Dyson Ruth: Game Animal Council Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is subject to correctionDyson Ruth: Game Animal Council Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14879. Text is subject to correction.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): It is good to speak on Part 2 of the Game Animal Council Bill which deals with some of the issues that even though not as substantive as the ones we have already been debating caused the most discussion in the Local Government and Environment Committee. One issue in particular that we discussed was that of offences and penalties.We also spent a huge amount of time in the select committee talking about how the Game Animal Council would be funded. I was really fascinated by how many proposals we had about the different methods of funding. There was always some group within the hunting fraternity that said: “That is an excellent idea—but we should be excluded.” It did not matter what model we considered or what model we thought would be an appropriate and fair way of funding the Game Animal Council through some sort of levy there was always a group that explained to us—and I think that they were being perfectly honest actually—how that would impact unfairly on them. So this part has a bit about that a bit about the offences provisions and a bit about the further definition of the “herds of special interest” and what animals may be hunted within those.I was very interested to hear an earlier contribution about how much money was going to be spent on operating the Game Animal Council. The estimates that the Local Government and Environment Committee got were $100000 for the first year of set-up and from then on after the first 12 months it would be $50000 per annum. At the same time we have had the chief executive of the Department of Conservation on the radio this morning onRural Newssaying that his department was not going anywhere near the advocacy required for the Ruataniwha dam proposal which opponents say will turn the Tukituki River toxic.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!Hon RUTH DYSON: The Department of Conservation said it would cost it $250000 to prepare and defend a robust case about the nitrate management on the Tukituki River. That is just 3 years of the funding required as outlined in Part 2 of this bill for the Game Animal Council because if it is $100000 for the first year and $50000 after it then in 3 years you have pretty well chewed through the same amount of money that the department was not prepared to use to defend—and perhaps even atsome future date enhance—the quality of a river and a river that actually has significant conservation values—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is outside the scope.Hon RUTH DYSON: Just going back to the more specific areas in this part Eric Roy in his contribution talked about the regimes that are in place in other countries. I will be interested in his contribution on this because he is right in saying that other countries have a much stricter regime around what can be hunted what can be taken from the country and what can be used for what purpose within the country. They usually have a regime where people from overseas are charged a much higher rate to hunt on public land than they would be if they were a resident of that country. Mr Roy used the examples of Canada and a state in America to emphasise his points. We do not go into that level of detail in this legislation.The select committee did not talk a lot about whether we should have a different regime for overseas nationals. I have not checked the Table recently but there may well be a Supplementary Order Paper proposing that sort of regime. It is a little more detail than the committee was able to get agreement on though. In clause 28 we talk about a person “who hunts or kills any game animal that is part of a herd of special interest”. That is a herd that has been designated as a herd of special interest. If they hunt or kill an animal without an authorisation without a licence or a permit and without complying with the terms of that authorisation however it is given whether through a licence or a permit they then are liable to be convicted of an offence that is then liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding $2500.I would be very interested to hear from some of the hunters in our Parliament as to whether they consider that to be a high enough penalty to deter people from committing such an offence because that is another area that the committee felt quite weak on in terms of knowing exactly what level of fine you would need to impose to deter anyone from committing that act. A person might say: “Well I’m interested in hunting. I can’t be bothered getting a licence or a permit or if I applied for one I might not qualify. There would be reasons that I would be excluded from being granted a licence or a permit to hunt.” So what would be the level of fee that would make them say: “Oh if I got caught I’d be fined that amount of money.”? That is exactly what clause 28 in Part 2 is aiming to do. It is aiming to set a fine at a level that would stop people from hunting or killing animals within a herd of special interest without a licence or a permit.The next couple of clauses in Part 2 sort of flow on from that. We have got clause 29 “Capturing conveying or possessing game animal that that is part of a herd of special interest”. There are obviously a limited number of ways that people could be doing that but this is different from hunting or killing. Again we set the fee at what we considered an appropriate level—$5000. So if a person captures conveys or possesses a game animal that is part of a herd of special interest without a permit or a licence they get a fine of $5000.Next in that series of fines relating to animals that are part of a herd of special interest is the provision in clause 30 “Restrictions on liberation of game animal that is part of herd of special interest”. This attracts the biggest fine in Part 2 and that is a fine of $50000. So Parliament is saying that that offence—the offence of liberating a game animal that is part of a herd of special interest or allowing any game animal that belongs to a herd of special interest to escape—is considered to be the most offensive of the three offences much more so than capturing conveying or possessing a game animal and even more so than hunting or killing an animal in a herd of special interest.I think that sometimes we go over these fines and penalties provisions quite lightly. But if you take a step back and consider why we have them the whole point is to create an environment where the weight of the penalty is such that it would stop somebodyfrom moving to commit the offence. It is not just an after-the-event consideration—that we should punish somebody because they have committed an offence. There is also the deterrent factor in the penalty regime and we certainly hope we have got it right.There are a few other provisions in Part 2 but those are the four main ones that I wanted to concentrate on. I do think it is an important regime for us to debate and I hope that it carries on for another little while.