Hague Kevin: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Hague Kevin: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:670;Page:16546] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 Of course I hung on every word of the Prime Minister’s speech today and what a disappointment it was to hear him utter no word about the environment or conservation. I have to say that last year it was similar although we did have that little coded section of the Prime Minister’s statement that was entitled “Unlocking Resources” where the Prime Minister laid out his plans for mining our schedule 4 conservation lands and expropriating fresh water in Canterbury for further industry. I think his words were that any drop of water that reached the sea was wasted—such a profound understanding of the New Zealand environment and ecology! So it was a disappointment to hear the Prime Minister’s speech a disappointment that was only deepened I am afraid to say when Kate Wilkinson the Minister of Conservation got up to speak. She uttered no word in her speech about conservation either. She may well have been under instructions not to show up the Prime Minister’s omissions of course. 
Sandwiched between those two statements from the Prime Minister last year and this year we have been living through the International Year of Biodiversity. I guess the idea of that international year was to celebrate the success of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. But the way it has turned out in New Zealand and around the world has been more of a requiem for the thousands of species that we have lost and are still losing rapidly. Lester Brown has talked about the crisis in biodiversity the world is going through as the “sixth great extinction”. The last was some 65 million years ago when an asteroid hit the Earth. This one of course has been caused by the actions of human beings. He calls it a “massive evolutionary setback and a wholesale impoverishment of life on Earth.” 
New Zealand is a biodiversity hot spot and one of the world’s treasure chests of unusual and fascinating life forms. Our plants and animals are utterly unique—they are not found anywhere else—and this is one of the reasons that we love species like kiwi kereru kahawai kauri and all of the other species that we work hard to protect. Unfortunately New Zealand also has a long record of extinctions. Many of our plants and animals remain now on the verge of extinction. We have a special responsibility to protect the plants and animals that we love. The Department of Conservation has identified some 2788 species in New Zealand as being under threat. That includes all of our frogs and bats 89 percent of our reptiles 65 percent of our freshwater fish and 57 percent of our birds. They could disappear for ever within our lifetime. There are thousands more native species that we simply do not know enough about to know what their level of risk is. 
For over 100 years New Zealanders have been achieving some remarkable successes in conservation against this tide but right now only 6 percent of those threatened species identified as being at risk in New Zealand are actively managed to avoid extinction. The risk to the remaining 94 percent is acute. It is true that the Wildlife Act makes it an offence to intentionally kill a native animal and there are similar protections for some plants. But the major threats to our plants and animals are introduced predators invasive weeds and the ongoing loss and disruption of habitat. So far we have failed to respond effectively to even one of those factors. 
I have been in Parliament for only a short time but I have already witnessed this Government taking major backward steps in the protection of these native plants and animals that we love. The most horrifying of these was the Government’s step to cut $54 million from the Department of Conservation’s budget over 4 years which has massive implications. But that is not the only one. National has also cancelled the $4 million Community Conservation Fund that the Green Party established in conjunction with Labour to fund community involvement in local environmental conservation work. National has closed an important possum control research programme based at Invermay that was close to delivering new forms of possum control. National has failed to move decisively to protect the Mokihinui River from Meridian Energy’s proposed 85-metre high dam. National has allowed commercial eeling of the endangered long-finned eel a species that is found nowhere else in the world and is listed by the Department of Conservation as a threatened species in gradual decline. That is the same status given to the great spotted kiwi the little blue penguin and the rifleman. 
The Government has issued a new business-focused statement of intent for the Department of Conservation which has left major questions around the Minister’s statutory responsibility to be the primary advocate for the conservation estate. The statement of intent is entirely about commercial objectives for the department. The House is about to debate—probably next week—the Regulatory Responsibility Bill which will tie the department’s hands even further when it comes to issuing businesses with concessions on the conservation estate with the department losing statutory responsibility to put the interests of our plants and animals first. At a time when New Zealand is facing arguably the greatest crisis in biodiversity in the history of human habitation one might have expected the Government’s priorities to emphasise a response to these problems rather than preparing the conservation estate for greater exploitation and further losses. 
Green Party members set themselves up to be the champions for the environment working alongside committed individuals and organisations right around the country to try to turn this tide on biodiversity loss. One small practical measure has been to launch the $4 million pilot project—in conjunction with the Government which I recognise—that aims to protect New Zealand forests and native species with better pest control using resetting traps. If that project is successful it will reduce the costs of pest control and the reliance on poisons. But the most significant work we are doing is yet to come. I am working on a new member’s bill to enhance the protection of our most treasured plants and animals. The United States Canada and Australia have all passed benchmark legislation to protect and secure their native flora and fauna and the critical habitat that they rely upon. New Zealand by comparison lacks similar legislative protection. 
The Wildlife Act is antiquated and offers no effective legal protection against the biggest threats. Even our native fish are left without legal protection or a plan for their recovery. In the United States 85 percent of their threatened species are now covered by a recovery plan. In New Zealand the comparable figure is the 6 percent I mentioned. My bill will amend the Wildlife Act by revising the purpose of the original Act to extend the legal protection to all native flora and fauna including fish. The bill will give effect to the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and the New Zealand Biodiversity Strategy. The Minister will be required to develop and implement a thorough and science-based recovery plan for each of these native species that is identified as threatened. 
Like most New Zealanders we in the Green Party love this country and all its people. Our environment and our natural heritage are what makes this country unique and precious. We are committed to doing whatever it takes to protect these features. It is important for its own sake of course but also because so much of our economy everything that we sell on the international stage is dependent on that clean green image. We set out to make that clean green image real. No environment; no economy. If we trash the environment we sabotage our economy and more important we rob our grandchildren of their birthright. It is another form of borrowing from our grandchildren to pay for short-term profit today incurring a debt that neither this Government nor any Government ever will be able to repay.