Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeConservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13727. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) BillIn CommitteeJACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question for the purposes of debate and voting.The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there anyone opposed to that course of action? It appears not. Leave is granted.Parts 1 to 6 and clauses 1 and 2JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): The Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill amends six of the main Acts administered by the Department of Conservation. Those Acts are the Conservation Act 1987 the National Parks Act 1980 the Reserves Act 1977 the Wildlife Act 1953 the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and latterly—and I will come to this later—the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978.I would like to outline to the Committee five key aspects of the changes that are set out in the bill. The purpose of these changes is to better safeguard New Zealand’s protected native wildlife public conservation lands and other natural and historic resources. To do so the changes seek to create effective deterrents against conservation-related offending with a clearly formulated and consistent penalty framework that is in line with the modern era.The key changes are to provide significant penalties for illegal activities carried out for commercial gain of a maximum of 5 years’ imprisonment a $300000 fine or both and an additional fine of $20000 a day if the offence is ongoing. This will greatly reduce the incentive for such offending. The bill increases penalties for serious offending that is not commercially motivated to a maximum of 2 years’ imprisonment a fine of $100000 or both. If the offence is a continuing one there may also be an additional maximum fine of $10000 a day. The bill increases the maximum fines for offending by bodies corporate to $200000 or to $300000 where the offending is commercially motivated. It increases the penalties for breaches of regulations and by-laws made under these Acts to a maximum fine of $5000 or $10000 in some specific cases plus an additional maximum fine of $500 a day if the offence is ongoing. It improves the courts’ flexibility to tailor appropriate penalties by enabling the courts to impose a penalty of imprisonment or a fine or both and providing for community work sentences.I would note to the Committee that the bill does not amend the Marine Reserves Act. The Minister of Conservation intends to amend penalties in that Act through a separate legislative process. I want to also note to the Committee that the additional daily fines for ongoing offences are amended only where the relevant Act already provides for such fines. The bill does not propose any new fines of this type.So these improved penalties and more flexible sentencing options apply across the six Acts that I have mentioned. I will go through those Acts. Part 1 of the bill amends the Conservation Act as I have described. The new penalties primarily relate to offences committed in places protected under the Conservation Act but also include offences involving freshwater fish and their habitat. The bill increases fines for breaches of regulations only as the Conservation Act does not provide for by-laws.Part 2 amends the National Parks Act. Likewise it amends the penalties under the National Parks Act. These will apply to illegal activities in all of New Zealand’s national parks. The bill increases fines for breaches of by-laws only as the National Parks Act does not provide for regulations. Maximum fines for breaches of by-laws involving aircraft in national parks are set at a higher level of $10000 as such breaches are potentially more serious.Part 3 amends the Reserves Act for all reserves including those administered by the Department of Conservation local bodies boards and other administering bodies. The bill increases fines for breaches of both Reserves Act by-laws and regulations. The bill sets penalties for national and other reserves at the same level. This is because the new higher penalties provide better scope for courts to take into account factors including but not limited to the status of the particular reserve the values contained in that reserve and the seriousness of the particular offending.Part 4 amends the Wildlife Act as I have described previously with some variations which I will go through. Absolutely and partially protected native species will have their protection increased by the higher new maximum penalties of 2 years’ imprisonment or a $100 fine or both. An existing slightly higher maximum fine of $250000 is retained for offences against absolutely and partially protected marine species. Offending in wildlife refuges and wildlife management reserves will have a maximum penalty of 1 year’s imprisonment or a $100000 fine or both. Wildlife sanctuaries have higher status and will attract the 2-year maximum imprisonment penalty.Existing additional per head fines are removed as these are rarely used. The courts can take the number of animals affected into account as an aggravating or mitigating factor—aggravating I would hope. Penalties for offences involving game birds or unprotected wildlife such as introduced species are not changed by this bill andneither are the penalties for failing to report accidentally killing or injuring protected marine life during fishing. The bill increases fines for breaches of regulations only as the Wildlife Act does not provide for by-laws.Part 5 amends the Wild Animal Control Act as I have described. The higher new penalties apply to offences such as aerial hunting without landowner permission and unlawfully releasing wild animals. The bill increases fines for breaches of regulations only as the Wild Animal Control Act does not provide for by-laws.Part 6 of the bill amends the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Thanks go to Maryan Street and the Local Government and Environment Committee for their work in bringing this amendment to the bill. I thank the member for that good work. Higher standard penalties apply to offences including illegally taking or killing marine mammals harassing them or using a purse seine net without escape panels. An existing slightly higher maximum fine of $250000 is retained for illegally taking marine mammals. Changes to the Marine Mammals Protection Act do not change penalties for failing to report accidentally killing or injuring marine mammals during fishing.I have gone through the changes proposed in this bill at some length. I want to thank the House and the Committee for consideration of this bill and for your support of our special places and species which are backed by this bill. