Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you Mr Speaker. The member who's just resumed his seat was obviously giving the political speech of his career tonight talking about fixed toilets in mobile campervans and freedom camping. That's what that member came to Parliament for. He spent only a couple of minutes on it. I'm surprised it wasn't a longer presentation.My colleague the Hon Todd McClay summed up this bill I think very well in that the Minister should have actually been talking to Maureen Pugh for the last year or two because actually Maureen Pugh brought a very similar but better bill to the House—a member's bill that was drawn from the ballot. And she brought that bill to the House and guess what happened! The Labour Government voted it down—voted it down. Voted it down. So when they voted it down they didn't go away and continue to talk to Maureen Pugh and try and use her expertise and knowledge from the West Coast. What did they do? They went away and made Maureen's bill worse and then they brought it back and called it their own. One of the interesting things about the Labour Party this Labour Government is that they really only have three policy options for any problem that confronts them: one is to tax things one is to ban things and one is to make things compulsory. Every policy conundrum that has ever confronted them they find one or two or three and sometimes all of those options as a solution.Simon Watts: They've got the trifecta.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well here they've done this. They've got the trifecta. My friend and colleague Simon Watts from the North Shore says They've got the trifecta." and they certainly have here.Another member's bill that I can recall that I was a bit involved with was a bill to increase the fines for littering. It was a member's bill that I had fortunately had drawn from ballot. Guess what! The Labour Party voted it down. One of the reasons that they used to vote it down was they said "Oh infringement notices don't work. Oh you can't have an infringement regime. That can't work. That's terrible. Infringement regimes are outdated they're old fashioned local government doesn't like it and central government bureaucrats don't like them." And what have we got here? Oh an infringement system. An infringement system to try and monitor toilets in campervans that are often incorrectly referred to as freedom camping vehicles. So what do we find? This bill includes offences for infringements against a whole range of new rules enforceable by—wait for it—enforcement officers appointed under the Act; enforcement officers. A whole new range of bureaucrats.When I was doing research on the Litter Act changes I went back to the original Litter Act that went back to the mid-1970s and a whole lot of the debate around the Litter Act back in those days related to enforcement officers as well. But the debate was about what the enforcement officers' uniforms would be. So I want to know from this Minister—and no doubt we'll hear about it in select committee—what kind of uniforms are these enforcement officers that are going to be appointed under the Act going to wear? And how are they going to be identified? Will they wear bling? Will they have epaulettes? Will they have peaked caps? Will they have clipboards? Will they have white coats? What kind of infringement enforcement officers will be appointed and who's going to administer their sartorial elegance? And will that actually help with the problem?Because here's the rub: this is a problem that is actually manifest quite markedly in my electorate of the beautiful Coromandel where we have more than our fair share of tourists visiting and freedom campers around the beautiful Coromandel. And a small minority of them I have to say—a small minority of them—spoil it literally spoil it for others who are responsible and who do take their responsibility as tourists and as visitors to the area—you know they take those responsibilities carefully and seriously but there are a few that do not.So this is a piece of legislation that seeks to address that. I'm just delighted that we have an omnibus bill. It's quite remarkable that here we are this hour of the evening discussing an omnibus bill that relates to freedom camping and the installation and monitoring and regulation and enforcement and infringement of fixed toilets in freedom campervans. But it's going to be administered by none other than the plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers outfit. Now some members in the House will remember that we spent I think it was about three years in this Parliament sorting out the registration rules for the plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers. Thank goodness we sorted out the registration because now we know what they can do and they can sort out whether or not the enforcement officers and the rules that this piece of legislation will put in place are going to be effective. We have this lovely combination of plumbers gasfitters and drainlayers who are going to be the regulatory authority and the agency that's going to police the installation and the plumbing and the fixing of these toilets in the campervans and the motorhomes. Then we're going to have local bodies deciding on the enforcement officers to do the infringement notices which previously this Government told us weren't effective in another piece of legislation but they suddenly are effective when it comes to fixed toilets in freedom campervans. It just seems to me like there is a lot of regulation here. The Minister would have been a lot better—in terms of coming to the House with a piece of legislation—if he had to talked to Maureen Pugh if he had had an opportunity to discuss with her some of the aspects of her piece of legislation which the Labour Government voted down.Now one of the aspects of this piece of legislation is that local government are going to be able to define the areas where freedom camping can be permitted but also the New Zealand Transport Agency and Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) are going to have exactly the same ability to designate pieces of land where freedom camping can occur. The real problem with that is that for the tourists who are domestic tourists around New Zealand they will have difficulty enough trying to decide where the boundaries of the local government rules are. Heaven forbid that they should then have to try and understand and define which is land administered by the New Zealand Transport Agency and which is land administered by LINZ. I guess there will be a multitude of signs that will be erected all around the countryside polluting the visual atmosphere of the nation. These will be scattered around the countryside and there'll be little signs that say "This sign is a designated area that has been approved by the New Zealand Transport Agency where you can freedom camp." or "This area of land will be an area of land that has been designated by LINZ." Most of them won't have a clue what LINZ is and then there will be all the different councils and they won't know where one council's boundary starts and another boundary begins and so forth.So there are a whole lot of issues that are going to need to be teased out at select committee in this legislation. This is a good example of a Government that has been floundering around now for years on this issue trying to come to some kind of resolution. I don't doubt their intentions are good actually. They're slow they're late they're inadequate and they're over-regulated but probably—Maureen Pugh: And expensive.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: And expensive. But underlying all that there are probably some good intentions. But we will want to at select committee hear from submitters who will undoubtedly want to address some of the issues that I've referred to and also some of the issues that Todd McClay referred to. Because the vast majority of people who do trip around the countryside and want to enjoy the beautiful natural landscape and natural wonderment that we have around the country—the vast majority of them do respect and are responsible visitors and tourists and they do make sure that their waste is properly attended to. Whether that is human waste or whether it is litter or whether it is any other waste most of them look after things properly. But for the few that don't there does need to be some kind of regulation some kind of control. Whether this piece of legislation is the one that is going to be the panacea that is going to fix it all I don't know. I've got some doubts. But what I would recommend to the Minister is that he break out of his Beehive office go and have a chat to Maureen Pugh tap into her wisdom and experience and knowledge on these matters and use the experience that she has on the West Coast to try and make this bill a better bill. Because there will need to be work done on it at select committee and the National Party will be very keenly listening to submitters and wanting to get to the nub of the issue so to speak. So thank you very much Mr Speaker."