Mitchell Clayton: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:3035. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First):I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to talk in large about the Department of Conservation. Over the rest break I spent quite a bit of my time actually going around the rural and more provincial areas of New Zealand seeing at first hand the neglect that the Department of Conservation is under. It is not through the neglect of staff; it is through the neglect of resources and support for its staff. We all remember back in 2013 that we had probably the largest restructure of any public sector ever in the history of New Zealand when over 100 Department of Conservation staff members lost their jobs. We know that that was an absolute debacle. Restructure I think is—Hon David Parker: Centralised in Wellington.CLAYTON MITCHELL: Centralised in Wellington. That is right—people in Wellington making the decisions for the rural and provincial parts of this country and not actually thinking about the impact that that is actually having on the rest of the country.I think that if we use the word “refocus” and then change the letter “o” to a “u” you might get a feeling for how some of those Department of Conservation staff feel about it. Having seen first-hand what has happened—specifically down in Stewart Island where I have spent a bit of my time—with the neglect that is taking place there I will talk specifically around the way in which the permits for those shark-cage diving operators have been put forward. I will talk about the lack of time and effort that has been put into the actual cause and effect that shark-cage diving is having on the residents of Stewart Island. This is the sort of thing that is happening throughout our country—not to mention the neglect that is happening with our Department of Conservation huts which are in a serious state of disrepair.Just cast your eyes to the headline here: “DOC retreats from controversial $12.5 million restructure”. The article says: “Only 18 months later it is about to reinstate some roles and test new ways of working as a result of numerous flaws in the restructuring…” And it says that even last year “DOC did its own extensive review … which concluded its staff lacked clarity about their roles.” There seems to be a real issue in the Department of Conservation. It is underfunded under-resourced and clearly understaffed. This goes towards the poor decisions that are being made. It is under-resourced. It has not been able to focus its time on the things that really matter and the provincial parts of this country are really feeling that.If I could just give you some facts: the Department of Conservation manages all New Zealand conservation land and waters comprising about one-third of New Zealand’s area including national parks marine reserves and marine mammal sanctuaries. As of June last year it has 1950-odd staff. It has an expenditure of $344.8 million put aside for that with a surplus last year of $1.9 million. I find it surprising that we have got a surplus of $1.9 million. If you actually looked at some of the issues that we are faced with with regard to the Department of Conservation—and even looked at some of the issues around those huts that are not provisioned and are starting to show signs of neglect—then if we put 27 more staff members out there looking after our environment looking after the animals and looking after the things that we need to be showing some serious attention to that would give us 27 more full-time employees working underneath the Department of Conservation. That is just for the $1.9 million of surplus.I think that it is also important to note that some areas of work have been affected by staff shortages including work with protected and threatened species the processing of permits and concessions and the management of those huts which I have already touched on. The people of Stewart Island and the rural parts of New Zealand want to see more money put aside for the Department of Conservation because we understand that to have a vibrant economy we must have a vibrant ecological set-up and of course make sure that our conservation is met on a global scale.The Department of Conservation operates pest-control programmes on 15 percent of conservation land and aims to increase coverage to 50 percent. When asked how this would be funded it said that science and technology breakthroughs should improve the effectiveness of pest-control programmes—should improve. We absolutely must ensure that we get better outcomes for the money that we are spending rather than it just being poured down the sink or as we see quite often the 1080 helicopters and planes dropping tens of tonnes of 1080 randomly across our preserved lands and nature around the country. That has got to have some serious implications particularly with the disappearance of our rock wrens and what goes on around that. I would certainly like to see more funding put aside in the next Budget. Thank you.