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): I am really pleased to be able to take a call or two in the Committee stage of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. Can I begin by commending the member Jacqui Dean in whose name the bill stands before the House and say that it is a very good bill. I appreciate the way that she engaged with the Local Government and Environment Committee and I particularly appreciate the fact that she acknowledged my colleague Maryan Street for her work. I think that is a very good attitude and a very good basis on which to progress the bill.Labour will certainly be giving its support to the bill. It does things that are sensible. Even though it was a good bill to start with it was substantially improved and it was made even better at the select committee. I think that is also a tribute to all the select committee members.Iain Lees-Galloway: It’s like peace is breaking out.Hon RUTH DYSON: Yes perhaps we could quit now. Peace seems to have broken out as my colleagues say. [Interruption] No I am enjoying it. It is a good bill and the select committee did good work as well. So as I say it is a pleasure to support this bill.I wonder what went through the minds of the members or the leaders of the House—the Hon Gerry Brownlee the Hon Anne Tolley and the Hon Steven Joyce—when this bill was due to come up on this particular night. Well I am sure that they would have seen the title of the bill and thought “Conservation? Actually I think we’ve had enough discussion about conservation in the House in the last little while.” because of course the Minister of Conservation the Hon Nick Smith has been figuring quite highly in the last 2 weeks as a result of his inconsistent representations to the House and to the public. So it is good that this bill—even though it deals with the Minister of Conservation’s legislation—is going to be so well supported and that comments that are made about it are going to be consistent rather than highly questionable.The member Jacqui Dean went through the bill in quite some detail. I think that if you go from the starting point of the fact that this is a member’s bill rather than a Government bill and look at what the member Jacqui Dean sought to do it is a really sensible place to start because the penalties regime was clearly outdated and clearly inconsistent. This bill brings it into a much more realistic state where the penalties that are imposed on people will serve the purpose. The penalties will give those people a wake-up call. They will make them pay the price for any damage that they have done.We can go into the details of what the penalties might do later but for any of the penalties that are incurred they now have a penalty that is considered relevant by this Parliament to the damage that has been done. I think that is a very good thing.At the select committee Maryan Street proposed that a new Part 6 be added to the penalty regime so that the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 was also updated in the same way as the other pieces of legislation. As Jacqui Dean has noted that was a move that was innovative. So I think that the Hon Maryan Street should be congratulated on that forethought but also that the select committee should be congratulated on supporting it.There is a frustration that is often shared in this Parliament about the framing of the conservation debate. I think it is one that is worthy of mention at the moment given that this is the topic before us. It is certainly topical in a number of other areas where the current Government has seen conservation and the environment actually as being something that needs to be balanced off against proposals and against things that might give us economic gain. In my view that is not the appropriate way to view the environment conservation and the economy because if you lose some of the value of the conservation estate it is gone for ever. The overall value to the economy of our conservation estate is very high. New Zealand has a lot of things to offer but our biggest attraction is our natural environment. People come to New Zealand because of that. They enjoy it they go back home and tell other people about it and it is something that many other countries envy. We enjoy so much in New Zealand because of the land the environment that we have around us and these are often things that can be enjoyed at no cost which again is something that other countries are very envious of.So we need to do our best to always offer protection. If you start your frame of thinking with “Well we have got some conservation values here but we have got some potential economic gain there and those need to be balanced off.” then I think you are likely to get the wrong answer. In my view you need to say that there are some things that are so precious that it is our responsibility whether in law or just from a moral standpoint to protect those values and those precious parts of our country—whether it is the water whether it is the land or whether it is other landscapes and fauna and flora. That is the frame that I think we need to bring to the conservation debate.This bill actually contributes in many ways because it comes from the starting point of saying that people who break the law people who do damage should actually have a penalty attached to that action that reflects the upset that New Zealand society feels at their action. The previous penalties were wildly out of date and also inconsistent depending on what action was taken and also where it was taken. So that did not give