Hague Kevin: Game Animal Council Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Game Animal Council Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14919. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): In my second reading speech on this bill the Game Animal Council Bill I reflected on my time over a couple of terms on the West Coast Tai Poutini Conservation Board. I want to reflect some more on that because I well remember a briefing given to the New Zealand Conservation Authority about the drivers for the dispersion of deer in New Zealand. It turns out that the main way in which deer move from place to place in New Zealand is that they are deliberately introduced into new areas. What that means actually in relation to this bill is that there is a fundamental conflict of interests between those who see animals like deer as assets to be managed and those who see them as pests.Bluntly the question facing New Zealand is: do we want to see more of these animals or do we want to see fewer of them? We have a great example from the so-called tahr control plan where numbers which in the early 1980s were around 3000 tahr have been in fact managed up as the interest of hunters has been more reflected to around 10000 now. So one of the major risks of this bill and one of the major risks of the confusion that it introduces about the responsibility for the management of particular areas of land and the conflict between the objectives of the Game Animal Council and the Department of Conservation is that we will see an expansion of the feral range of some of these pest animals.It is possible to strike a balance I am sure. I am not a hunter but I am a pretty regular back country user. I am a tramper. I am a mountain biker. I often talk to hunters in huts and we find we have a lot in common. These are people who are also passionate about back country recreation and passionate about our natural heritage. But fundamentally this is not now a bill about them. It is a bill about and for the big-money trophy hunters. That is a very very small and specific part of the hunting sector.To make it worse this Game Animal Council is going to be effectively competing for control of some of our conservation estate with the department which has been depleted in money and depleted in capacity and this council even now is going to be funded from Vote Conservation weakening the department even further. So that balance that could have been struck has not been struck by this bill.Today we have heard from the Hon Peter Dunne that he would be very surprised if the Game Animal Council sought to undermine 1080 use for pest control in the conservation estate. Damien O’Connor has told us that Garry Ottmann has told him no; he has given assurances that they will not do this. Well please forgive my cynicism. I believe that the Game Animal Council will seek to undermine 1080 use for pest control in our back country. I believe it will do that because it is in its interest to do so and that will be a very clear example of that conflict of interest.This is a bill that successive Governments in fact have tried to avoid. It has come to the House today and is passing through its remaining stages under urgency because of the Government’s debt to Peter Dunne. It is a bad bill for conservation. It is a bad bill for our back country. It is actually a bad bill even for our recreational hunters—the everyday Kiwi recreational hunter. That is why it has been opposed by all of the Government departments that have been asked to comment on it and is also universally condemned by conservation organisations.Even those organisations like the Deerstalkers Association which has been calling for more say for many many years are going to find that this Game Animal Council is not for them at all. The Game Animal Council is no longer under the amendments agreed to by the House today even required to consult with the Deerstalkers Association. It is not a bill for that association. It is a bill for just that tiny part—the big-money trophy-hunting part—which is essentially part of a commercial industry. It is a bad bill and one that we will oppose.