Shirley Ken: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
Shirley Ken: Estimates Debate — In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:618;Page:14440] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 That was a very sad reflection from the Minister because it shows this House that he is totally captured by his department. It has wrapped him in cotton wool and he comes here and dishes up that sort of nonsense. The basic folly of what he was saying is that he equates success with the amount of resource and control his department wields and the amount of money he spends rather than the measures of outcomes and successes. He went on about iconic species but look at the absolute failure that he is the steward of—and that is a sad thing. 
I was taken with Mr Edwin Perry’s speech. He made some very valid points. The Minister did not respond to that at all. Mr Edwin Perry highlighted the concern that huge areas of rural New Zealand have with regard to the Department of Conservation. They live alongside the department. They have the dinkum oil and the Department of Conservation is the neighbour from hell. The department uses taxpayers’ money buys up vast tracts of land it cannot look after has a whole bureaucracy supporting it—more taxpayers’ money—yet where are the weeds the greatest and where are the pests the greatest? It is all on department land. 
Just recently we saw his department gobble up Molesworth Station. Landcorp was doing a brilliant job. I am very familiar with Molesworth Station going back many decades. We have turned that around. However under the Department of Conservation we will see noxious weeds come back and the broom and gorse come back down the river valleys. The pigs the goats and noxious animals have been the legacy of the department. Unfortunately the Minister and his bureaucrats are so busy swanning off around the world to all of those UN conventions and conferences signing up all sorts of protocols and world heritage nonsense that look good on paper but the farmers and the rural landowners of this country know that out there the Department of Conservation is the neighbour from hell. It is not looking after the land. It is squandering and wasting resources and all the Minister can say is how wonderful it is that his budget is getting bigger and bigger and his estate is getting bigger and bigger. 
I understand that $10 million has just been set aside as a contingency for the lahar on Mount Ruapehu. I can produce support for that. Is that not interesting? The Minister commissioned a report. He got an engineering report and also a report from the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences Ltd that stated that the most cost-effective method of overcoming that potential hazard and problem—and it is a very real problem—was to do minor engineering work on the tephra rim and cut a channel. 
This Minister said: “No it would be spiritually offensive. We can’t send equipment and machines into the national park.” and he tried to blame Maori. But it is not Maori because it was Tuwharetoa who donated the Tongariro National Park and Tuwharetoa do not oppose the engineering works on the crater rim. It is actually the Department of Conservation that thinks it might threaten our world heritage status if we take machinery up to the crater rim and avoid a potential disaster. The Minister knows that that is a ticking time bomb. The Minister said that he has overcome the problem and put up warning sirens. That is like saying that a smoke alarm will prevent a fire. At great cost to the taxpayer he has put all these warning sirens around Mount Ruapehu so that when it bursts the sirens will go off and say: “Hey folks you’ve got 2 or 3 hours before your property will be severely damaged.” We are also spending hundreds of thousands of dollars lifting the rail bridge across the Whangaehu River. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: Two million! 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The Minister advises that the figure is $2 million. We also have to upgrade road bridges across the Whangaehu River. There is also the risk that it will break out across the catchment boundary between the Tongariro River and write off a very substantial tourism industry in trout fishing. The Minister claims to be interested in tourism yet he condones this incredible threat and for absolute mantras and rhetoric he is not prepared to stand up to his department and see the logic and the overwhelming evidence that would say that we should go up and drain that crater lake. We have the technology to do it. The engineers tell us it is the most cost-effective and simple way to remove the hazard yet the Minister leaves that hazard in place. Some reports are stating that that tephra rim could collapse later this year. 
Vote agreed to.