Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Thank you Mr Speaker. I am very proud to support the Immigration (International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy) Amendment Bill. None of the speakers on the Opposition benches have responded to the challenge of the Minister of Tourism the Hon Kelvin Davis that they will repeal this.This bill is about delivering for New Zealanders. It is about the joined-up thinking in this Government which has agencies working together to solve the challenges to invest in tourism to invest in conservation to fill the gaps that that former National Government left us.This bill is much needed because there are major challenges. There is a mismatch between the sources of revenue for conservation and for tourism infrastructure which are largely funded by New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers and the increasing and large numbers of international visitors who benefit from these investments when they come to Aotearoa New Zealand. While the natural environment is the top factor in encouraging visitors to come here there's currently no targeted mechanism for enabling them to contribute to protecting the places they come to enjoy to contribute to paying for the infrastructure that they use. So that's what this levy does. It provides that mechanism. And thirdly there's been significant growth in visitor numbers and that's putting pressure on communities on our environment and on the infrastructure that supports these visitors. So this levy is the mechanism that will enable us to meet that visitor demand and to ensure that tourism is sustainable.The Opposition has claimed there is no clarity around what's going to happen to the money. This money is in the Estimates document. It will be scrutinised by Parliament. It will be scrutinised by a select committee. The National Party hasn't been listening. There will be an investment plan which is developed which is signed off by myself the Minister of Tourism the Hon Kelvin Davis and the Minister of Finance. There will be an advisory panel which contributes to the priorities in that investment plan.In the conservation space my first priority is investing in biodiversity—doing more in predator control doing more in terms of our threatened species to protect them. That's what visitors come to see and experience. Doing more to support initiatives like the ambitious one in the Mackenzie Basin to do predator control over 300000 hectares to enable species like kakī to flourish. The other priority is investing in the facilities that visitors use things like the toilet blocks the camping areas the picnic grounds. The increase in visitors has put significant pressure there—Angie Warren-Clark: The tracks.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: —the tracks the huts thank you. We've seen major growth in sites like Punakaiki and Milford Sound / Piopiotahi. The Government is responding there with significant grants from the Provincial Growth Fund but the Department of Conservation (DOC) just over the last four years has spent more than $42 million more in capital expenditure to improve visitor assets whether it's roading to access glaciers toilets car parks campsites. Just last summer DOC spent an extra $3.6 million to maintain the facilities on conservation land cleaning toilets dealing with toilet waste track maintenance—those are pressures from increasing visitor numbers. This is why this bill and the levy that it establishes is a very good solution because it will enable those international visitors to contribute to the costs of those facilities and to protecting nature. It's their contribution to our nature and our facilities. It will help maintain the social licence that tourism depends on in New Zealand. It's about a sustainable and a bright future for tourism and I really congratulate the Hon Lees-Galloway as Minister of Immigration and the Hon Kelvin Davis as Minister of Tourism for ensuring that we've got joined-up thinking in this Government to deliver the things that New Zealanders care about. I commend the bill to the House.