Pugh MaureenSELF-CONTAINED MOTOR VEHICLES LEGISLATION BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 4 April.MAUREEN PUGH (National): 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 70000 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—70000 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."