Sage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 26 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8890. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
7. 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
 to the  
Minister of Conservation 
: Can he guarantee that any job cuts announced today will not impact on the Department of Conservation’s ability to protect the conservation estate? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation) 
: 
 Yes. The changes are about a more efficient and outward-looking department. The positions being disestablished are fourth and fifth-tier managers at regional and area offices. The department is maintaining all of its network of 99 field centres and the number of rangers is also being maintained. 
Eugenie Sage 
: How is this outward-looking focus and having volunteers and business take the place of Department of Conservation experts going to improve the chances of our 2800 threatened species? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: With this restructuring the department will have 1730 staff and a budget of $330 million per year. But it is also true that even if you print money there will not be enough to meet all of New Zealand’s conservation challenges. If we can partner with business and community groups to do more then I am all for it. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Why is he confident that volunteers or corporate sponsorship can fill the gap created by the loss of 140 jobs when managing threatened species such as the Okarito brown kiwi such as the New Zealand fairy tern requires dedicated professional expertise? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I can guarantee to the member that there will not be a single volunteer who is replacing the fourth and fifth-tier managers who are predominantly doing paperwork in area and regional offices. Where I think volunteers have played an incredibly important role in conservation is over the last 20 years where there has been a real growth all over the country in community groups becoming more active in conservation. That is to be welcomed and the department needs to reorganise itself so it can engage and work with them more effectively. 
Eugenie Sage 
: Is it not as Rachel Stewart puts it in the  
Taranaki Daily News 
 that getting sponsorship from companies like Fonterra is like the Ministry of Health receiving sponsorship from a tobacco company in this brand new partnership model? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: For the Green Party to make the analogy between New Zealand’s biggest exporting company Fonterra and a tobacco company is I find frankly offensive. I also say to the Green Party that I welcome businesses whether they be Air New Zealand whether they be Fonterra whether they be Dulux New Zealand or others that are prepared to work with the Department of Conservation to get good outcomes. What this has exposed is that the Green Party is not a green party; it is just an anti-business party. 
Eugenie Sage 
: How can he be confident that Department of Conservation staff will be in touch with and understand the conservation work needed on the ground when this Government has overseen the loss of 232 staff and another 140 today and is now proposing to halve the number of regionally focused conservancies? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: In the 3 years that I was a Minister of Conservation back in the 1990s we had a staff of 1500. With this restructuring we will still have 1730 people within the Department of Conservation. We will also have $100 million per year in real terms for conservation as compared with that. It is true that Labour went on a massive spending spree in conservation in last decade as it did in every single area of the public sector. If you want to rack up a whole lot of debt and have decades of deficits that is a good way to do it. We are not there. We are about balancing budgets we are about efficient Government departments and we can deliver for conservation with this reorganised department. 
Eugenie Sage 
: By reducing the number of conservancies from 11 to six will he also be cutting the number of conservation boards from 13 to six and reducing the public’s ability to have a say on the department’s plans and priorities? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Following the decisions on the restructuring it is my intention to review the number of conservation boards and to see how we can most effectively integrate that with the restructured department. I do not intend to initiate that process until consultations with staff and the final decisions are made on this new structure. 
Eugenie Sage 
: When funding cuts for conservation by this Government have resulted in the loss of 232 jobs since 2009 and another 140 jobs today are not Department of Conservation staff now an endangered species? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The members’ figures are incorrect. The number of staff— 
Hon Ruth Dyson 
: No they’re not. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
:  Well let me give you the exact numbers. The number of staff that the Department of Conservation had in 2000 was 1522. Prior to the global financial crisis when the previous Government expanded hugely it peaked at 2063. The number that we are having in out years—2013-14 and into the future—is 1731.