a strong message about the value of the conservation estate in the same way as the National Party’s frame of balancing up conservation versus economic development sends the wrong message to the public of New Zealand. The message that we should be giving is that we are the guardians of our land and of our sea. We are responsible for what future generations will have to enjoy and that is a responsibility that we should take very seriously.I want to conclude by also noting the fantastic work that the officials did on the committee. It is often I think a pretty frustrating task being an official who is dedicated to the work that they are doing. They are in the main and I have seen very few exceptions to this high quality public servants—oh they should be sitting down here in the Chamber. There are some really nice green seats down the front that officials are able to use sometimes but these particular officials are shy and they are getting more embarrassed by the minute as they are clearly in the range. We cannot refer to where they are of course because that is against Standing Orders but they are certainly within earshot of this.On this bill I want to commend the quality of the work from the officials. I know that officials can often get frustrated by what they see as game-playing with important pieces of legislation that they might have worked very hard on. This bill would have come as a surprise to them because it was a member’s bill not a Government bill. I think that the thought they gave to it and the contribution that they made really allowed as I said earlier quite substantial changes to be made during the select committee process which were unanimously agreed and which will now be progressed through the Committee. I know that the Department of Conservation officials particularly have had a really hard time in the last little while. The department’s funding has been cut back over the last 4 years. It has had big restructuring and for the staff who are there these have been pretty stressful and trying times. The most recent incident was where there had been a whistleblower who—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! That is not part of the bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: —raised the issue of the submission from the Department of Conservation on theRuataniwha Dam.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Concentrate on the bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: Of course there will be further uncertainty within the department so for those officials to come to the select committee to look at this bill and to support us in the way they did is not just a commendation for their professionalism but also a recognition of what else is happening in their lives.With those highly relevant comments I want to again commend the member for her vision in introducing this bill and to thank the select committee members for their substantive work on it.NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central): I too am very happy to support this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill brought to the House by my colleague Jacqui Dean. It is a very timely bill. As the Hon Ruth Dyson said everyone on the Local Government and Environment Committee worked hard to make sure that we got a good outcome and it was fully supported. As has already been stated the purpose of the bill is to update penalties across conservation legislation in order to better protect conservation land and protect native species. The bill increases the penalties for offences across six pieces of legislation administered by the Department of Conservation.It was the smuggling of jewelled geckos from the Waitaki Basin that raised the issue for Jacqui Dean. Smugglers were very active in her electorate and the penalties for stealing these very beautiful and very valuable geckos—they are worth up to $25000 each on the international market—were laughably low. We know that the smugglers were very active in her electorate because we managed to catch some of them at customs. We had one smuggler who had nearly a dozen geckos secreted around his person. We also know that there were many smugglers who were spending time in Jacqui’s electorate and getting away with smuggling. Jewelled geckos have unique markings on their bodies and we knew where some of them were living. One day they would be in the Waitaki Basin; the next day you would see their pictures on the internet. They were being marketed to collectors in Europe. We did catch some of those smugglers but when we caught them the penalties were nothing to write home about. In fact they did not punish and they did not deter.There has been other serious conservation offending in recent years. We have all been disturbed by the killing of marine mammals. We do not like the illegal hunting of protected species and illegal commercially motivated activities including the smuggling of animals and plants the draining of wetlands and the logging of native trees.It is very important to have significant penalties for illegal commercially motivated activities because they can be highly lucrative. These new penalties respond in part to the comment by judges when sentencing those very gecko smugglers that the current penalties were not sufficient to punish or deter offenders. These penalties will not affect legitimate operators such as tourism concessionaires if they play fair. Increased penalties are also proposed for non-commercial offences and for breaches of by-laws and regulations across all six Acts.I too would like to thank the officials. They did a lot of work on this bill. They did it with assiduous care. They worked very hard with us and I think we are all very pleased to see this legislation coming out at the other end. We were unanimous in our support around the table. We all believe that there should be stronger penalties for conservation offending. We want to protect our natural heritage. Thank you Jacqui Dean.