Street Maryan: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13732. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It gives me great pleasure to rise to support this Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill in the name of Jacqui Dean at the Committee stage. I too would like to join the wave of unanimity and harmony and peace that has broken out in the Committee over this bill and say that it gives me great pleasure indeed to support it. In fact I want to thank Jacqui Dean for her gracious acknowledgment of the contribution I was able to make on this bill by extending it to cover the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978. I will come back to that in a moment because the purpose of the inclusion of that Act in this bill will become clear.But I have to say that in the course of thinking about whether or not there was something more that could be done with this bill there were a number of recent cases of harm to marine mammals that had come to public attention. I must confess that I approached the Minister of Conservation Dr Nick Smith and asked him whether he would oppose or be averse to the inclusion of the Marine Mammals Protection Act and penalties under that Act in this bill so that in the process of making penalties consistent across a range of Acts we could include harm done to marine mammals. He was very enthusiastic about that incorporation and in fact signalled a review of marine mammals legislation and marine Acts in general which I understand he is pursuing. He was very gracious and I want to give him credit for that. Notwithstanding the difficulties he is facing currently I believe credit should go where credit is due and after all every dog has his day.As far as this bill is concerned the purpose that Jacqui Dean brought to the Local Government and Environment Committee was to ensure that New Zealand’s wildlife and natural and historic resources would be better protected. This was her motivation. I applaud her for that. It was a worthwhile effort and in the course of the select committee I think we have jointly made some constructive improvements around the table at the select committee that have strengthened even further the capability of this legislation.The problem had been that across a range of pieces of legislation the penalties differed. It was entirely possible to commit an offence and have it receive a negligible penalty under one piece of legislation and a different penalty under another—for example if someone were to release a stoat on to a nature reserve the highest penalty would be $500 or 1 month’s imprisonment. Under the National Parks Act 1980 if a bit of a national park was carved off and converted to pasture or a stand of trees milled the highest penalty would have been a maximum fine of $2500 or 3 months’ imprisonment. However if the same offences happened in a conservation area then the maximum penalty would be $10000 or 12 months’ jail.Typically the national parks’ protected areas were of higher value than conservation areas. But when it came to the creatures that inhabit these for us special areas the range of penalties made no sense—made absolutely no sense. Obviously the situationthat my colleague Nicky Wagner referred to a moment ago arising out of the member Jacqui Dean’s own electorate of Waitaki where the smuggling of jewelled geckos was becoming rife and hugely lucrative for the people who were engaged in it was impetus enough for this bill.But what we have done in this bill which I think is highly commendable is that we have taken the Conservation Act 1987 the National Parks Act 1980 the Reserves Act 1977 the Wildlife Act 1953 the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and added to that the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 and we have brought them all under the same penalty regime. So there can be no more obfuscation around damage to harm to stealing of or smuggling of creatures that are precious to us whether they be eggs or whether they be live specimens.Now we have changed that—or at least we will with the passage of this legislation currently in its Committee stage. Most penalties are increased to up to $100000 for individuals and $200000 for individuals who are acting for commercial reasons or for a company. Ongoing daily penalties are increased to up to $10000 and $20000 respectively for individuals and those working on behalf of a company. Breaches of by-laws incur up to $5000 or $10000 penalties. This two-tiered kind of regime will make not only the monitoring but the implementation and the prosecution of this legislation consistent.So at the moment we have—without wishing to comment unduly on a case before the court—a case of a Blenheim man in front of the Nelson court currently on charges of killing 13 female breeding seals at a seal colony on theKaikōura coast two bulls and eight seal pups. Because of the difference in the regimes under different pieces of legislation he is being tried under a piece of legislation that will have far lesser consequences for him than if he were being tried under another piece of legislation. That was then and he will be tried according to the law in place at the time of the alleged crime so that is happening as we speak. But no more after this; once this bill gets to its third reading people will not be able to pick and choose which piece of legislation they will contest their crime under.The police will have an easier job of prosecuting under different pieces of legislation because the penalties will be comparable. So it will be easier for the police to make sure that the actions will be dealt with consistently in terms of penalties regardless of the particular piece of legislation they are charging a person under. That has got to be helpful. We need to protect our special fauna in this country and that extends to marine mammals.I would also like to add my congratulations to the officials on the work they did. They advised us in a way that was impartial but very committed. They were very committed to what they were doing. I recognise this as a feature of staff who work in the Department of Conservation and I thank them for it. There are fewer and fewer of them as the days go by but the ones who still remain are absolutely committed to the conservation of our endangered species and our special species in our jurisdictional area. I thank the officials for their advice and for the way they made sure that what we were doing in this bill was consistent throughout. I commend the bill to the Committee.