Hague Kevin: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHague Kevin: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11570. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KEVIN HAGUE (Green): The public conservation estate is one of the great treasures of this country and when New Zealanders look to their Government to determine what they seek from that Government protection of those unique species and ecosystems that exist in New Zealand—and typically nowhere else in the world—is one of the very core things that they expect. Contrary to the remarks recently made by the Minister of Conservation Maggie Barry the Greens do not attack the Department of Conservation (DOC) and DOC staff. The Greens believe that the Department of Conservation and its staff are heroes. The work they do is fantastic. But increasingly they have been asked to carry out their work with one hand tied behind their backs by a Government that is determined to erode the funding that is available to the department to spend on conservation.The analysis undertaken by the Parliamentary Library shows that in real terms—that is inflation-adjusted terms for the benefit of the Minister—the department is spending $50 million and more on average less each year than when the National Government took office in the 2008-09 year. That is more than $50 million a year less in real terms. That is a very very substantial reduction in conservation spending.What does that translate to? I have spoken about the 46 percent of tracks in the conservation estate that are not up to standard the 26 percent of huts that are not up to standard the many structures that have failed their load capacity assessments and the 38 structures that were overdue for serious or critical repairs and the Minister has been completely unable to respond to that erosion in the conservation estate.In this year’s Budget—and I brought along the document—Fletcher Tabuteau: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I apologise sincerely for interrupting the speaker but my understanding of the proceedings of the House is that for a member to move down closer to the speaker and harass him is completely out of order. The Minister needs to show some class in these proceedings.Mr SPEAKER: Order! No the last part was certainly unnecessary but the first part is correct. A member should not move a seating position away from where he or she is set simply to interject on the speech that is being given by another member.Hon Maggie Barry: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.Mr SPEAKER: I have ruled on the matter. If it is a fresh point of order I am happy to hear it but I am not interested in having that matter relitigated. The member can move back to her seat if she wants to continue but I will not accept an unreasonable amount of interjection anyway.KEVIN HAGUE: Thank you very much Mr Speaker. What I was about to draw the House’s attention to was this document entitled Estimates of Appropriations for the Government of New Zealand for the year ending 30 June 2017 Environment Sector. What this document says about the appropriation for the management of natural heritage is that the final budgeted amount for 2015-16 was let us see $187877000 and for the 2016-17 year it has reduced to $160639000. That is a drop of 14 percent.One of the ways that the Department of Conservation has been forced to accommodate that reduced commitment to spending on conservation by this Government is through the partnerships programme. It is great if there is additional money that comes from the commercial sector or comes from the work done by volunteer groups—that is fantastic. That adds icing on to the cake. But in an environment where the department has less money to spend what that does instead is replace the money that the Government should be spending. What that means is that when a commercial sponsorship ends as the kākāpō one has just done the Department of Conservation has to stop doing other conservation work to backfill that. It means that conservation work will be done on those species that attract commercial sponsorships rather than those that are most ecologically important. It means that the department will sometimes have to accept money from companies that will have other motives.It is very interesting that the Minister believes that an oil company was sponsoring the Cook Strait whale survey because of a feeling of satisfaction that it may have given the company. In fact what we have seen is that it is the Minister who is out of step with the Parliamentary Library’s analysis the independent accountant’s analysis and indeed the Budget documents themselves. Thank you.