Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. Well Ruth Dyson really was very effusive in her praise for Minister Sage tonight—that she listened to submitters she took into account the changes that were suggested and that's exactly how it was and she made those changes accordingly. And that's actually quite laughable because if we go back and listen to the first reading speeches in this debate from the Government members they called for an extension to Fish & Game. This was predetermined. It's not like Minister Sage turned up and read all the submissions and consulted widely and thought about it and made the changes accordingly. This was predetermined. This was something that they called for and they wanted. So for Ruth Dyson to get up here and rewrite history is quite laughable. And poor poor Deborah Russell. She's confused. Dr Deborah Russell's not often confused because let's all not forget—she's a doctor. But today she had a furrowed brow. She was very confused as to why we weren't supporting this bill. It's almost like she hadn't been listening to any of the debate prior to her own speech and she gave us an example of police officers stopping people—her or anyone who accidently happened to be speeding. She said Imagine if you're accidentally speeding a police officer pulls you over and the only two options they have are a warning or a caution"—"Hey don't do that."—"or a prosecution." Imagine what that would be like. She said it would be like cracking a nut with a sledgehammer. She couldn't understand how we are not supporting a bill that would give a midway point like an infringement notice. And I'd like to help Dr Deborah Russell with her confusion by using her own example of the police and the speeder. Why we don't support this bill is because we don't want a volunteer organisation no matter how good we perceive them to be to be issuing infringement notices. If you take the example of the speeding motorist and the police officer if you could imagine you are in that position and you're stopped—you're pulled over by community patrol for example or some other volunteer organisation. How would you feel if they issued you a speeding ticket? And that is where the crux of the debate lies.We did support this bill at first reading. Maggie's bill—sorry; Maggie Barry's—Hon Members: Honourable!ERICA STANFORD: The Hon Maggie Barry did a lot of good work in this area and so did the Hon Dr Nick Smith. It is a good midway point for Department of Conservation (DOC) officers to have an infringement notice system. We've long agreed with that and I think in all of our reading speeches we agreed that that would be a good idea. It saves court time it saves court costs there's no stigma associated with a criminal record and it improves conservation outcomes. And we don't want DOC officers being caught up in court; we want them out on the estate improving conservation outcomes. But at the select committee this bill got widened. The bill as introduced departed very much from its original intent and made numerous changes allowing Fish & Game officers to have the infringement powers and we cannot support this. The issue for us under this bill as altered by the select committee Government members is that they gave Fish & Game a non-governmental agency the power to issue infringement notices—something that we don't see almost anywhere else to the same extent in legislation. We don't see it anywhere else to this extent. And we are concerned that Fish & Game staff are non-State sector employees. They're not subject to the same codes of conduct the minimum standards when it comes to integrity like the DOC rangers are. It was not made clear at select committee to our satisfaction how training and control of warranted Fish & Game officers on the ground would be monitored to ensure consistency across the country. Implementing a fine system for DOC rangers was the original intent; it made sense. But the widening of these powers to a non-governmental agency creates far too many problems that are not adequately addressed in this bill. And for those reasons we will not be supporting the legislation."