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It gives me great pleasure to rise to support this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill in the name of Jacqui Dean at the Committee stage. I too would like to join the wave of unanimity and harmony and peace that has broken out in the Committee over this bill and say that it gives me great pleasure indeed to support it. In fact I want to thank Jacqui Dean for her gracious acknowledgment of the contribution I was able to make on this bill by extending it to cover the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978. I will come back to that in a moment because the purpose of the inclusion of that Act in this bill will become clear.But I have to say that in the course of thinking about whether or not there was something more that could be done with this bill there were a number of recent cases of harm to marine mammals that had come to public attention. I must confess that I approached the Minister of Conservation Dr Nick Smith and asked him whether he would oppose or be averse to the inclusion of the Marine Mammals Protection Act and penalties under that Act in this bill so that in the process of making penalties consistent across a range of Acts we could include harm done to marine mammals. He was very enthusiastic about that incorporation and in fact signalled a review of marine mammals legislation and marine Acts in general which I understand he is pursuing. He was very gracious and I want to give him credit for that. Notwithstanding the difficulties he is facing currently I believe credit should go where credit is due and after all every dog has his day.As far as this bill is concerned the purpose that Jacqui Dean brought to the Local Government and Environment Committee was to ensure that New Zealand’s wildlife and natural and historic resources would be better protected. This was her motivation. I applaud her for that. It was a worthwhile effort and in the course of the select committee I think we have jointly made some constructive improvements around the table at the select committee that have strengthened even further the capability of this legislation.The problem had been that across a range of pieces of legislation the penalties differed. It was entirely possible to commit an offence and have it receive a negligible penalty under one piece of legislation and a different penalty under another—for example if someone were to release a stoat on to a nature reserve the highest penalty would be $500 or 1 month’s imprisonment. Under the National Parks Act 1980 if a bit of a national park was carved off and converted to pasture or a stand of trees milled the highest penalty would have been a maximum fine of $2500 or 3 months’ imprisonment. However if the same offences happened in a conservation area then the maximum penalty would be $10000 or 12 months’ jail.Typically the national parks’ protected areas were of higher value than conservation areas. But when it came to the creatures that inhabit these for us special areas the range of penalties made no sense—made absolutely no sense. Obviously the situationthat my colleague Nicky Wagner referred to a moment ago arising out of the member Jacqui Dean’s own electorate of Waitaki where the smuggling of jewelled geckos was becoming rife and hugely lucrative for the people who were engaged in it was impetus enough for this bill.But what we have done in this bill which I think is highly commendable is that we have taken the Conservation Act 1987 the National Parks Act 1980 the Reserves Act 1977 the Wildlife Act 1953 the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and added to that the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 and we have brought them all under the same penalty regime. So there can be no more obfuscation around damage to harm to stealing of or smuggling of creatures that are precious to us whether they be eggs or whether they be live specimens.Now we have changed that—or at least we will with the passage of this legislation currently in its Committee stage. Most penalties are increased to up to $100000 for individuals and $200000 for individuals who are acting for commercial reasons or for a company. Ongoing daily penalties are increased to up to $10000 and $20000 respectively for individuals and those working on behalf of a company. Breaches of by-laws incur up to $5000 or $10000 penalties. This two-tiered kind of regime will make not only the monitoring but the implementation and the prosecution of this legislation consistent.So at the moment we have—without wishing to comment unduly on a case before the court—a case of a Blenheim man in front of the Nelson court currently on charges of killing 13 female breeding seals at a seal colony on theKaikōura coast two bulls and eight seal pups. Because of the difference in the regimes under different pieces of legislation he is being tried under a piece of legislation that will have far lesser consequences for him than if he were being tried under another piece of legislation. That was then and he will be tried according to the law in place at the time of the alleged crime so that is happening as we speak. But no more after this; once this bill gets to its third reading people will not be able to pick and choose which piece of legislation they will contest their crime under.The police will have an easier job of prosecuting under different pieces of legislation because the penalties will be comparable. So it will be easier for the police to make sure that the actions will be dealt with consistently in terms of penalties regardless of the particular piece of legislation they are charging a person under. That has got to be helpful. We need to protect our special fauna in this country and that extends to marine mammals.I would also like to add my congratulations to the officials on the work they did. They advised us in a way that was impartial but very committed. They were very committed to what they were doing. I recognise this as a feature of staff who work in the Department of Conservation and I thank them for it. There are fewer and fewer of them as the days go by but the ones who still remain are absolutely committed to the conservation of our endangered species and our special species in our jurisdictional area. I thank the officials for their advice and for the way they made sure that what we were doing in this bill