SpeechDr JAMES McDOWALL (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to make a few remarks on this bill and on our position. I will start by acknowledging the Economic Development Science and Innovation Committee for the time and enabling all the constitutional requirements that enabled the submitters to express their views the majority in opposition and it's a shame where the select committee process ended up because I think the bill that we have here today has suffered for that.Now that the bill has been considered by the select committee and that people have had their voices heard ACT has adjusted its position and will be opposing this bill at second reading. It is clear that the bill just doesn't add up and while it has good intentions we have to look at the policy outcome and question whether the bill is good public policy. Will it solve what it's actually trying to solve? We don't think it does. It unduly burdens travellers be they domestic or international for the actions of a few and others have spoken about this behaviour component of this as well. We need to ask what it's trying to solve and whether it will solve it and we don't believe it will.The problem as others have said is something we mostly agree on: poor behaviour leads to bad outcomes which negatively affect the enjoyment of what New Zealand has to offer but this bill won't solve it. It will put a significant cost on those doing the right thing and those who don't do the right thing will probably just wind up ignoring the law anyway.So the focus is on the wrong place and really this should be about the behaviour of these people and the context of that behaviour which is the lack of public toilets up and down this country which is not the fault of freedom campers. So based on the research by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) the law change would affect potentially up to 130000 self-contained vehicles based on initial estimates. Converting a van could cost between $1200 and $5000. Then there are other fees every few years for the certification and then the monitoring levy that they would have to pay once every four years at the time of accreditation to recover those costs.Most territorial authorities who shared infringement information with MBIE generally noticed a decrease in the total number of infringements that were being issued over the past few years in any event and this coincided with more education around this issue and Ricardo spoke about the social licence that may have been lost here and certainly this has been in the media and perhaps this has actually influenced behaviour as well.There is no consistent nationwide understanding of what a self-contained vehicle is and it seems that each territory has a bit of a different understanding of what that means and what they're going to do about it. What might be totally fine in one area and not gain an infringement might not be in another area and I just think it's too much to expect freedom campers and tourists particularly international tourists to know the difference between the different territories and the different bylaws. So there are certainly issues there.As I said in my opening the select committee process didn't end up the way it probably should have. Most submitters opposed this bill and I'll give just a few highlights from that. The New Zealand Motor Caravan Association supported the intention—again it's something that a lot of us agree on—but were concerned over the costs and they are significant. Tourism Holdings Ltd was concerned over the bill's focus on vehicles rather than poor behaviour and that's certainly our position on this. The Responsible Campers Association opposed the bill entirely with the founder Bob Osborne—and I know he's been quoted already—telling the committee that proposing fitted toilets won't guarantee that people will use them.Realistically how many people currently get infringement notices for this issue? I think the issue is that when it comes to this behaviour and putting this massive cost on freedom campers actually if they get toilets installed and then up doing poor behaviour and not using them for various reasons—because they don't want to clean it or whatever the issue may be—then they're not covered by this but for those who don't actually go to that cost could be covered by this simply because of the lack of public toilets.So the summary is that we think this bill has the wrong focus. There is too much red tape. It won't solve the problems that it's seeking to solve and it won't change behaviour. It will just add cost and compliance for those that are doing the right thing already. So ACT will not be supporting this bill any further. Thank you Madam Speaker.