Robertson Grant: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 November 2012. Volume:685;Page:6638. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call on this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. As other speakers have noted there is a lot to be said positively about this bill in the sense that it takes seriously the issues that have been raised about smuggling and about protecting our flora and fauna by increasing fines and trying to address some of the inconsistency within the various fines regimes that cover our conservation estate and that cover the flora and fauna that as the previous speaker Nicky Wagner has said we are all so proud of in New Zealand. It always strikes me when we look at legislation that is about fines and regimes for penalties that we find ourselves in the House continuously trying to update them like some kind of inflation index here within the House. 
I do wonder at the wisdom sometimes of legislation that sets dollar figures and then expects time to stand still and those dollar figures to somehow mean something. As Ruth Dyson said earlier when you have a situation where it is a $500 fine or 1 year in prison that indicates that time has got away on the legislation. I do think that overall there is a question of whether it is wise to be setting in legislation particular dollar figure penalties when in fact what we are trying to do is express the will of Parliament about the seriousness of these offences—whether actually we are better off with some other kind of system that does not require us to come back as some form of inflation index every few years and make the changes that are being proposed tonight by Jacqui Dean. But that is obviously not in the scope of this particular bill and the fines increases and penalty increases that are indicated in the bill seem to me to be reasonable. Certainly from the Labour Party’s point of view we are keen to see this bill go to the Local Government and Environment Committee to discuss the wisdom of the penalties regimes as they stand. 
But if we are talking about making things consistent there is one thing that we can say that is absolutely consistent about this Government’s approach to conservation matters and that is the fact that from the day its members entered office they have undermined the operations of the Department of Conservation— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: That’s rubbish! 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Dr Smith says it is rubbish. Let us go through the record. The 2009 Budget cut $54 million out from the Department of Conservation— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Over how many years? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —with 400 job losses Dr Smith. That was projected just in 2009. Dr Smith ask over how many years. It does not matter Dr Smith. Taking $54 million out of the budget of the Department of Conservation undermines the work. It is all very well for National members to come to this House with bills that look like they care about the conservation estate and that improve the penalties regime but sitting behind that is a cut of $54 million from the Department of Conservation. 
In September last year they announced that they were cutting 96 members of staff at the Department of Conservation. That is staff from 12 conservancies right around the country. Members of this House will know as they travel around the country the impact of those cuts on those local conservancies. It is not like it was the great back-office cuts that we were told about. These are people in regional New Zealand who are charged with protecting our conservation estate whom this Government has cut. These people include the scientists. As Ruth Dyson said before what the department needs is the ability to be able to provide the information for the evidence-based decisions that Dr Smith and others would tell us that they believe in. But it is those scientists who have lost their jobs under this Government. 
The Government has systematically undermined the Department of Conservation and what we are now left with is a situation where only 250 of 2700 threatened species are actually under active management. 
Louise Upston 
: Remind me the relevancy to the bill? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Louise Upston asks how this is relevant. What is the point of a penalties regime that involves the conservation estate if the Government undermines the very protection of that estate and of the protection of the flora and fauna that this Government says it cares about? It puts the penalties regime up but the department that is charged with looking after it is consistently undermined by this Government. Now we have a department reliant on private donations and groups to fill in the gaps. It is great to see corporations getting behind things like kiwi recovery but in the end if the BNZ decides it has got other priorities there is nothing left inside this department. We support this bill to the select committee but we do so knowing that this Government has a record of undermining conservation.