O'Connor Damien: Game Animal Council Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Connor Damien: Game Animal Council Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14916. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour—West Coast - Tasman): It is a pleasure to follow the member for the North Shore Maggie Barry. I am sure that a lot of hunting goes on up there—I am not sure how many things they hit though.Of course Labour supported and was part of the initiation of the Game Animal Council Bill in 2008 when good intent was in place to bring some coordination to the issue of recreational hunting and the tension between the hunting sector and conservationists across the country. Unfortunately whether we like it or not there havebeen a number of pests introduced into this country. Some of them have ended up being partially productive. Some of them have been totally destructive. What we are dealing with here are the ones that fall in the middle. Some people see them as a great asset; others see them as a huge liability particularly on the conservation estate.There is a philosophical divide here that has I guess been behind many of the submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee. I was not on the select committee but I have heard from and spoken to many people from both sides. Labour supports the need for greater coordination between hunters and conservationists. It is sensible. These are people who are passionate about the outdoors and I applaud them. Whether someone goes into the outdoors to walk to mountain bike or to go and hunt they are all appreciating the spectacular natural values of our country and are prepared to step in and pay their taxes in support. So we must support whatever their interests are.But it does come down to the reality—it has not been said here other than by myself—that 1080 has been a big player in this whole tension. As the Department of Conservation regional councils and farmers have become more effective in the management of the possum population they have spread 1080 far more systematically and accurately than they did in the early 1970s. But they have still done so and there has been some by-kill—there is no doubt about that. So hunters who have been passionate about going out and finding the odd deer chamois or tahr—but deer in particular—have felt aggrieved that their prey has been reduced by this broadcasting of poison to kill possums.There has been a view that the hunting fraternity should have more say in that management. Conservationists on the other hand would be happy to see them all go and see the indigenous forest restored to its original value—actually that is impossible because forests will evolve. So the tension between deer numbers and our indigenous forests has been at the heart of this debate in my view. On top of that there has been a growing commercial hunting sector which does make a lot of money. It brings a lot of export dollars into this country through people flying in staying at high-value lodges and spending a whole lot of money to go out and trophy hunt in our wonderful conservation estate and in the national parks as we have seen. Managing that in an appropriate way is the objective of this whole exercise.However the bill has been tinkered with. Because of MMP and the deals that have effectively been made with the Hon Peter Dunne one sector has kind of got some momentum and that is the commercial hunting fraternity. It has been well represented. It has done a lot of good lobbying. Some might say that it has won the day. The concern with Supplementary Order Paper 395 from the Minister of Conservation which removes the recreational component of hunting is that it is a backwards step and the legislation will not deliver the outcome that everyone was looking for in 2008 when the process was initiated. So I believe that we will be back in this House in the very near future making changes to this legislation because we find that there are perhaps some imbalances.In particular I have had assurances from the hunting fraternity that they will in no way through this new Game Animal Council attempt to stop the utilisation of 1080 in the forest areas that are pretty hard to get to. I welcome that assurance and I will be watching very closely for them committing to that. If we back away from the determination to knock bovine tuberculosis on the head and to knock the possum population down to very low numbers then we as a nation are exposed and at risk of a further big outbreak of bovine tuberculosis. No one wants that.The speaker from the Green Party Eugenie Sage did raise an issue that we should be mindful of and that is the issue of the control of Canadian geese where effectively amanagement plan did not work. The number of geese did get out of control to the point where there was a new approach needed to get on top of it. We hope that these faults and failings do not result from the passage of this bill. Labour does have concerns. We supported the bill going to the select committee. Changes have been made as many will say but we are not convinced that each and every one of them has been the right change.The Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 395 put forward at the last minute does beg some questions. The “overriding considerations” is a term in the bill that I have gone through and read and it basically says just about anything really. That leaves the door open for the Minister to do what he or she should like. Regulations being made by the Minister have to take on board the purposes of the Wild Animal Control Act of course and overriding considerations. If you read through that—I am not going to read it in this House—it covers everything.I am a bit concerned about handing to any Minister some open right to make I guess management plans for some wild animals. We have a spectacular conservation estate. We do need to protect it. We need to be mindful of a squeeze under this Government on the Department of Conservation that has meant it is looking for more partnerships on a commercial basis. In this particular area it may very well lead to herds of tahr or chamois that are managed for very wealthy people who might pay big fees to their hosts and then on to the Department of Conservation.If that is indeed what the Government expects then it should be upfront about that because that will limit the ability of ordinary New Zealanders like the member over the other side there Mr Roy from putting a gun on his back and going out and shooting tahr or chamois or anything that moves in fact. If we had a few more Eric Roys I am sure we would have far lower numbers of deer and chamois and tahr. The fact is that he spends too much time in the House here I guess to do that.Can I say in all seriousness that Labour would have liked to support a bill that did achieve a fine balance between recreational commercial and conservation interests in hunting. We accept that we have these exotic animals in our indigenous forests. They do have an impact. We need to keep the numbers low. We need to seize the opportunities for commercial exploitation where possible but not at the expense of conservation and not at the expense of what is a reasonable expectation for New Zealand hunters to go out in the bush and to find something that they can shoot at and bring home for tea.It is unfortunate that we cannot do that. I would have liked to speak in support of this piece of legislation but the changes were not good enough and the protections were not good enough. I just hope that we do get a positive outcome for conservation and for hunting from this.