O'Connor Damien: Game Animal Council Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Game Animal Council Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14856. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): Yes good choice. Labour supported this Game Animal Control Bill going to the Local Government and Environment Committee because we have for a long time recognised that we need to have I guess a more robust and certain system around the management of game animals in this country and of course the protection of the conservation estate. The bill has been considered by the select committee and a number of changes were made.Labour at this point is not supporting the bill because I guess in summary this is an MMP bill. It is really about a deal that has been done a political deal to push ahead something that in the end is not ideal and not truly fit for purpose. We do need to haveprotection for the conservation estate. At a time when the Government has squeezed funding for the Department of Conservation it is little wonder that staunch conservationists are a little bit edgy and concerned and paranoid some might say that it is all going to be shifted on to the private sector with deals done in a partnership model and that we are then going to shift the control of pests and wild animals on to the hunters. They are a little bit paranoid about that—hence their concerns from what we have seen and certainly in some of the Supplementary Order Papers that are coming up. It is understandable perhaps.It comes down to a philosophical divide about what we have conservation and public lands for in this country. We are talking about exotic animals. They have been introduced into the country just as trout have been. For those fish we have quite a robust system of protection that treats them almost as if they are an indigenous species. They are not. We have accepted that as part of mainstream management for the good of New Zealand as a whole. We are trying to establish a similar regime with this bill.An independent Game Animal Council is I guess in theory a good thing as long as it works in with the Department of Conservation. This will establish a point of conflict and there is debate about what that might mean. The elephant in the room if you like of course is the one of 1080 and its use throughout the country. I come from the West Coast an area that has been—Hon Ruth Dyson: An elephant in Sri Lanka.Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: An elephant in Sri Lanka. It will be here. It will almost be in the room soon—when John Key comes back tomorrow.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Order!Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Back to the bill—I am sorry I have been distracted. Thank you. I will be back on target. It is a philosophical divide about whether we should use 1080 to control possums or not. Coming from a region like the West Coast we know that it is an essential tool to not only control bovine tuberculosis in animals but also protect the spectacular national parks we have. There has been over time some by-kill if you like—bycatch or by-kill—that is when spreading the 1080 deer have been killed. Staunch conservationists think that that is a great idea—kill anything that is not native. However the hunters think that they should have access to a recreational activity that gets them out in the bush that keeps them fit and that has been part and parcel of the New Zealand way of life—in fact people have survived by eating venison. But if in the end the Game Animal Council here was to stop the use of 1080 as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has alerted us to then that is not progress.I have had an assurance from the hunting sector from Garry Ottmann that that is not one of the things that the Game Animal Council would do. I welcome that assurance. However it is a contentious point in the hunting fraternity. There have been changes to the 1080 bait put out there in order to try to minimise the by-kill and to not inadvertently or unnecessarily kill deer. But you still come back to the core philosophical debate about whether there should be deer tahr or chamois in the conservation estate at all. There are Supplementary Order Papers on the Table that attempt to ensure that there are no managed herds in any of the conservation estate or national parks. I do not quite accept that because the reality for tahr and chamois is that they are often in national parks. This is indeed where the objective of the bill will play out. Either we have them in national parks or we do not.The other reality we are dealing with is a Department of Conservation that is squeezed for resources is that it will never be able to control or exterminate wild animals in the conservation estate or indeed even in areas of high natural values. So there will be a reliance on hunters to assist in that control and where necessaryextermination. But there are some double standards. In wilderness areas for example people are not able to use air access into these areas for recreational purposes such as rafting or tramping. However they are able to use air access for the control of wild animals. If one were to be very pure about it we would say that there should be no air access at all. So in summary there are a number of slight contradictions across the whole of the conservation estate that have been put in place for best management purposes. The issue here is to ensure that if this bill proceeds we have a Game Animal Council that works in the best interests of conservation and the hunters—not exclusively one against the other. We do support that.An aside but one that will have an impact on the kinds of recreational control that can occur is the issue of venison. We had a huge deer population in this country until the practice of farming and the value of the meat itself got to a level where people saw the economic driver to get out and kill deer. Indeed that was what we needed to do to drive down the numbers to actually see the restoration of a whole lot of natural values across the conservation estate. We were overrun with deer there was a commercial value put on them and we saw the extermination of them in some necessary areas. The fact that the meat industry is dysfunctional and has lost and is leaving opportunities on the table all around the world means that the value of venison is nowhere near where it should be. If the Government was to get on and sort out the meat industry and put a decent value on venison I think we would see real activity from the hunting fraternity to get out and help control deer.Labour is not supporting the bill at this point not because we do not want to support hunters to get out and enjoy the conservation estate and assist the Department of Conservation to control wild animals in areas but because we think it is actually going to create some tension that will be ongoing between the department and the Game Animal Council. I am comforted by reassurances from Garry Ottmann on behalf of the hunting sector that they will indeed do their best to work together. I hope that that does indeed happen. But when it comes to the issue of 1080 as a West Coast MP and former dairy farmer I am staunch. We must be able to continue to use 1080 in the conservation estate to control the exotic pests that frequent there. It is not just deer; it is stoats it is weasels and it is possums. We need to do that; otherwise the future of this country as an economic exporter of meat is at risk.I welcome the opportunity to speak more on a number of particular technical issues in the bill through the Committee stage but can I say that Labour supports hunters. We want people to get out into the outdoors. We want them to help the Department of Conservation to kill unwanted pests—anything they can hit. Stoats would be great. That is a very challenging target I would have to say but if we could have a bounty on them that would be great. But on the issue of deer chamois and tahr we need to ensure that there is appropriate control but that we protect the opportunities for people who do make a great effort to get out and hunt them. So we will work through. We want the best outcome here. We are just concerned that perhaps the Government has not got it quite right in its proposals.