SpeechKEVIN HAGUE (Green): Ki Te Tiamana o Te Whare tēnā koe ki a koutou huri noa i Te Whare tēnā koutou katoa. Ngā mihi o Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori ki a tātou katoa. Ka tū au mō ngā Kākāriki ki te kōrero i te tautohetohe o ngā whakatau tata e pā ana ki ngā take taiao. [Thank you Mr Chairman and to you collectively throughout the Committee acknowledgments of Māori Language Week to us all. I stand for the Greens to speak in the Estimates debate on matters relating to the environment.]I want to specifically speak about conservation. I agree with the Hon Dr Nick Smith who told the Committee a short time ago that the challenge of protecting our unique biodiversity was at the very top of the challenges facing this country in the environmental sector. I want perhaps to begin by also appraising the commitment of the Minister Maggie Barry in relation to the War on Weeds. Her commitment on that topic is certainly welcome and it is possible that the funding the Government has allocated to wilding pine control may be enough to start to make a difference on that issue. However the Minister used her contribution in this debate to again retail the spin that has characterised this Government's approach to conservation funding. Under this Government's watch since 2008 162 species of threatened biodiversity have had their threat classification increased closer to extinction. For some of those there are actually fewer of the animal or the plant and for others we have got more data that tells us that the situation was worse than we thought previously. In either case that should be a stimulus to the Government to spend more on conservation and yet this is a Government that ranks conservation pretty much at the bottom of the portfolios that it deals with. This is a Government that has chosen to invest a teeny tiny slice of its Budget—less than the margin of error—towards that vital purpose of conservation. Since 2008 sometimes the budget has gone up sometimes it has gone down. Overall in real terms adjusted to 2015 the Government's expenditure on conservation on average per year has been more than $50 million less than it was in 2008 when this Government took office. In total that is more than $350 million in real terms—a massive hole in conservation funding. I have spoken in this Chamber about the huts and the tracks and the structures that are falling to rack and ruin and I questioned the Minister about that at the Local Government and Environment Committee. I am very pleased to report that even as we speak in the huts the tracks and the structures of the conservation estate there is currently feverish activity going on to try to ensure that actually the performance of the Government in maintaining those comes just a little bit closer to the standard that has been set although it is still currently way below that. The Minister again retailed the line that suggested that the Government's funding for conservation has been retained. What the Minister is not telling the public of New Zealand and what the Minister is not telling the staff of her department is that she is able to make that claim because of the Budget items that are carried over from previous years. And what she does not say is that the work that money was appropriated for has also been carried over. That money is not available for core conservation work. The funding has declined substantially and reflects a regular massive underspend by this Government against its budget. So it sets a budget that looks good and then it massively underspends it. Part of the reason for that is that capital expenditure cannot be spent because Treasury will not allow it because there is no money available for the operating expenditure for maintenance. This is a Government that has failed the conservation challenge.Votes agreed to.