Barry Maggie: Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 29 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9982. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): I move That the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill.Protecting our native wildlife is of crucial importance to the ongoing health of New Zealand’s precious natural environment. Our birds our animals and our forests are central to our sense of our national identity. They are our national monuments taonga that are treasured by all New Zealanders. However species such as moa the giant Haast’s eagle grayling and huia have become extinct since humans landed here. Today some 77 species of our surviving native birds or 37 percent have either disappeared from mainland New Zealand or face a real risk of doing so. Many other species of wildlife are also threatened.The unique qualities and threatened status of so many of our species is why the Wildlife Act absolutely protects our native bats reptiles frogs and birds. The Wildlife Act also protects eight marine fish species marine corals and a small number of native land invertebrates. Under the Marine Mammals Protection Act New Zealand’s whales dolphins seals and sea lions are also absolutely protected. This means that it is illegal to hunt kill possess or sell these animals.Unfortunately some people still continue to illegally hunt or kill protected wildlife. For example people have been caught trying to smuggle tuatara native parrots and geckos out of New Zealand. Since 2010 there have been seven convictions for the attempted smuggling of 68 geckos. International dealers and collectors have a high demand for these geckos as they are unique attractive and long-lived. Within New Zealand people have also been prosecuted for taking or killing geckos and protected birds such as kererū. Hunters have taken dogs into wildlife refuges or set possum traps illegally on the ground so that they “accidentally” catch kiwi and weka. This sort of offending matters because it is yet another pressure on our wildlife. Even low levels of offending can harm species that are already threatened by introduced predators and by the loss of their habitats.In 2013 my colleague Jacqui Dean’s Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Act significantly increased the penalties for offending under the Wildlife Act and in five other conservation-related Acts. This Act rightly had the strong support of all sides of the House. However increased penalties are only one part of any tool kit to deter and respond to offending. We also need education and information to increase awareness and to improve voluntary complianceand we need to be effective at apprehending and prosecuting offenders if they do in fact offend. This is the focus of this bill.Although the Wildlife Act includes many enforcement powers these have not been updated for more than 60 years. A good illustration of this is that the Act currently enables any ranger to call on any “male person” over the age of 18 for assistance—I think it is about time the Act was brought into the 21st century. The old powers also mean that there are four significant gaps in the basic powers that we feel are essential for effective enforcement. These gaps can make it difficult to investigate offences thoroughly or to prosecute offenders when this is necessary.Firstly it would seem logical that if rangers come across offending either about to occur or in progress they would be able to intervene to prevent it or to stop it. Unfortunately rangers are not currently authorised to take preventative action to stop an offence that is about to occur.Secondly rangers are currently authorised to stop and search vehicles vessels and bags and other items in transit. However they do not have the power to temporarily stop people from leaving the scene of an offence so that rangers have sufficient time to carry out their duties. The ability to do this can be vitally important in situations where an offender is trying to evade the ranger or to hide the evidence of the offending.Thirdly establishing and verifying an offender’s identity is essential to any ability to prosecute. Although a ranger can require a person found offending to provide their name and address they cannot require that offender to provide evidence of their identity. Offenders can therefore give false names and addresses which makes it very difficult to investigate offences and bring about successful prosecutions.Finally the Act currently allows rangers to seize only a few types of evidence and this does not include common items such as mobile phones cameras documents or computers. In several cases rangers investigating offences were not able to seize cameras phones and even bundles of cash which would have provided evidence that the offending was commercially motivated and therefore warranted higher penalties.The intent of the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill is to provide better tools for protecting our wildlife by addressing these gaps in the enforcement powers. It is important to note at the outset that Department of Conservation (DOC) rangers who have compliance training and carry warrants from its director-general—these are about 260 DOC staff—already have these powers when they are dealing with offences on conservation land. This amendment bill expands that power of the conservation estate and includes any area in New Zealand.So this bill would allow a ranger to intervene to prevent an offence if it were about to occur or to stop offending that was in progress. For example a ranger might trip or remove illegally set traps or intervene to prevent someone who is hunting protected species. If a ranger does intervene the way in which that person does so would need to be “reasonable in the circumstances”. The bill allows a ranger to temporarily stop a person to ensure that they do not leave the scene. The ranger will however need to have reasonable cause to stop the person and may stop them for only a period of time that is reasonable in the circumstances. It will also enable a ranger to request an offender to provide their date of birth and evidence of their identity. Rangers have been misled and lied to in the past and were unable to achieve successful prosecutions because of this. The bill will also allow a ranger to seize any evidence provided that it is relevant to the investigation of the offence. These four standard powers will be available to the department’s full-time rangers.Finally the bill proposes a limited power of arrest. The Wildlife Act currently does not allow rangers to arrest a person. Rather if arrest is necessary rangers have to wait for the police to come and assist. This is inefficient as it ties up the resources of two agencies and it is ineffective as offenders—not surprisingly—will not wait for the police to arrive and a lot of offending against wildlife takes place in remote areas. A power of arrest would therefore be useful in specific planned surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations such as for international poaching offences as these can last for several weeks and often occur in the backblocks hours away from towns and police stations.Because the ability to arrest someone is a significant power it will be limited to serious offending against absolutely protected wildlife such as that involving illegal hunting killing or export. Access to the power of arrest is also limited to full-time DOC rangers who are specifically warranted to use it. The current training given to rangers covers this ground and making those minor changes to the Act will not impact on the department’s budget. This is in essence a very minor technical change.The bill does not affect the Act’s core principles such as the protection status of wildlife or how wildlife is managed. The powers will be available to protect wildlife in the same way wherever the wildlife occurs in New Zealand whether on private land or public land but these changes will not affect people or businesses unless their activities break the law. The bill also includes various safeguards around how the power is used and who can use it. The power of arrest for wildlife offences will also be available to police constables and certain Defence Force officers customs officers and fisheries officers as these agencies regularly work with the DOC in joint-agency wildlife operations.The proposals in this bill are not of course the only way of protecting our wildlife. Enforcement is only one part of any tool kit. It is far better to prevent offending happening with education and information than to deal with it after the event and we must continue to manage the pests and other threats to New Zealand’s biodiversity.I would like to finish by quoting the legendary conservationist Don Merton: “Our taonga our threatened species are our national monuments. They are our Tower of London our Arc de Triomphe our pyramids. We don’t have this ancient architecture that we can be proud of and swoon over in wonder but what we do have is something far far older than that. No one else has the kiwi no one else has the kākāpō. They have been around for millions of years if not thousands of millions of years. And once they are gone they are gone for ever. And it’s up to us to make sure they never die out.” In my opinion the enforcement powers in this bill provide necessary and practical mechanisms for helping to prevent the loss of our taonga and I commend this bill to the House.