was consistent throughout. I commend the bill to the Committee.MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): It is with great pleasure that I talk to the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. As many have said it is a member’s bill with enormous merit. It is an omnibus bill which will be heard in one part of course and its purpose is to increase the penalties in the main enactments administered by the Department of Conservation. It is all about as many have said already in other readings consistency. It is about making people aware of the problems and making through the various Acts a clear picture of what will happen if you do the wrong thing by our flora and fauna and now I should say marine mammals as well.I think as others have mentioned that this bill has been a particularly harmonious bill at the Local Government and Environment Committee. There were no changes really that were put through that were not agreed to. That sort of harmony if you like was also evident in the submissions we heard. We heard only one from the New Zealand Law Society and eight submissions were received in support. The submissions were very helpful and very useful. They talked about the value of higher penalty levels the need for a consistent approach—all of the things effectively that came out in the ultimate bill that we have.I must say that one of the submissions that stood out for me was from TeRūnanga oNgāiTahu the board ofNgāiTahu. It talked about the need to have consistency and the need to put some money into some positive steps towards entrenching kaitiakitanga from a Crown perspective and also into public education and behaviours within the community. Its point I thought was very well made in its written submission to us: that it is certainly about the carrot and stick approach. The stick is that the penalties had to increase—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. The Green Party supports this bill and congratulates Jacqui Dean on her work in bringing it to the House because it will encourage compliance with conservation legislation and by doing this it better protects our natural and historic resources and our wildlife. Jacqui Dean provided a very comprehensive summary of the bill’s purpose and its contents so I will not repeat that but I will just say that it does not create any new offences or have any new powers and that may account for the small number of submissions. There were eight submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee and all of those submissions supported the bill. None of those submissions opposed it. Submitters certainly stressed the value of higher penalties and the need for a much more consistent approach across the five pieces of legislation—including the National Parks Act the Conservation Act and the Wildlife Act which the bill originally dealt with. Now there are six pieces of legislation with the addition of the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Submitters stressed the need for effective penalties to encourage compliance and they also highlighted the value of having some flexibility in terms of sentencing options.So we certainly welcome the legislation but we do wish Jacqui Dean would encourage Government members to have a rather more consistent approach to the protection of our distinctive plants and wildlife. If you look at clause 4C of the bill which inserts new section 43C that has penalties in relation to “unlawful acts in respect of spawning fish:” and in section 26ZR of the principal Act—the Conservation Act—to “the use of a substance or electric device to take or destroy freshwater fish:”. Under the principal Act because of this bill the courts will be able to impose a sentence of imprisonment of up to 2 years or a fine of $100000 if you do anything to interfere with spawning fish or if you put a hazardous substance or a narcotic substance in the water with the intention of killing fish. Yet the very same department the Department of Conservation which is able to prosecute those offences with those penalties is not able to put evidence in front of the board of inquiry on theTukituki catchment proposal which would show how the intensive agriculture and irrigation that that catchment proposal enables could kill about 18 species of native fish in the Tukituki River because when the nutrient runoff—the nitrogen that is associated with intensiveagriculture—seeps into waterways you get more algal blooms and you get conditions that are toxic to fish.This bill increases the penalties for harming fish. Yet when the very same department with the very same statutory responsibilities to advocate for conservation to preserve as far as practicable all indigenous freshwater fisheries to protect recreational freshwater fisheries—the purposes that this bill is based on—tries to carry out that same statutory responsibility in relation to the Tukituki catchment and in relation to the GovernmentRuataniwha irrigation proposal it is not allowed to do it because a Minister of Conservation who has been as slippery as an eel in relation to his denials of having anything to do with suppressing that Department of Conservation submission has not allowed the department to put forward evidence of how irrigation can make rivers toxic. Yet this bill is increasing the penalties for an individual who does that. So we desire more consistency across Government.We welcome this bill but we think that the department should also be allowed to carry out its statutory responsibilities for freshwater fish and for conservation advocacy in a wider sphere under the Resource Management Act not just relating it to individuals. So we will be supporting it but it is a very great pity that the board of inquiry will not have any contestable evidence from a Government department in front of it when it considers the Tukituki catchment proposal. It will have evidence from the Ministry for Primary Industries but not from the department. Yet this bill is right on point in terms of recognising the department’s responsibilities for the protection of freshwater fish and for increasing the penalties for killing fish. Thank you.ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): That was a very good choice of yours Mr Chair. I am taking a call on behalf of New Zealand First on Jacqui Dean’s Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. We have said in the previous reading that we would be supporting this bill. We believe that it has a lot of merit in terms of what it tries to achieve.I have mentioned in this Chamber before that we have had many instances where there was smuggling of some of our endangered and precious creatures including a case where a German tourist tried to smuggle 44 Northland green geckos out of the country and was caught. That was in 2010. There was another case where some Czech botanists were convicted in 2004 for attempting to smuggle 363 wild plants including 93 endemic orchids. This sort of thing goes on all the time. Of course for all the cases that we do hear about and where we do apprehend the culprits obviously there are many that go unnoticed and where people are getting away with it. Worldwide Interpol estimates that the smuggling of wildlife and precious species is worth in the order of $10 billion to $20 billion. So worldwide smuggling of precious flora and fauna is quite a big trade.In New Zealand’s case we do have some unique species that are found only here in Aotearoa because of our isolation and because of the way we separated from Gondwanaland and the rest of the continents. As a result we have some species that people in other parts of the world would very dearly love to get their hands on. So this is a good piece of legislation to increase the surveillance of that and to ensure that there are increased penalties for those who are caught and apprehended. Some of those penalties are quite hefty going from 1 to 5 years’ imprisonment and particularly for those who are caught doing it for commercial gain or commercial reward penalties going up to 5 years’ imprisonment a $300000 fine or $20000 per day. That sends a very strong message to anybody who feels that they wish to participate in the illicit trade in flora or fauna that this is getting into fairly serious money.But sometimes it is not always done for commercial gain. Sometimes it is done perhaps somewhat negligently but again people need to be aware that there arepenalties if they are negligent when it comes to New Zealand’s precious fauna and flora. So there is the ability within this bill for people to be sentenced to community work and other smaller penalties if they are caught offending perhaps unwittingly in this manner.We do have concerns like some of the other Opposition parties that although it is a good move on behalf of one National member to bring this bill to the Committee to help protect our environment there are many other things that this National Government is doing that are flying in the face of the environment. When we look at some of the reforms in regard to the Resource Management Act and now particularly as we are moving towards Part 2 and clauses 6 and 7 of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill we have some grave concerns in that area of the environment. So we would hope that we are not seeing a double standard here from the Government in terms of a good member and a member on our Local Government and Environment Committee doing a good job bringing this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill to the Committee to improve the standards.We certainly do not like the idea that on the other side of the ledger the same Government is perhaps pulling the rug out from other aspects of the environment. We do stand by our pride in having a “100% Pure New Zealand” image and branding and trying to be internationally respected for that so it is important that we maintain that high level. In that respect we do have some concerns about what is occurring this very week in terms of the Minister of Conservation Nick Smith and what is happening in that whole saga. Therefore we are perhaps seeing some double standards coming through which we certainly do not condone and we do not wish to see.However we do applaud the member Jacqui Dean for bringing this bill to the House. It is overdue. There have been now quite a considerable number of years where things have occurred and where people have got away with various things. Just to conclude we think as a result that this bill can serve only to further the good work that has been done in the area of conservation and the environment and we certainly support it. New Zealand First will be following this through.CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National): The Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill sets out to better protect ourwāhi tapu and taonga by increasing penalties for non-compliance with laws administered by the Department of Conservation. It also implements a consistent approach to penalties across the amended laws. The bill proposes bigger fines and longer jail sentences for people who endanger our wildlife or damage our protected natural habitats. Some penalties currently in place are far too low and there are other inconsistencies that need to be addressed.But this bill is more than a technical bill. This bill is safeguarding our intimate relationship between us the people of Aotearoa New Zealand and our natural world—all that isbetween Ranginui andPapatūānuku and including Tangaroa. This is about kaitiakitanga the very thing thatTe Rūnanganui o Ngāi Tahu pinpointed in its submission. This is about cultural guardianship the system of law and lore through which we are obliged to nurture and care.This bill is relevant and responsible to a changing and demanding world. We are continuing to improve the environment and build a cleaner greener brighter future for all New Zealanders. This bill upholds ourkaitiakitanga in law. Amendments are proposed to the Conservation Act the National Parks Act the Reserves Act the Wildlife Act and the Wild Animal Control Act. The bill will also apply to the Marine Mammals Protection Act.This bill upholds our kaitiakitanga in lore—as an example keeping the two species of tuatara safe. It is helping protect the only surviving members of its order which flourished around 200 million years ago. To Māori tuatara are