Sage EugenieCONSERVATION (INFRINGEMENT SYSTEM) BILLThird ReadingHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister of Conservation): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I move That the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill be now read a third time. This bill will benefit conservation and it will be fairer to offenders involved in minor breaches of the law. Enforcement is a key part of conservation work because there is little point in the deliberative process that goes into making law in this Parliament if it's not then enforced.The bill amends eight conservation statutes which guide how protected areas and protected species such as our indigenous birds are managed. Offending against conservation legislation ranges from minor infractions by people who may be ignorant of the law or overly careless about whether they abide by it through to quite deliberate crimes that can have major impacts on conservation values of species and other users. The bill provides a new tool to deal with the minor end of the spectrum of offending—the whitebaiter who leaves her net unattended the trout fisher who fishes without first buying a licence or the tourist who harasses a fur seal because she wants to get a better picture for social media. At the moment under eight different conservation laws—the Conservation Act 1987 the Marine Mammals Protection Act 1978 the Marine Reserves Act 1971 the National Parks Act 1980 the Reserves Act 1977 the Trade in Endangered Species Act 1989 the Wild Animal Control Act 1977 and the Wildlife Act 1953—the Department of Conservation (DOC) can only issue a warning to a lawbreaker or prosecute him or her in the courts.DOC advises that in most years between 60 and 80 whitebaiters are likely to end up with a criminal conviction because they have breached the whitebait fishing rules. Now those rules certainly need to be enforced in order to protect the fishery and to provide an incentive for fishers to obey the law especially given that whitebait is the equivalent of white gold given the prices that it can now be sold for. But for some of these offences a criminal conviction is unduly harsh and with this bill the Department of Conservation can now issue an infringement notice for minor breaches. If the person pays the fee they won't need to appear in court and they won't receive a criminal conviction.The bill has had quite a long gestation arising out of a comprehensive review of the Department of Conservation's enforcement powers and I want to thank and acknowledge the Hon Maggie Barry the former Minister of Conservation for her work with the department in developing the bill and introducing it to this House where unfortunately it languished for almost a year before this Government rescued it and sent it to select committee.I also want to thank the Environment Committee ably chaired by Dr Deborah Russell and submitters for their diligent work in considering and refining the bill—assisted of course by our parliamentary staff. Can I particularly thank DOC staff Bronwyn Barnard and Paula Warren and the department's compliance team for their work on the bill.The bill as introduced was not controversial but there was a significant shortcoming. The Department of Conservation administers the internationally renowned Taupō trout fishery. So the bill and the infringement powers that it provides are available to DOC for the Taupō sports fishery but they weren't in the bill as introduced available to Fish & Game councils for other sports fisheries and game bird management throughout the rest of the country. What this effectively meant was that if an angler forgot to get her fishing licence in the Taupō area they would get an infringement notice but they could be prosecuted if they were fishing in the Rotorua lakes because there of course Fish & Game not DOC manages the trout fishery. So that would clearly be inconsistent and unfair to anglers.Given that Fish & Game councils already have extensive enforcement powers and they regularly take prosecutions it seemed to me that the management of both trout fisheries and game birds like ducks would benefit from Fish & Game councils having access to the infringement notice system that the bill proposes for DOC. So I asked the select committee at that first reading to ensure that it consulted the public and it made recommendations on whether it considered it was appropriate to provide infringement powers to Fish & Game councils and what if any safeguards were needed to protect the public interest. I am grateful for the detailed advice which the select committee provided and it was certainly the main issue that submitters addressed. I was very disappointed that there wasn't consensus but I'm very satisfied with the conditions that are now included in the bill and it has been in the interests of sports fish and game bird management to enable Fish & Game councils to access those powers—potentially access them.The bill that has come out of the committee of the whole House stage doesn't give access to the infringement notice system automatically. It requires the Minister of Conservation to consider and improve a national compliance and enforcement policy before any Fish & Game rangers can be warranted to issue infringement notices. Before approving that national policy the Minister's got to consider whether the policy is consistent with best practice for existing enforcement functions and I'd expect the plan to set out evidential requirements a peer review system some measures to ensure consistency in decisions a mechanism for independent review if infringement notices are challenged a mechanism for recording any complaints and to ensure that there's an effective record of those so that the annual report that Fish & Game councils do for the Minister includes those.The Department of Conservation is developing a system for how it will use infringement notices and I'd expect Fish & Game's system to be of a similar standard. Until that system is bedded in my expectation is that infringement notices would not be issued in the field. Evidence would be collected that would be assessed centrally and then there'd be a decision made about whether a warning should be sent or an infringement notice. That's very akin to the system for speed camera tickets being sent after the offence whereas parking tickets of course are generally given out on the spot. So my expectation is that both the Department of Conservation and Fish & Game will run an infringement system that the public can have confidence and trust in.The work of the Parliament in passing this bill—I hope tonight—is a really essential step in creating that infringement system but there is more work required. In particular DOC has got to develop some regulations to set the infringement fees and it's got to ensure that there are systems in place so that offenders are treated consistently across the country and that work will be done in 2019. So I expect that in coming years a lot more whitebaiters will find themselves being issued with infringement notices rather than finding themselves in the courts.Can I once again thank everybody who's been involved over several years in getting this important legislation to this stage. I wish you and members of the House a merry Christmas and I hope you all have time to enjoy some respite in nature.