Street Maryan: Game Animal Council Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Game Animal Council Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14882. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Can I just clarify something for a moment? Are we dealing with Part 2 and schedules 1 and 2 or—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes and 3—schedules 1 to 3.Hon MARYAN STREET: Schedules 1 2 and 3—thank you very much indeed. That may make a difference to what I say. In Part 2 of this bill the Game Animal Council Bill subpart 1 deals with offences and penalties and subpart 2 deals with other matters. Before I begin on this let me say that in due course I also want to refer to the Minister of Conservation’s Supplementary Order Paper Supplementary Order Paper 395 which amends clause 33. However I just want to recognise the contribution from Eric Roy earlier which I found very helpful particularly with some of those clauses in Part 1 that had raised questions. So I thank the member for that but it did leave me with some more questions which are now exacerbated by Part 2 because this is the bit that deals with in the first instance offences and penalties.It seems to me that if some of the difficulties between hunting organisations and the Department of Conservation and so on had been resolved through a different measure—that is not by a statute setting up a Game Animal Council on its own—then some of the provisions in Part 2 would not be necessary either. Certainly offences need to be established and that could easily have been done I think under the Wild Animal Control Act to which I have referred previously and it could have been done in a way that was cooperative and came out of an advisory committee established under that legislation rather than under this legislation.So although I recognise that offences and penalties are necessary the thing I am questioning in this part is that this entire process and this special bureaucracy that is being established to implement it would not have been necessary in this form if the Minister of Conservation had chosen to take more notice of the submissions that were put in by submitters to the Local Government and Environment Committee or had chosen to take more notice of the regulatory impact statement written by the Department of Conservation.This really goes back to stage 1 for me because if these penalties and provisions here and the definitions of a “herd of special interest” and so on are all essential then it might have been better to have it come as recommendations from an advisory council that the Minister could not disestablish under the Wild Animal Control Act.I want to go to another matter and it is in schedule 1 which talks about enforcement officers and honorary enforcement officers. We see in clause 1 that enforcement officers are clearly appointed “within the meaning of section 2(1) of the Conservation Act 1987 as an enforcement officer for the purposes of this Act.” So there will be warranted officers appointed under the Conservation Act to carry out the enforcement functions required under this piece of legislation. Schedule 1 then talks about the appointment and removal of honorary enforcement officers. An honorary enforcement officer here in schedule 1(2) is somebody “who may be appointed for a term not exceeding 3 years but may be reappointed: (b) may be removed from office by the Director-General bywritten notice if the Director-General considers for any reason that the person is no longer a fit and proper person”—[Bell rung] I just wish to conclude this point fairly quickly.Schedule 1(3) states: “The Minister may reimburse an honorary enforcement officer for reasonable expenses”. This goes back to a theme that is being pursued by this Government when it comes to the care and protection of our environment. The Minister of Conservation has stripped back the Department of Conservation to such an extent that now it cannot even carry out its legal functions. So it cannot preserve protect and advocate for the environment given the stripping-back of the staff of the Department of Conservation.The Minister’s answer to that has been partnership. It has been words around partnering with volunteers and charitable organisations in order to ensure that our environment can be adequately protected. This is the same Minister who wants to get housing on the cheap through giving minuscule amounts of money to third-sector organisations in housing provision. He wants to contract out parts of the functions of the Department of Conservation because it can no longer fulfil those functions because of retrenchments and staffing. He wants to contract out those functions to volunteers and voluntary and charitable organisations and so get environmental protection on the cheap.This is now environmental—or game animal—enforcement on the cheap with enforcement officers. So I presume that the Minister has in mind that he will give a cap to the people who volunteer to take up this position. They can then with their own resources with this hat on that says “honorary enforcement officer” stroll around our environment ensuring that the provisions of this bill and particularly the requirements of Part 2 are being honoured and are being implemented.I worry that this is the same model that is being used in other areas where the Government wants to withdraw money that it provides for legitimate and legislated functions and pass that over to charitable organisations individuals and the private sector in some cases in order to carry out what should be Government functions. The Minister should resource this properly if he wants the functions to be carried out adequately. Thank you.