Twyford Phil: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
Twyford Phil: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
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PHIL TWYFORD (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairman. Where to begin with the misnamed Freedom Camping Bill? It is a bill that has so much wrong with it and I am hoping we will have enough time this evening to tease out the many defects in it. 
Labour has set out in its minority report and in the second reading debate its opposition to the bill and members of the House and members of the public who are interested and listening to the debate will know that we went into this debate with an open mind. We recognise there is a problem in certain parts of the country with people fouling the side of the road leaving litter and waste in a way that no one wants to see. But in the process of the Local Government and Environment Committee discussions and from listening to public submissions we formed a very clear view that this bill is a punitive and heavy-handed response to this problem that it is bad law and that it should not proceed. 
We believe that giving councils and the Department of Conservation the power to enforce compliance under this bill for people who freedom camp in prohibited areas and for littering and waste is a step too far. The net result of this bill is to threaten freedoms that generations of New Zealanders have enjoyed—that is the freedom to move around the country and enjoy the great outdoors. This bill raises the possibility that people who go into the countryside on a Friday night for a weekend of fishing climbing hunting surfing or tramping and camp beside the road after they have driven from their homes—with the idea that they will get up early on a Saturday morning to hit the waves to go tramping or to go hunting—could easily find themselves on the wrong side of the law. 
There is no compulsion under this bill for local authorities to establish a minimum requirement for signage in certain areas. It will be very easy for people who are freedom camping—responsible freedom campers—to park on the side of the road and find themselves woken up in the middle of the night by some council official banging on the window of their campervan and moving them on let alone slapping a $200 instant fine on them. 
The debate has flushed out a lot of concern from New Zealanders about the threat to this freedom and I want to quote from a couple of them. This quote is from Grant and Smillie Henderson who live in Pakuranga Auckland. They wrote: “there are thousands of us retired hard working ordinary grey haired Grey Nomads out here. Many of us have self-contained rigs worth as much as a small apartment. We have gone to considerable expense to ensure that our motor homes are fully certified and self-contained”. That allows them to camp away from other facilities for many days. “We leave any place we stop tidier and cleaner than we found it. We leave nothing behind but tyre imprints in the gravel. Many of us spend a worthwhile amount of money each month in the smaller centres in NZ …. We enjoy the slower pace of the country areas the quieter surroundings the simpler way of doing things.” They say they prefer to freedom camp at times for the solitude and serenity of the remote places they find. 
They go on to say that in its present form the Freedom Camping Bill criminalises everyday law-abiding New Zealanders because they own a motor home and enjoy the freedom of the outdoors. They say that this bill is a huge step backwards for this country. They say it will give local councils a licence to target and fine everyone rather than target those who actually create the problem and I think they have touched on the nub of the problem here. This bill targets an entire category of person—those who enjoy freedom camping and who go out to the countryside and do it. It targets a whole category of activity freedom camping without focusing on the activity that actually does the damage. 
Members on the other side of the Chamber who are supporting this bill railed against the phasing out of inefficient light bulbs which is happening all over the Western World—they said it was an example of the nanny State. Yet the very same members now in Government are using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. They are criminalising everyday law-abiding New Zealanders—as that submitter wrote—simply to solve a problem of people littering and leaving waste on the roadside. It is a travesty and they should not be allowed to get away with it. 
I note that the bill is also supported by the ACT Party which loves to trumpet its claim to be the great liberal party—the great defender of our freedoms and liberties. I know that many members of the ACT Party in this House do not support this bill but they have been dragooned into it by the Minister of Local Government Rodney Hide. 
We want to propose in the course of this debate a number of amendments that we think would improve this legislation and we look forward to debating those. In particular we would like to see the deletion of the provisions that criminalise the act of freedom camping. There is no need for it. We could actually achieve the objectives we all have in this matter by bringing in an enforcement and infringement regime that deals with littering and the dumping of waste on Department of Conservation land or on council land. That would be sufficient along with the kind of powers that are set out on the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper to allow the owners of the campervans to recover the fines from the people renting those campervans. 
We were told at the select committee that the great majority of problems in this area are caused by international visitors using campervans that are not self-contained—they do not have self-contained toilet facilities. I submit that a much more focused and targeted approach could actually solve much of this problem as well as local authorities in this country investing more in the provision of toilets and rubbish bins in the places that are most vulnerable to this problem. 
In Part 1 there is a definition of “freedom camp” and I would like to draw the Minister’s attention to it. Clause 5(1) states: “freedom camp means to camp … within 200m of a motor vehicle accessible area or the mean low-water springs line of any sea or harbour or on or within 200m of a formed road or a Great Walks Track”. All a person has to do is be in that area and be using a tent a caravan a car a campervan house truck or other motor vehicle and they are freedom camping—and they may not know it. They may not have seen the sign in the darkness but they have broken the law. 
I say that this is an infringement of a really important freedom that New Zealanders have enjoyed for a long time. I have spent a good part of my life hitchhiking climbing tramping and fishing around the country and more often than not trips away for those sorts of activities involve camping on the side of the road in situations that would likely leave someone to cause an infringement under this Draconian and punitive bill. 
Clause 3(2A) really illustrates the absurdity of this bill. One of the concerns that many people expressed at the select committee was that the bill would effectively allow councils to institute a blanket ban in their territory. Clause 3(2A)—and I think clause 11 further on in the bill—states that the powers of regulation under the Act do not allow blanket bans. Well just saying it does not make it true. 
A council can implement a ban over 98 percent of the territory or over 97 percent. How much I ask the Minister is not a blanket ban in her book? I invite the Minister to take a call and explain to New Zealanders the logic behind inserting into the bill a provision that says that councils cannot use it to blanket-ban when that means that they cannot outlaw freedom camping on all of their territory.