Sage Eugenie: Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
Sage Eugenie: Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:677;Page:711] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to speak on the Southland District Council (Stewart Island/Rakiura Visitor Levy) Empowering Bill. The Green Party supported this bill at its first reading and we will support it at the second reading. As the member for Invercargill and other members have noted the bill will provide the Southland District Council with the legal basis to both receive and spend the revenue that it gains from a levy on visitors. I understand that the bill has been needed because of case law that the district council’s powers under the Local Government Act are not unfettered and that if the Southland District Council passed a by-law to levy visitors without this bill such a by-law would risk being ultra vires if the levy was considered to be a tax. 
 Rakiura / Stewart Island is our southernmost permanent settlement and the land of glowing skies. Those dramatic sunrises and sunsets and the natural wonders of Rakiura including knee-deep mud on some of its tramping tracks may attract visitors but as we know the rates revenue generated by its 400-odd residents is very small. The Southland District Council has a population of about 28000 people but its annual rates income in its 2010-11 budget was around $34 million. So as the district council the Stewart Island Community Board and a number of individual residents have made clear in their submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee the island community lacks the ability to fund both the infrastructure and the capital development projects that they believe are necessary to service the increasing number of visitors to the island since the national park was established in 2002 and from the increasing number of cruise ships. As both the council and the community board have noted the roading maintenance and construction costs on the island are significantly higher than on the mainland because of shipping costs.  
When I checked the Department of Conservation’s visitor numbers going through the visitors centre they had increased from 45000 to 62000 immediately after the national park was created and then settled to around 56000 in 2005-06. So although these numbers are significantly less than those visiting some of our longer-established national parks they are significant on the island. The Southland District Council has described the situation as being akin to sharing a house with three people but every weekend having to host 300 visitors with no way of recovering the infrastructure costs associated with their stay. Some of the projects needing investment include maintenance and replacement of the jetty at Ulva Island potentially replacing the diesel generators that provide power with alternative energy sources such as wind and solar more toilets at road ends and maintenance of the walking tracks outside the national park.  
Although we are very pleased that a local solution has been developed here and as the member for Invercargill noted the bill’s commentary does provide that it should not be taken as a precedent for other local authorities I can certainly see other councils such as those on the West Coast—Westland District Council Buller District Council and Grey District Council which also have very high visitor numbers and a low rating base—wanting a similar model there. That is where I think the bill highlights a much wider national issue: the limited ability of councils with a small rating base to fund the infrastructure and amenities that are needed to ensure that visitors enjoy the experience and that we also sustain the qualities of the natural environment and natural assets that attracted people here in the first place.  
As other members have noted these tourism taxes are used quite widely overseas. They take the form of entry fees hotel bed taxes or sometimes vehicle charges. Some of the Canadian states have a hotel room tax and in France visitors have to pay a flat-rate tourism tax. But when councils in New Zealand have attempted it such as Westland District Council which from memory experimented with a tourism tax based on the number of toilet pans there has been strong resistance to that. So I think we need to provide some more thought on some new tools and a consistent approach around New Zealand to how local authorities can ensure that visitors contribute to funding the facilities and infrastructure that they benefit from. One suggestion in the past has been that there be a tourism levy on all visitors and that that provide a contestable fund that local authorities could apply to.  
I would like to acknowledge the work that the Local Government and Environment Committee did in the 49th Parliament and the quite substantial changes that it made to the bill as the member for Te Tai Tonga has noted. Those included how visitors were defined and I was very pleased to see that visitors who spend all of their time within Rakiura National Park are defined as excluded visitors so that they are not subject to the levy. This is particularly important because of course our conservation legislation safeguards free access to national parks and protected lands.  
I think we need to acknowledge the enormous contribution that the Department of Conservation makes to both managing the national parks and providing quite substantial infrastructure for visitors in the form of walking tracks campsites roadside picnic areas short walking tracks and of course tramping tracks and huts. On Stewart Island we have got the 29-kilometre Rakiura tramping track and the 120-kilometre north-west circuit.  
The Department of Conservation operates on an annual budget equivalent to the Hamilton City Council yet it has responsibility for a third of New Zealand and an extensive marine area. The tactics being adopted by this Government of slashing the department’s budget by $54 million annually and of restructuring so that 104-odd staff positions were lost are the wrong ones. We need to ensure that the department that manages the infrastructure for tourism in terms of those natural assets is properly funded because of course 86 percent of Rakiura / Stewart Island is conservation land and the wonders of the Rakiura National Park and the opportunities it provides for tramping hunting fishing and walking along wild coasts are what draw the visitors. Just as this bill is intended to help the Southland District Council adequately fund the jetty at Ulva Island improved energy generation and other infrastructure to benefit both international and domestic visitors we need to adequately invest in funding the Department of Conservation so it can sustain those natural assets. Anyone who has visited Ulva Island and watched kaka tearing the bark off trees knows what a special experience that is. So although we support this bill we would also like to see increased funding for the department that protects those natural assets. Thank you.