeted a sensible upgrade and expansion of the powers given to DOC. In addition to that fish and game full-time rangers will also have an additional power.To quickly recap: DOC rangers are currently not able to intervene to prevent offences taking place or about to take place should they come upon them. That is foolish so we have tidied that up. New section 39C inserted by clause 5 now allows them to take action in a manner that is reasonable in the circumstances" to do so.Second rangers are currently authorised to stop and search vehicles vessels bags and other items in transport but they cannot stop people from leaving the scene of a suspected offence to ensure that they have enough time to gather evidence and take details. New section 39B inserted by clause 5 of the amendment bill addresses this aspect.The third one is that the Act currently allows rangers to seize only a few types of evidence. Again this is proving the old-fashioned nature of the era in which this Act was originally conceived. It does not include modern technology such as mobile phones and computers which are of course vital sources of information in modern investigations. Section 39A as inserted by clause 5 of the amendment bill empowers them "to seize any evidential material (as defined in … the Search and Surveillance Act 2012) …".Finally establishing and verifying an offender's identity is essential to any ability to prosecute. That is true and as it stands the Act allows rangers to require a name and an address but there is no provision to provide further proof of identity. That is a loophole. Under new section 66A inserted by clause 7 of the bill DOC rangers will be able to require date of birth name and address. This power will also be extended to full-time fish and game officers. So they are getting additional powers that they did not have before but that power has not been extended to voluntary fish and game officers nor has it been extended to voluntary DOC rangers or to voluntary police fisheries or defence rangers because these people are voluntary. They are not signed on to a code of conduct as other public servants are nor is there any accountability. If they do not do the right thing we are not able to come back at them. This is a very important distinction and it is the reason why we are not as a Government supporting the SOP from Mr Parker.I am a bit surprised at his SOP actually. It could have gone further than it did but as it happens it just wants to get voluntary fish and game rangers to be able to have the same ability to require that they can ask for the date of birth because at the moment they cannot. The bill is very clear on this: honorary fish and game rangers honorary fisheries officers or rangers appointed under section 38(2) of the Act can ask for someone's full name and residential address—not their date of birth. What we have done with this is we have said that fish and game rangers are able to get and require—require—a person to give their full name their residential address and their date of birth.When you look at the penalties for what happens under this legislation section 67F as under clause 8—this is under the Wildlife Act of 1953 and I have brought it down if anyone wants to take a closer look at it. What it says is that in the case of someone refusing to give their date of birth—refusing to supply their date of birth to the fish and game ranger—the penalties are substantial. This is harking back actually to my friend and colleague Jacqui Dean's bill. The penalties have been greatly increased. In the case of an individual who does not give their date of birth they are liable for a term of imprisonment not exceeding 1 year or a fine not exceeding $100000 or both. In the case of a body corporate not giving the information about date of birth there will be a fine not exceeding $200000.Mr Parker I understand is a lawyer so I would have expected him to go back and check his facts. That he has not done. It is very important that this Committee and others support and understand the purpose of this bill which is to protect our native taonga species—not to protect ducks and swans and other game birds.It is very much in DOC's core business to be able to do the work that it is doing under these powers but we acknowledge the work of the fish and game full-time rangers is very good. There are some 52 of them and there are 222 honorary fish and game people. We felt that by giving those extra powers to those 52 full-time paid staff from Fish and game they would be getting an extra amount of power that they have not already got—that is to ask for the date of birth. The follow-through from that is the penalties. If you do not give a date of birth that is serious under this legislation because it has been required under the Wildlife Act. These are the sorts of details that really do need to be well understood and it is disappointing that neither the Labour Opposition nor the Greens nor New Zealand First have bothered to actually look into the detail of the penalties because that is a very important element of this legislation. If you are for example shooting game birds without a permit or a licence you are in some trouble but you are not in $100000 worth of trouble nor are you liable to a term in prison not exceeding 1 year. These are the important provisions that we have given fish and game rangers because we think that they are trustworthy and that they do a good job and that is an excellent thing. But this is not their core business. They are about an entirely different set of species.While I am on the business of not core business under the Wildlife Act as you know fresh fish of native varieties do not come in nor do they under the Conservation Act so the member Eugenie Sage was speaking outside the scope of what is in fact a very narrow amendment to the Wildlife Act. The powers that we have given will I think do a great deal to protect our very threatened precious wildlife. We are not so much concerned in this piece of legislation with game birds or bird hunters and I think it is very important that the Opposition acknowledges and understands that because this is very carefully targeted. I have said that from the start.I commend the Local Government and Environment Committee under the very able chairmanship of my friend and colleague Scott Simpson who led the select committee through this process. It is complicated legislation but only because it is very narrow in its scope and needs to be read in conjunction with the Wildlife Act in its original form and with Jacqui Dean's legislation because otherwise it is not well understood that the penalties are very big indeed.It has also been pointed out to me by some that we do need to be very careful around the powers that we give volunteers. We do not want to be giving people the capacity to arrest or stop or search and keep because these are not trained people who are able to do that within the confines of their mandate. I do not believe we should extend it out. David Parker in his call on this very bill earlier before the dinner break said that he acknowledged that those powers were not needed to be expanded. We are in absolute agreement with that.On that uplifting note I will conclude my call. But again I commend this legislation in all its various forms and the level of intellectual rigour and scrutiny that the select committee gave to it if not the Opposition members of that select committee who were apparently missing in action when it came to the detail. They lack intellectual rigour; what they do not lack is the braying and the nonsense and the capacity to just yap on about things that are not factually correct. I am very keen indeed to give credit where it is due and that is to the Government members on the select committee who I think did a tremendous job. Thank you."