Russell DeborahDr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour—New Lynn): I'm puzzled—really puzzled—by what's gone on with this bill. As we've heard tonight it was in origin a bill that was introduced to the House by the former Minister of Conservation Maggie Barry so it was something that the now Opposition actually believed in. That was really apparent when this bill first arrived in the Environment Committee which I am honoured to chair.We worked hard on the bill in the committee and very cooperatively. The committee is largely collegial and largely does work together extraordinarily well and it's a pleasure to work with all the members on that committee. For a while there was some hard work going on with respect to the particular issue that we're talking about mostly tonight—that's the Fish & Game councils. It did seem that this particular change—introducing powers to the Fish & Game councils—would in fact be accepted by the select committee and then in due course the Parliament. But then there was a change. The National Party changed their mind and it seemed to coincide with a change in the personnel on the select committee. They decided for some reason that I don't really understand to oppose this particular bit of the legislation. I've been puzzled as to why that happened.It's led me to reflect on the nature of the bill and what's going on with these Fish & Game regulations that we're hoping to introduce. I've had a quick word to my colleague the Hon David Parker. David Parker is of course a man of experience; a man who is wise in the ways of the world; a man who actually as a lawyer before he entered this Parliament took many of the prosecutions for Fish & Game; a man who acted for Fish & Game on many of the water conservation orders; a man who knows that taking something to court is often a sledgehammer—a sledgehammer—to solve a minor problem. That's exactly why we need an infringement regime in respect of some of the minor misdeeds that creep in under the various Acts that are looked after by the Department of Conservation (DOC). We do actually need a mid-point.Let me give you an example of what the real problem is here and why in fact the National Party—the now Opposition—were keen to work on this. Look imagine the roads and imagine if you were heading to your own home one night and perhaps went over the speed limit because it's easy for it to happen and then an officer of the law saw what was going on—any of us might end up breaking the law and speeding. It's a shame; it does happen. But imagine if the choices were just between a warning and a court prosecution—a warning or a sledgehammer. It's not appropriate. We're really comfortable with the idea of having infringements as a mid-point between a warning—a stern talking-to by an officer of the law—and the sledgehammer of a prosecution.I think that across the House we are agreed on that concept—that there is a completely appropriate role for infringement notices—so the issue then is who is the appropriate person to issue infringement notices? This is where we are breaking a little bit of new-ish ground with this legislation.Now as the Opposition have correctly pointed out most of the time the people who are issuing infringement notices are in fact civil servants of one variety or another: police officers DOC rangers or people who are in fact directly employed by the State. But there are some circumstances where people who are not employees of the State are able to issue infringement notices and the like—the SPCA is notable in this regard. That's quite important because what we're trying to do here is to find a way of enabling there to be an appropriate regime with respect to sports fish and with respect to hunting shooting and fishing which is very dear to a lot of New Zealanders' hearts. We want an appropriate regime. There is not one at the moment. There is a warning or a sledgehammer and nothing in between.So we are looking for that appropriate regime and we have been given a solution. The solution is to allow Fish & Game officers to be able to issue infringement notices and there is a series of protections around that. Now let's start with the most obvious thing: infringement notices are small beer. It's a jolly nuisance to get one and for some people actually it can be quite expensive depending on their own level of wealth but it's not a prosecution. It's actually a small-ish low-ish level offence so it does not have the seriousness of prosecutions. So that's the first protection: this is low-level stuff that it's being applied to.The second protection is that even if someone is issued with an infringement notice and they disagree with it then it's kind of a hard way to go but you can resort to the law to sort it out if that's absolutely needed. That's always a safeguard. It's an expensive one to use but it is there.Even so there are safeguards built into this bill for what Fish & Game will actually be able to do but it's worth actually understanding what is sitting in the proposed bill. So in clauses 4A to 4D of this particular bill we've actually got some ideas and some pretty sensible ideas. The Fish & Game Council—it's a statutory body—has to develop a national policy in the first place. Then following on from that it has to be approved by the Minister and if the Minister does not approve it then Fish & Game cannot enforce any regulations and it cannot issue infringement notices. Carrying on from that the Fish & Game Council must report every year as to what infringement notices they have issued. These are all important protections to make sure that they exercise these powers and that these are reasonable.In terms of who can issue an infringement notice it turns out that it's only Fish & Game rangers. It's not honorary Fish & Game rangers; it's only people who have already got the standing of being a Fish & Game ranger—in other words people who already have a responsible role within the Fish & Game organisation.One of the really important things to remember here is that Fish & Game is a largely democratic body. It is populated by people who have a deep interest in sports fishing and hunting and who actually want to ensure that people who engage in hunting shooting and fishing do so fairly and reasonably with respect for the environment and with respect for the rules so that everyone has an opportunity to engage in those activities if they want. Fish & Game rangers help to protect that for everyone who is engaged in hunting shooting and fishing. So Fish & Game rangers by their nature already take a responsible attitude to their work and what we are offering them is a simple opportunity to do more than warn someone and to do less than threaten them with prosecution and to prosecute them. We are offering them the middle path of an infringement system—an infringement system that must go through several steps before it's put in place.I propose that this is an extraordinarily sensible solution. It's a sensible solution to finding the right place between a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket and a sledgehammer and for those reasons I commend this bill to the House.