Dyson Ruth: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — Third ReadingText is subject to correctionDyson Ruth: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14209. Text is subject to correction.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): That is very helpful Mr Assistant Speaker given that that is my name. I want to share in the warm fuzzies exhibited by the member in whose name this bill the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill is Jacqui Dean. I commend her for thinking of this as an initiative to put in a member’s bill and for being prepared to listen in an open and genuine way to the submitters and to other colleagues from different parties at the Local Government and Environment Committee. It is not always the case—we know that—but the member did that. Also I commend her for her genuine acknowledgment of my colleague Maryan Street for her specific additional contribution.I think this bill is a good bill. It does things in terms of making the penalties regime more logical and rational around breaches of protection whether it is for geckos or orchids as the member mentioned. It makes sense of the whole regime and I think it is a very good initiative. Jacqui Dean talked about it being a measure to ensure that legal protection for all classes of conservation land was comparable. I think that was a very fine statement.If only the Minister of Conservation was applying that very same principle in regard to the land which he seems prepared to give away in order for the Ruataniwha Dam to proceed. He said that it is not classified; it is not highly regarded. Well that is because it has not been through that classification process and we all know that that is like a limbo-land of conservation land rather than it being of low value.The very same committee that looked at this bill recently heard from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment on this very topic—the issue of stewardship land. It is not that stewardship land is of low value. It is not that it has been measured against national parks or schedule 4 land. It is just that it has not got around to being classified. It is just in that holding pattern. It has never been a priority for a Minister or for the Department of Conservation.So I think that the Minister of Conservation would do well to look at the words of Jacqui Dean in her contribution immediately preceding mine and understand that whatever the breach is whether it is stealing orchids or trying to smuggle geckos out of our country it does not actually matter what classification the conservation land has; the penalties should make sense and should be the same—in the very same way as giving away land in the Hawke’s Bay so that a massive dam can be built.A ratepayer-provided dam for private benefit including giving away part of our conservation estate with no arrangement to enhance the value of conservation land in other parts of Hawke’s Bay is I think a mistake. It is just one in a very long list of mistakes that the Hon Nick Smith has made in regard to that Tukituki plan change and the Ruataniwha Dam.I want to comment briefly on the contribution that Maryan Street made in regard to this bill and that was to propose a new Part 6 to this legislation to add the penalty regime of the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978. As I acknowledged before Jacqui Dean did not say “Oh this is a Labour idea. I’m going to oppose it.” as is sometimes the case. We are all a bit party politically petty actually in that regard. She was well above that. She said that it was a sensible suggestion it added additional weight to her bill and she was going to propose that the committee accept it. That is the second example of good behaviour I want to acknowledge the member for. She set an example that all of us should follow actually. So that has made what was already a good bill even better.The select committee did a few other things but I think that was the most substantial. There were some other improvements as you can always have with a bill but everyone in the House agreed that the idea of this bill was sensible and the fact that it came through as a member’s bill is just Jacqui Dean’s good luck. I guess it would have beenhard to make it a priority for the Government. However I have noticed every day for the last I do not know 5 sitting weeks that when the Speaker asks whether any bills have been presented there is a big silence. Maybe the member could have got it through as a Government bill seeing that there is a big vacancy for Government initiatives at the moment but regardless of that she had the vision to put it forward.When you come from an area as beautiful as she has described where you have got the Mackenzie Basin and the Southern Alps which are a beautiful part of our country—not as beautiful as my own electorate of Port Hills but getting close—and when you are surrounded by that beauty and understand the threats within your own electorate then I guess you might feel a bit more passionate than others who do not have the good fortune of representing an electorate such as that.I also want to comment on the other members of the Local Government and Environment Committee. I think everybody worked really hard on this bill. It was not complex or challenging but it did still receive good attention the sort of attention that a member’s bill deserves so I want to commend the other members of the committee. I also commend the officials who put a lot of effort into making sure we understood what we were doing and that we looked at comparisons with other penalty regimes. I think they gave us very sound advice and we got it right.The officials have been working under huge pressure. In the last 5 years the Department of Conservation has had massive cuts from its budget. We have been told that of course this would not affect its ability to work but you cannot take millions of dollars off a departmental budget and reduce staff significantly and then put your hand up and say: “Well that won’t have any impact on the work that’s being done.” Of course it does.From the very first Budget under the National-led Government in 2009 $54 million has gone whoosh out of the Department of Conservation budget. Then it had to try to redress its priorities try to work out what it was going to cut back on. That equated to about 400 job losses and every year since then we have seen further budget cuts and further job losses to the point now that when you look at the Department of Conservation’s annual report which has just been presented it is just not meeting its key performance indicators. It is not doing the job that this Parliament expects it to do. I think it is because it has been cut past the tipping point. However that was not reflected in the quality of advice from the Department of Conservation officials on this bill. They were really competent really hard-working and I guess they went well above and beyond the call in terms of delivering support to the committee on this specific bill.The other issue that I am sure the committee will be considering in future in light of the thinking that has gone on behind this bill is just how few of the threatened species that we have in New Zealand are actually under active management by the Department of Conservation and what the last 5 years of budget cuts and job losses have meant to the ability of the Department of Conservation. It is the one department that is charged with protecting our threatened species. What difference have those budget cuts made to the department’s ability to do it? At the moment it is monitoring and managing only about 250 of the over 2500 threatened species that we have in New Zealand.It feels to me like we have a generation of leaders in our current Government who are just surrendering their responsibility to make sure that our children and our grandchildren and their children and grandchildren are able to enjoy the great outdoors including the species that we have within our land. Many species are threatened. Many species are very critical to being totally extinct. We have heard of course about animals like our beautiful Māui’s dolphins which are so critically close to being extinct. Only 55 adults are left. So we have a big responsibility in that area toensure that the roles that we are privileged to have in this Parliament are taken to the utmost benefit of future generations not our own.I think this bill goes a step towards that. It is not going to change the world overnight but it is a bill that has passion behind it. It is a bill that has very good intention and values. It is a bill that will get to the heart of part of the protection mechanism that is needed and that is the penalties that apply when people breach the conservation provisions in our country.It is not the whole picture. We do need to beef up the ability and the resources of the Department of Conservation for it to perform its job properly. It needs to be able to do that to give us the outcomes that we want to see. But this bill will be a big help to those at the other end of the spectrum in the sticks. I just want to end by saying to Jacqui Dean that this is a good bill. Well done for the content and the manner in which you progressed it. I look forward to its final passing.