Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): It is Conservation Week and today we have become aware that there is a new endangered species: DOC rangers. It is Conservation Week and it is time that we acknowledge that the National Government is not truly committed to conservation. We can see all too clearly that what National values is publicity and looking good and great announcements but it does not care about action or results. Throughout its time in Government National has systematically underfunded the Department of Conservation. This means that the Department of Conservation is not able to carry out its core functions and it means that more species are at risk than ever before. This Government makes a virtue out of its so-called commitment to conservation. It has announced the Battle for our Birds and Predator Free 2050 with great fanfare. It is certainly happy to pay for the photo ops but it is not happy to pay for those things itself. Behind all of that spin is the reality. Let us take a look at its so-called ambitious plan—the Apollo shot—that it has set for New Zealand of becoming predator-free by 2050 which is a laudable goal. It is so ambitious in fact that the National Government has given just $7 million a year for 4 years to pay for a mission that expires in 2050—a mission that has had an estimated cost of $9 billion. So you can see exactly how this Government is committed to looking good and to making grand announcements with no substance and no plan to actually pay for them. That is typical of this Government: cutting funding by a lot and then claiming a small increase back as some kind of massive win. Over the past 8 years DOC has missed out on $368 million of funding which is every year added together since National took office adjusted for inflation. The 2016 budget was $40 million less an undercut of nearly 9 percent on the 2015 budget. Funding for native species in fact fell by $27 million which is a 14 percent cut. We are told that in 2015 there were 833 DOC rangers and this year there are 788 DOC rangers. At that rate of decline DOC rangers themselves will become extinct in about a dozen years. The last DOC ranger to be spotted in the wild will be sometime around Christmas of 2027. Even today there is only one ranger for every 35000 acres of land that the Department of Conservation is responsible for. That is the equivalent of 16380 rugby fields of conservation land for each DOC ranger to cover. We need to fund conservation properly. National is not doing this. Our species are more at risk than they have ever been before and DOC is struggling to cover its core basic functions. In May this year the Green Party asked the Minister of Conservation whether DOC was meeting its basic functions and the answers showed the following: 46 percent of our DOC tracks are not up to standard; 25 percent of our huts are not up to standard; seven huts have closed and have not reopened; and eight structures including boardwalks for viewing platforms failed barrier assessments 167 failed load capacity assessments and 37 are listed as needing serious or critical work tasks outstanding". The Waikaremoana one of my first Great Walks when I was an early teenager is listed multiple times for this—the same walk where four French tourists were violently thrown from a bridge when the cable snapped. Most critically 142 species including the kea the flesh-footed shearwater and the wandering albatross have had their threat status increased since this Government came into office in 2008. The Green Party knows that what conservation needs is action not spin. It is time to change the Government. In Government the Green Party would properly fund the Department of Conservation and support thousands of volunteers around the country who are doing great work. We would ensure that DOC at least has the funding to cover its basic functions. This Government is failing on conservation. It is Conservation Week. The Minister of Conservation should restore the Department of Conservation's funding to at least the level that it was before her Government came into office so that it can do some conservation. Thank you."