O'Connor Damien: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
O'Connor Damien: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:20669] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I refer to subpart 2 in Part 2 of the Freedom Camping Bill which relates to details of freedom camping on conservation land. It starts off very well I have to say. Clause 13 states: “Freedom camping is permitted on any conservation land unless freedom camping is restricted or prohibited on the land.” Clause 14(1) goes through a process of: “The Director-General may by erecting a sign …” etc. Clause 15(1) states further: “The Director-General may by notice published in accordance …”. Then it goes on to say how the good people of New Zealand will be informed of this and states that a notice must define the conservation land and then it must be published in the  
Gazette 
. Well that is a good publication. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Widely read. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Widely read in New Zealand circles. I know that all my hunting fishing and surfing friends always read the  
Gazette 
. But to be fair and we have to be fair to the Minister clause 16(1)(b) states the notice can be published in the following newspapers of course: “(i) in a daily newspaper circulating in each of the cities of Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Dunedin; or”—not and—“(ii) if the Director-General is satisfied that the notice is of local or regional interest only” in a local paper. So we are to have laws that for the most part affect areas in regional New Zealand but there may not be a requirement for there to be notification in any of the newspapers in the areas where freedom camping will be banned. What sort of consultation process has there been? What sort of authoritarian regime are we setting up here? It is just bizarre. 
I know now that regional and provincial newspapers quite often get up in arms about the lack of consultation and about the arrogance of the “shiny bums” as they say who sit on their chuffs in Wellington make these laws—I guess we are some of them now; we spend long enough here—and impose them on the good people up and down this country. They are the people who understand nature and who go out and enjoy it: the fishers the hunters and the surfers—all of those people. Yet the people—and I have to say it is National and the ACT Party people who want to impose this law—have said that it is OK and that we can notify people— 
Phil Twyford 
: And the Maori Party. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: —and the Maori Party too that is right. Actually that is scandalous. I have just realised that. Maori people will be criminalised for parking up and camping on their beaches and by their rivers. How could the Maori Party support this bill? How could they support such Draconian authoritarian and quite arrogant legislation? It is understandable National and ACT members supporting it. They might have three or four toilets in their own homes and cannot understand why people should not be able to go somewhere and go to the toilet. But not all Maori—many of them in Northland in particular—have ready access to toilets in their homes so they understand the ways of working with nature. One could call it composting or whatever but a good shovel and a spade can address the issues of effluent. 
I can understand that National and ACT members cannot quite get their heads around it. They have said that a notice in the newspapers circulating in the cities will be good enough to inform people of the areas that will be banned from freedom camping. That is outrageous. It goes right to the core of Wellington arrogance. The kind of criticism that we as politicians get every single day when we are out in the provinces is that we in Wellington do not understand and that we have no idea what is going on. That is what the people say and they will be quite right in this case. In fact those good people do not always hop in their cars and rush to the city for a holiday. Many of them travel down the road to another part of beautiful New Zealand and to the wilderness—for example from Westport to Punakaiki or from Nelson down to Fox Glacier or to Gillespies Beach or anywhere like that.  
There are many many options but they may not know and may have had no notification whatsoever that the area is conservation land until they arrive at the place and there may or may not be a sign there. So their planned journey and experience in wilderness New Zealand or beautiful New Zealand will come to a grinding halt. They will have to make a call on whether they commit an illegal act and stay as they were planning to do yet have no impact on the environment. They might have brought a shovel or be self-contained—who knows? But someone in Wellington in conjunction with the local council or the Minister of Conservation in this particular case has decided that it is conservation land. The Minister has decided having been given advice from the Director-General of Conservation that these areas shall be out of bounds and banned for camping. The Minister or the department will then issue a notice in a daily newspaper that circulates in each of the cities of Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Dunedin.  
What about Nelson? Did the Hon Nick Smith insist on Nelson being included? Maybe he should have given that he brought this legislation into the House. What about Timaru Invercargill Westport or Greymouth? None of those places will have mandatory notification in their newspapers because the bill states “or if the Director-General is satisfied”. Can the Minister get up and give an absolute guarantee that the provincial newspapers and the people in the provinces will have fair notice of her Draconian legislation to ban people from the conservation estate that they fund that they have fought for and that they uphold as being sacred in this country? The Minister is going to ban them from staying overnight on that land.  
Well I have to say this is what the legislation says and if the Minister can get up and guarantee that notice will be given in all of the provincial papers then maybe we have gone one step forward. But the legislation as stated here does not say that. Just as my colleague Stuart Nash said there will be interesting legal battles over what is a short-term park or a long-term park or whatever and the difference between what is perceived in provincial New Zealand and what is perceived in urban New Zealand. There is a huge void that is not covered by the legislation and the Minister has not risen and attempted to answer that in any way.  
This is just one of the many many flaws in legislation that is a sledgehammer attempting to crack a walnut. The Minister should just wind back and perhaps take on board the Supplementary Order Paper put up by my colleague Phil Twyford and say that we shall have a law around harming nature and harming the conservation estate but we will not make a judgment on the input side of it whether people are staying in a V-Dub—as many used to in the old days—a combi a Bedford van or nowadays a fully compliant and self-contained Mercedes van. Technology has moved on and we have found better ways of mitigating the impact of all of our behaviour—for example reducing carbon and getting better at saving energy and indeed in the area of camping we are better able to manage the potential effects of it. That is what we should be moving to do to encourage people and to give fair warning by notice. We should not impose a penalty for something that is at the heart of the New Zealand way of life and something that many have fought for and expected to see for their lifetimes. Unfortunately in this subpart 2 we now see potential behaviour by the Minister of Conservation and the department that through notice in the main newspapers of the main cities they will deem areas to be out of bounds for freedom camping. I think it is outrageous. The Minister should get up and explain why she is doing this or change it and take on board the Supplementary Order Paper put up by my colleague Phil Twyford.