Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): The National Party—we should call them the Statists"—the Statists. The only party in the Parliament here who thinks the only person who should be trusted to issue an infringement notice which will probably be about 100 bucks a week are the Statist party—the National Party—the party who denies representative democracy through Fish & Game councils. Fish & Game councils are mass-membership democratic organisations. They are a statutory authority. In some ways they're like councils. Their jurisdiction is more limited than a council but they have a statutory jurisdiction in respect of sports fish and habitat protection in our rivers and lakes around New Zealand.Hon Member: The Law Society for trout.Hon DAVID PARKER: The Law Society for trout? No they're even more than that actually. They're the council for river protection and lakes and sports fish.Now we're told that they're not to be trusted issuing an infringement notice of about 100 bucks but they can take a court prosecution. They can take a court prosecution which would often be an overreaction in respect of low-level offending which ends up in a criminal conviction for the person who is prosecuted in the courts. So it's not really in the interests of the prosecuted person to go through the courts at great stress and expense when actually they would more often prefer just to get an infringement notice that more reflects the seriousness of their offending a bit like a traffic fine.What's the next bit of information about Fish & Game councils? Well in addition to having many tens of thousands of members who elect the council who control the actions of the executive—so there is a control on the actions of the executive through a democratically elected body that's got tens of thousands of ordinary New Zealanders making the election decision that the statist National Party does not trust. In addition to that what's been the record? Well their record has been that they are the only ones in New Zealand that prosecute for sports fish infringements and more often than the Department of Conservation by many multiples they're the people who've been bringing prosecutions against farmers who are breaching water rights. They've done more than the Department of Conservation. So they're trustworthy enough to do that but they're not trustworthy enough to actually be able to issue an infringement notice.What about habitat protection more generally? How many water conservation orders are there in New Zealand? I don't know. The Minister of Conservation will know—probably about 20. How many of them have been done by Fish & Game councils and how many of them have been done by other arms of the statist Government that the National Party supports? Actually more than 90 percent I would say of the water conservation orders in New Zealand have been started by applications by the old acclimatisation societies or the modern Fish & Game councils—not the State; it's actually been Fishing & Game councils that have done that. But oh no we can't trust them to actually issue an infringement notice instead of a prosecution through the courts.What happens if you get an infringement notice that you don't think's fair? You appeal to the courts and the courts act as oversight in respect of whether the infringement notice is a fair thing to do. So there's court oversight. What other oversight? Well Parliament could revisit this if somehow we had this rash of rabid Fish & Game councils going out there willy-nilly enforcing the law. We could actually take the powers of enforcement off them. This is just barking mad of the National Party to be opposing this.And no wonder they're plummeting in the polls. They're falling out not just with their normal backers but just about everyone in the Fish & Game councils—these tens of thousands of members—no doubt will get a message in their magazine that the National Party the party of statists opposed the Fish & Game Council being able to issue an infringement notice instead of a criminal prosecution.What other things can we say in respect of this? Well in addition to them being elected habitat protection all of these things—they do already have a right of prosecution in a more serious form directly through the courts. They can bring a criminal prosecution. But do you know what the last Government wouldn't fix for them in respect of that? In order to bring a prosecution in the courts you've got to have the date of birth of the person that you're prosecuting. That's pretty sensible because sometimes if you just have the name and address of someone if someone's got the same name as their parent—John Smith or John Smith—you don't know whether it's John Smith the senior or John Smith Jnr unless you get their date of birth.Do you know what the last Government said? They said "Oh. It would be a breach of people's civil liberties if we give the right to the Fish & Game councils to ask people their date of birth." I'm not kidding you. The last Government would not give the Fish & Game councils the right to get the date of birth even though the prosecution guidelines that the Crown impose on Fish & Game in respect of the prosecutions requires them to give the date of birth of the offender when they file the prosecution. The statists on the other side are so impractical that it's no wonder they think some of our environmental laws—and this is actually an environmental law for the protection of fisheries—shouldn't be extended to Fish & Game councils.I'm really bemused at the National Party choosing to vote against this bill that they said otherwise they like—Hon Ruth Dyson: Who introduced?Hon DAVID PARKER: —that they introduced. They're now opposing this whole bill on that spurious ground. That party they have so lost their way. I'm aghast that they think that this is a matter of civil liberties that an infringement power shouldn't be—oh they're somehow more trustworthy than I don't know customs officers dog control offices at a council level and all the other agencies of State or local government who can give infringement notices. But no no it's a terrible infringement on civil liberties.Wind back a bit. When they came to originally allowing them to file criminal prosecutions: where did the National Party stand there? I bet you if you go through Hansards of yesteryear the forebears of the National Party who were not the statist party of the current National Party—I reckon they would have voted in favour of those powers of Fish & Game councils to bring actual more serious criminal prosecutions through the courts. And yet they can't agree on a right to issue an infringement notice.So what would be the outcome if the National Party had their way? Well there are more costs for everyone. There are more costs to the Fish & Game Council of bringing a prosecution through the courts—it'll cost them some thousands of dollars instead of the cost of writing out a ticket—and the poor old offender has costs of probably $1000 as well has to go to a lawyer and they have the stress and they have a criminal record. Now that would be expunged eventually under the legislation that wipes minor convictions after a period of time but in the meantime they'd go along for a job and they'd say "Have you got any convictions?" and they'd have to write them on their form that yes the Fish & Game Council prosecuted them for doing something illegal. Whereas if they get an infringement notice they don't have to do that; they just have to pay their fine which is appropriate and if they don't think the fine's right because they haven't done anything wrong well they can go to the court anyway to defend their reputation.So I look forward to the contribution of the next statist to defend the position that the National Party is taking that is so impractical that it beggars belief. And I look forward to the reporting of this by the Fish & Game Council to their tens of thousands of members throughout the country telling their members that the National Party is out of touch with their interests and their members."