Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Chair. That's a good decision and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to take the call.Look I want to in this committee of the whole House debate speak in support of the amendment that my colleague and friend Sarah Dowie has on the Table. This would as she's already indicated essentially return this bill back to a format that the National Party could support in this House. When the original bill was first introduced by the Hon Maggie Barry in the last Parliament there was no extension of this infringement regime beyond those members of the Department of Conservation (DOC)—those rangers who are members of the State services regime in terms of State employees—and there was no thought that that should be extended beyond to a group of independent non-State sector employees: namely the good folk at Fish & Game.So this amendment is not in any way a criticism or an objection to the good work that Fish & Game people do but it's simply based on the I think very sound and fundamental principle of our legislative framework that actually it should be duly warranted and educated trained and properly professional people who fall within the auspices of the State Sector Act and the strict controls that are imposed upon them—those are the sorts of people that should be operating an infringement regime of the sort intended by this bill. That was certainly the intent of the bill when the Hon Maggie Barry introduced it in the last Parliament. Subsequently an election took place and the new Government now sits on the Treasury benches and they've decided to extend this bill to include Fish & Game rangers.So I think that this is a fundamental change. It's the sole sticking point that prevents the party on this side of the Chamber supporting what otherwise is in every other respect I think a very sound and good bill. It's very obvious that there are offences that occur in our natural environment that require swift and urgent action and DOC rangers should be able to initiate remedial action when an event or an infringement crime or offence is being committed—and the bill basically sets that out—but to extend it to Fish & Game rangers we think on this side of the Chamber is one step too far.I do want to just also in this contribution make a brief reference to Part 3 of the bill and this is where amendments to the Marine Reserves Act of 1971 are made. In terms of the amendments to the Marine Reserves Act there will be an extension for DOC officers and presumably now also Fish & Game officers or rangers to be involved in setting about and commencing infringement offence notices for matters that occur in our marine reserves area. Now that's actually a very extensive piece of marine footprint in our natural habitat and there are some questions that I think the Minister Eugenie Sage may be able to address by way of response to this.Firstly I'm keen to know what training and what background and support rangers will have in terms of applying the infringement notice regime to those people who speak foreign languages. There are some quite significant numbers of people who are recreating and using the marine reserve spaces that we have available to us and many of them don't speak English. I'm keen to know what resources DOC are putting into that aspect of it.The powers that the infringement offence regime under this bill extends are actually very powerful. So in new section 18GA(2) inserted by clause 20 there is reference to the infringement offences being sufficiently powerful that they could include the confiscation and forfeiture of any vessel or vehicle or other conveyance". If that was to occur then those conveyances vehicles or vessels would be forfeited to the Crown. That strikes me as being in some cases a pretty weighty penalty for an infringement regime so if the Minister could address that I'd appreciate it."