O'Connor Damien: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
O'Connor Damien: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:20656] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 I follow on from my colleague from Nelson Maryan Street who rightfully points to the reality of there being issues in and around New Zealand and I do not think anyone would deny that but the Freedom Camping Bill is bizarre legislation that is attempting to kill what is part of the culture of New Zealand. In fact I was just at Copperfields grabbing my coffee from a young man in there called Robin. I said I would quote him because I said I was going back in to speak and he asked what the bill was. I said it was the Freedom Camping Bill and he asked what it does. I said it effectively stops people going and camping wherever councils put up a sign and he said “Well isn’t that the fun of New Zealand?”. In fact that is exactly right. That freedom we have that people from the UK Ireland and all around the world come to New Zealand to enjoy—the ability to go into the outdoors that is not owned or controlled by anyone and to enjoy nature—is something that goes right to the heart of what Kiwi culture is. This legislation—look at it; this bill this nanny State legislation—will stop that. 
Well I have Supplementary Order Paper 272 here from my colleague Phil Twyford which is at the heart of it. It is at the heart of this and it is what we will support. It says that it does not determine what people should do—that is it does not outlaw freedom camping—but that if people deposit waste interfere with things or do damage then they are liable for prosecution. It is a kind of Resource Management Act approach really. It does not specify exactly what we should do. Let it be noted that the parties in this House that are telling us what we should do—where we should poo and what we should do—are National and ACT. I hate to think of the number of times that I have been in this Chamber and heard rantings and ravings from members on that side and from Rodney Hide in particular about compliance costs about nanny States and about telling us as Kiwis what we should do. Do members know what they are doing? They are telling us where we can poo—they are telling us where we can poo. 
I have always been told that—not in the cities but in the greater outdoors—if people get caught short and have to exercise their natural feelings then they should take a shovel. That usually addresses it. I have to say that that is not telling people what they should or should not do or where they should or should not do it; it is saying that people should minimise and reduce the impacts of it. It is Resource Management Act bottom-line stuff. It affects base legislation. Why would you bring it into this House? I will tell members why. It is a shallow bit of politicking by Nick Smith. He has convinced his colleagues. I know that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Conservation is quite embarrassed by it because I believe she is truly committed to conservation and the outdoors and encouraging people to get out there. She knows that this bill will kill that because people will be paranoid about where they will poo. That quite frankly is just bizarre in a country of 4 million people. We have a number of visitors accepted but we bring them into this country almost under false pretences if everywhere they go they will face signs put up by councils that could effectively have a blanket ban that is up to the councils. 
Councils find this whole proposition rather bizarre because although they want to do something to reduce the impacts the Government will not help with any infrastructural costs. The previous Labour Government did with our sewerage and water subsidy scheme. It helped councils that did not have the resources but were facing quite a lot of visitors—Kaikoura in particular and many others around the country—and needed to put in place proper infrastructure. If there are no toilets it is very hard for people to go to the toilet. So we need to build infrastructure to address the problem. As we have gone out and promoted New Zealand and encouraged more people to visit this country the basic responsibility is to put in place better infrastructure. The Labour Government had assistance for councils. The National Government gave $14 billion in tax cuts to its mates the rich then said it had no money to do anything else. So it has chopped schemes like that and now councils have the difficult option of saying they cannot afford to put in place proper toilets although they want to attract visitors and they realise there is an impact. So Nick Smith in his shallow way said “Oh I’ll give you a tool. Here you are: you can go and put up little signs and tell people they’re not allowed to come here.” Well that goes to the heart of Kiwi culture. It goes to the heart of the experience that we sell and promote overseas I have to say. 
The images put out by Tourism New Zealand are of wide open spaces for people to have freedom to go out and enjoy. Most of those people understand that they have to minimise their impact on the environment. The problem is often if they are in a campervan—even if it is self-contained—at the end of their journey or when the tank is full there are simply not enough dump stations. The real impact out around the country is where self-contained campervans dump large volumes of effluent in one place. It is outrageous. It is shocking. There should be as the Supplementary Order Paper from my good colleague Phil Twyford says some penalty for that. But if we do not provide the facilities then it is very hard to impose a fine. There will be a backlash there is no doubt about that. We have amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 267 from the Minister to tidy up how the Government can charge people these penalties if they go away from New Zealand. So if they run offshore—because most of them are visitors and come here for a time—or hop on the plane and move off all of a sudden there is a penalty imposed upon them. So there is a very complex set of rules and regulations in the bill to ensure that we can get the money out of them and that they can be charged or if they are let off for some technical reason then the obligation is on the rental camper van companies to refund the money. 
All the complex rules in this bill are unnecessary. What we have to do is put out a code of practice put in place some proper infrastructure and put up some signs to encourage the right culture and behaviour—for example signs could say “No toileting for the next 50 kilometres”. That is a clear indication that it is not acceptable to go to the toilet on the side of the road. Do not say “Do not camp”. and have some overzealous and dare I say it maybe farmer-controlled councils that are not necessarily friendly to the tourism industry saying “Right! That’s it. We don’t want any freedom camping. They can go to the camping grounds.” The problem is that although we have some wonderful camping-grounds and I encourage people to go to them what we are selling as New Zealand is an experience and an amazing opportunity for tourists from anywhere around the world to come and enjoy our culture and our country at their leisure and their pace. We are chopping that. 
I have to say as a former Minister of Tourism I find that rather sad. I find the whole thing rather unnecessary and I cannot understand how National and ACT given their ranting and raving on things like the nanny State and compliance costs can possibly put forward legislation like this. There are better ways of dealing with this issue. There are far better ways and I hope that National will see its way clear if it wants to push through this legislation to at least amend it through the wise Supplementary Order Paper put up by my colleague to make judgment on the effects on the environment not on the proposal to either camp or stay overnight in a place. As a good friend from Copperfields—Robin—said: “That’s what the fun of New Zealand is.”—being able to go somewhere and camp. 
Phil Twyford 
: Cam Calder understands that. 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR 
: Most of them understand it I think but they are just too scared because a shallow piece of legislation has been railed through Cabinet by Nick Smith.