ariki and thought to be messengers ofWhiro the god of death and disaster. To some tuatara also indicate tapu.Māori women would sometimes tattoo images of lizards some of which may represent tuatara near their whare tangata or genitals and this was in celebration ofHine-nui-te-po and her power to bring life and death to mankind asMāui Tikitiki-a-Taranga discovered when she squashed him between her legs. The whakapapa of tuatara is just one history of a species we are protecting.This bill sends a strong message that we take protection of New Zealand’s wildlife and natural areas very seriously. What this bill does is send a strong message to ourselves that we take seriously our role as kaitiakitanga.BRENDAN HORAN (Independent): I rise to take a short call on the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill—[Interruption]—and I want to make just a few brief points when the follicly challenged one over there is quiet. Firstly I observe that Part 6 which was inserted at the Local Government and Environment Committee is a victory for the process of public input—for this nation’s citizens being able to make submissions on legislation and to improve a bill. I have been one to condemn this Government for the way it has had to put amendments to amendments to amendments and rushed because of its policy of rushing through bills but it is great to see the democratic process working with this bill.The select committee reported: “We recommend inserting new Part 6 to reflect the intention of bringing consistency to the penalties administered by the Department of Conservation.” The committee went on to refer to Standing Order 288(1) which states that “a select committee may recommend only amendments that are relevant to the subject-matter of the bill are consistent with the principles and objects of the bill …”. The Local Government and Environment Committee went on to say that it was confident that Part 6 which amends the Marine Mammals Protection Act meets that requirement.I suggest that it would be useful for the select committee report to record why this particular change came about—that reason being that a member of the public asked for the change in a submission. Only eight submissions were received including a learned one from the New Zealand Law Society—and I will touch on that one shortly. One person asked for the change to the marine mammals law and put in just a short submission of 300 words or more. The submitter did so firstly because of a report on Radio New Zealand National in January this year entitled “Claim of illegal fishing in marine sanctuary” and secondly because at the time submissions were being received on this bill. To cut a long story short the select committee was convinced by the power of the argument which spoke for itself. It was an overnight success which we are debating just 8 months later. That is a good-news story for the public of New Zealand—that input by New Zealanders into our nation’s legislation can be brought to fruition.The next point I would like to touch on is the process that has brought us to where we are today debating the Committee stage of the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill and its Parts 1 to 6 and preliminary clauses. We are doing this on a members’ day because the bill has been brought forward by the honourable Jacqui Dean as a member’s bill. I say good on her for doing that but she has done it because it has not been brought forward as a Government bill by successive Governments led by the last four Prime Ministers.Let us look for example at clause 4B in Part 1 of the bill. It updates the penalties in section 39 of the Conservation Act for a person who in the words of section 39(4) of that Act: “disturbs injures poisons kills or detrimentally affects any freshwater fishery fish spawning ground or food of freshwater fish in any river stream lake or any other water by allowing any contaminant to enter into any such water or refuses to remove as much as may be practicable of the contaminant”. Well it is a mouthful but it defines a specific offence. The provision was added to the law in 1990 by theConservation Law Reform Act 1990 with penalties of up to $30000 and a further fine of $3000 a day for a continuing offence. In the intervening 23 years the quantum of the maximum penalty has not changed. The dollar amounts are the same today as they were 23 years ago yet the value of $30000 in 1990 was obviously far greater than the same amount today.I frequently hear members in debate observing the importance of this House getting the regulatory framework right and of setting good policy parameters yet too often they do not get revisited and so we have a massive catch-up as we see today in clause 4B of this bill as brought forward by Jacqui Dean. The Law Society whose submission I alluded to earlier made four recommendations. One of the recommendations was that a review should be undertaken to ensure that the bill’s penalties are consistent with the penalties specified in other enactments that protect or manage aspects of the natural environment. The Law Society suggested it would be desirable for there to be a consistent approach to penalties in all enactments that protect or manage aspects of the natural environment.Perhaps another useful step would be for Parliament to have a process for bills to specifically revise and update penalties contained in statute as it is important constitutionally that this House sets out penalties and maximums in primary legislation. But it would do little harm for one bill in each Parliament an omnibus bill to be introduced to keep the penalties up to date and as desired by the Law Society consistent across the statute book. The Law Society suggested that it would be desirable for there to be a consistent approach to penalties in all enactments that protect or manage aspects of this national environment.Finally I turn to clause 2 which sets out the commencement date. The clause is a good one and I commend the honourable member Jacqui Dean for specifying a fixed date. I will support this bill.Parts 1 to 6 and clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.Bill reported without amendment.Report adopted.