Whaitiri MekaMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe. We have been talking about a particular bill tonight the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill which is geared towards I guess supporting and maintaining our pristine conservation estate. The current endangered species—this is occurring in this country right now—is actually Department of Conservation (DOC) officers. For my electorate of Ikaroa-Rāwhiti particularly around the Gwavas Forest which is about 30 minutes south of Hastings we used to have one based there but now you have to go into Hastings itself or a further 10 minutes down the road to Napier if you want to access the services of a Department of Conservation officer. Labour though supporting this bill wants to acknowledge the fine work those Department of Conservation officers currently perform under the lack of funding from this particular Government.It has been expressed that the bill is attempting to give extended powers to our conservation officers and I would like to just again highlight the powers that this particular bill will enable. It will enable officers to intervene and stop offenders. It will allow rangers particularly to obtain information from those who may be undertaking illegal acts in our estate. It will also allow rangers to seize evidence such as laptops cameras and mobile phones.When you think about the extra powers that these DOC rangers will be given under this particular piece of legislation what occurs is that we are immediately going to put those particular rangers in a space of risk. As we notice in this country we get more and more people coming into New Zealand and I guess helping themselves to some of our native species and so then of course this bill is not only going to empower the officers but is going to be seeking that these rangers place themselves in a situation of risk. This was raised at the Local Government and Environment Committee around how we ensure that those rangers—who are often by themselves in places like forest away from anybody else if they come across somebody who is committing some illegal activity.I do want to join with many members on this side in commenting around the resourcing that our rangers and the Department of Conservation have seen withered away under this Government. On one hand we are modernising an Act and we are enabling rangers to do and carry out what we want them to do but actually we are starving them of the tools and the resources to do it properly. That I think is the unfortunate part of this particular bill. But we do support what the intent is here and we hope that in terms of this side and the Government side we actually meet the commitment of what this bill is intending to do in empowering our rangers with the support and the resources that are required to undertake that task.I just want to raise a point in terms of the departmental disclosure statement just briefly and talk about page 7 there where we touch on consistency with the Government's Treaty of Waitangi obligations. I just want to note again—and I have raised this time and time again in this House—that officials consulted with Ngāi Tahu. They clearly have a piece of settlement legislation which is quite right in terms of the South Island but we have many more iwi throughout the country that deserve the same kind of consultation that Ngāi Tahu had. When I read that it threw up that I need to make that point that we have iwi overseeing mass forests and mass maunga that would welcome the opportunity to also be consulted as well as Ngāi Tahu themselves were. And of course there is concern that Te Puni Kōkiri found that there were no issues whatsoever in relation to Māori in terms of this proposal. When you have a cash-strapped department—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member's time has expired.