Hauiti Claudette: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionHauiti Claudette: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14222. Text is subject to correction.]CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. The Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill sets out to better protect our special places and species 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 serious consequences for serious offending against our natural heritage. The bill proposes bigger fines and longer jail sentences for people who endanger our wildlife or damage our protected natural habitats. That includes theft and smuggling of our taonga.We have had theft and smuggling of our beautiful resources this year and last year but in previous centuries we had mass smuggling and theft of our taonga. Can you imagine standing in a room this size at the Australian Museum and seeing on the shelves our taonga—beautiful taxidermied weka rows and rows of weka? Can you imagine looking on those shelves and seeing taxidermied beautiful takahē rows upon rows of them in the museum? Can you imagine reaching out and touching the feathers of tīwaiwaka and touching the feathers of kiwi? That is what happened to our taonga centuries ago: theft and smuggling because people could. This bill ensures that they now will not.Our flora and fauna are an important part of New Zealand’s culture and our heritage. We need to protect ourselves our species and our special places for future generations. What that means is that this bill is a kaitiaki of those tamariki within Tāne Māhuta and those that fly between Tāne Māhuta and Tawhirimatea. We are continuing to improve the environment and build a cleaner greener and brighter future for all New Zealanders. It was heartening to see the Tūhoe settlement come into the House today and to have the members here talk about their relationship with Te Urewera. There is no more special place than Te Urewera. Within those boundaries and upon that whenua we have our taonga our beautiful flora and fauna. Within those boundaries as well we have the patupaiarehe. They are those beautiful taonga who live within those reaches of Tāne Māhuta. This bill will protect those stories and those pūrākau around our taonga such as the gecko.I hear my colleagues talking about the beautiful gecko; we know them as mokomoko. We also know that a lot of our tattoos our tā moko are based on the designs of our moko. Our tattoos our moko are also named after the god of earthquakes Rūaumoko. It is the ridges within the landscape when he moves tosses turns and breaks up the landscape that are also the ridges and turns upon the backs of our mokomoko and our tuatara. So this bill not only protects the physical taonga but also entrenches in law what we know to be our spiritual taonga associated with our beautiful species of flora and fauna.I think that at this time when looking at this bill I will also pay tribute to our rangatira who work in this area: the beautiful Dell Wīhongi from Ngāpuhi and Dame Ngāneko Minhinnick and Joe Harawira who also worked very closely across the conservation areas. They also fight and struggle to maintain our heritage which is what this bill will do for us.It is about kaitiakitanga and it is about the physicality of our conservation. We hope that this bill will also bring about a retelling of our history. I talked about our tā moko Rūaumoko mokomoko and tuatara. This bill should also bring forward into our education system the telling of these stories—why these taonga are so important to Māori why they are so important to iwi and why they are now very important to all New Zealanders. It is about the sharing of our natural history. It is also a telling of our history in stories across the centuries and across people. So while we debate this bill inits practicalities in its legislative framework where there are lots and lots of words deep in the heart of this for us for Māori is intrinsically our taonga our roots and threads that bind us to this land and to each other.This bill—going back to the legislation—is comprehensive. As introduced it applied to five pieces of conservation legislation which my colleagues have already talked about. On the recommendation of the Local Government and Environment Committee it now also applies to the Marine Mammals Protection Act. The bill does not apply to the Marine Reserves Act. A consistent approach to penalties across the laws administered by the Department of Conservation will ensure appropriate and effective penalties punishments and enforcement. I suppose that on the one hand we are lucky that it is about penalties as in monetary repayment and also incarceration. Perhaps if we had introduced pre-colonial penalties it might be a whole lot more severe. I do not think we would want to revisit that.We New Zealanders pride ourselves on our clean green image. It is imperative then that we look after our natural environment and this bill will assist in doing that. Vote Conservation is now $444 million almost double the $226 million in 2001-02. We are investing in recovery programmes for 35 percent more threatened species. Under this Government we have done that. We also intend to review—Maggie Barry: Quite right.CLAUDETTE HAUITI: That is right. Thank you. We also intend to review New Zealand’s threatened species management framework. Under this Government we will do that. Our natural environment is a valuable resource that we need to protect and preserve.I would like to congratulate my colleague Jacqui on bringing this bill to the House and I congratulate my colleagues and those on the select committee on supporting this bill. Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora.