Hague Kevin: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Hague Kevin: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:20687] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in the third reading of the Freedom Camping Bill. I was disappointed to miss the Committee stage because it was clearly a lively debate to which I had wished to contribute many remarks. It was very interesting to hear the Minister of Conservation refer in her remarks in her third reading speech to the consultation process that she says led to the construction of this bill. What a shame that that process did not involve trampers hunters and mountain bikers—all of those who will be so terribly affected by this ridiculous bill. 
I will give eight main reasons—I raised five fingers but really there are another three—why this is such a bad bill. The first of those reasons is that it penalises ordinary Kiwis for doing things that are an important part of our way of life. We have heard a lot about that so far in the debate in the House at all stages. 
The second point is that the things this bill penalises are already offences. They are already against the law so what actually is it about this bill that will be more effective than all of the previous penalties and offences? There is absolutely nothing. The idea that in some way the bill will deal with this problem is based on an entirely fanciful notion. It will not work. 
The third thing is that there are certainly some issues associated with a small minority of people who have campervans that do not have toilets and who park overnight in a location where there are no suitable facilities for them. But in those exact same places there are day visitors who may also get caught short. It is the absence of facilities that is the problem not the freedom camping activity. This bill does nothing to deal with that problem either. The Rugby World Cup is coming along and then there will be plenty of day visitors too. 
The fourth point I will make is one that I made strongly in the second reading debate which is that it would have been so much better to use a non-regulatory approach to this issue because regulatory approaches are appropriate in situations where people do not want to comply with a direction they know to be the best one. In this case visitors to our country actually want to look after our environment. The correct approach is to make that easy for them to do not to penalise them for not doing it. There would have been plenty of other ways to do that. 
The fifth reason is an important one and I raised it in the second reading debate hoping that it would achieve a little bit more media coverage than it did. There is a problem with this bill: it gives the impression of validity to existing territorial local authority provisions related to freedom camping. In fact the bill does not add any greater legal status to those provisions. The Local Government and Environment Committee heard that those provisions already enacted by territorial local authorities in very large number would be found by a court to be invalid because the existing law requires that territorial local authorities pass by-laws about these matters only in those locations where there is a demonstrated problem and only where the by-law is the best means available to deal with that problem. 
That is not the approach that territorial local authorities have taken. We see territorial local authorities that have imposed blanket bans. The provision in this bill that says a territorial local authority may not impose a blanket ban is all well and good but people should recognise that that is just for the sake of clarity. It does not change the requirement that there has to be an actual problem in a specific location that a response has to be the best way of dealing with that problem and that the response has to be proportional to the problem. What we have seen for the most part is responses that do not meet that formula and that will fail in court as soon as they are challenged. 
The next point I come to is the impracticality of this legislation. Again I was stupefied to hear from the Minister of Conservation today in this debate that this bill has emerged as a result of consultation with those who will be enforcing it because I see this bill as one of the least enforceable I have seen certainly in my time in Parliament and in my time of observing Parliament over many years. This bill is impractical and it will be found to be hard to enforce or at least hard to enforce without giving the impression to all users of our back country and natural places—Kiwis and visitors alike—of pervading officiousness. I think that is the culture we are likely to see emerge as territorial local authorities and the Department of Conservation come to try to implement this ridiculous bill. 
The seventh point I make is in response to one that the Minister of Conservation Kate Wilkinson and the Minister for the Environment Nick Smith made in response to my first reading speech and that Nick Smith made again in his second reading speech in which he appeared to be completely unable to distinguish between the effects of the extremely small infinitesimal impact of this particular problem of freedom camping on freshwater quality in New Zealand and the effect of dairying intensification on freshwater quality in New Zealand. Nick Smith Minister for the Environment seemed unable to distinguish which of these impacts was the larger. He seemed to say that they were comparable. I tell the House that they are not comparable. The impact for example of the planned extra 1 million dairy cows in the intensification planned for this country will be equivalent to an extra 14 million human beings with all of the consequent environmental impacts on our fresh water and without the treatment systems that exist for human beings. 
The eighth point I make—and it is one I made in both the first and second readings but I will reiterate it—is about the impact this bill will have on our overseas visitors. This is a bill that this Government is rushing into place for the Rugby World Cup but for all of those overseas visitors coming to visit our country instead of the welcome mat being rolled out this Government is choosing to roll out a “Not Welcome” mat a “Keep Off the Grass” sign in neon lights. It is entirely the wrong approach. This Government could instead have actually used the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme to recognise the fact that visitors to our country and Kiwis using the back country contribute very substantially both to local economies and to our national economy. Therefore it is reasonable for local economies through territorial local authorities and for the national economy through the Sanitary Works Subsidy Scheme to fork out just a little bit to provide the extra facilities required in popular spots for freedom camping and to use a little bit extra to provide education about where those places are. That is exactly the approach that Tourism New Zealand was following and it is exactly the approach that this Government should have continued to follow had it not lost its nerve. 
This is a bad bill. It is bad from start to finish and this House and this country will regret it.