Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): It's a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand as one of the members of the Environment Committee. In my contribution tonight I would like to speak to two of the hearings that we held both that for Vote Conservation and that for Vote Environment. First in referring to Vote Conservation I want to clarify the record for those who may be listening at home or in the gallery and also for the sake of Hansard: it's been said multiple times by members of the Opposition that the honourable member Eugenie Sage did not appear before select committee and I want to make it clear that in her role as conservation Minister she did. In her role as conservation Minister she appeared before the select committee talking to us about a number of things but what I would like to refer to is two parts in particular which haven't been canvassed largely by many of the members who have contributed so far in the debate.The first thing is the international visitor levy. That is the $35 per visitor being charged to visitors to this country which is expected to provide an extra $42 million a year to the creaking infrastructure particularly in regional rural New Zealand where actually we want our tourists to be going to explore the great outdoors and many of the things that we in this country pride ourselves on. It was fascinating to me to hear members of the Opposition talking about how this would somehow result in this massive exodus or rather that international visitors simply would not be coming to New Zealand as a result of this imposition of this $35 per visitor. Frankly it just doesn't quite make sense. If somebody is spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars to travel to this tiny beautiful country at the bottom of the world why would they not be comfortable to contribute to ensure that that beautiful country continues to be beautiful? As we have seen it has allowed us to continue to maintain that beauty and that conservation infrastructure.Erica Stanford: Great policy making—another tax.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The other point that I want to make—it's interesting to hear members of the Opposition talking about another tax because I do wonder how they intend to pay for their conservation endeavours or the endeavours that they talk about. It's quite an interesting proposition for them to be saying that they are going to be doing all of these things but not how they are going to be raising the revenue. I'm really interested to hear more about this proverbial bonfire of regulation. It sounds a heck of a lot like a terrible terrible pathway for Resource Management Act (RMA) reform.But anyway back to Vote Conservation I'd like to speak to the issue of the harassment of Department of Conservation (DOC) staff. We spoke to the Minister of Conservation about this issue because it has been raised in the media multiple times and it has come to the attention of the general public. There has been $10.7 million invested over the next four years to ensure the safety of staff. That is $4.1 million for a permanent security team $5 million for improving health and safety systems and staffing levels and $1.6 million for improving the physical security at DOC sites. Importantly the reason that we were told by the Minister and the director-general of DOC is that most of the threats that DOC staff are receiving are from people who are opposed to the use of 1080 but also that they are starting to experience an increase in threats and abuse from people in the whitebaiting community. I say this not to attack people who hold those positions but to warn politicians who are presently engaged in fearmongering on these very issues such as what we have started to hear from members of the Opposition.I'm just spitballing and speeding as fast as I can in my final minute through all of the other amazing things that have occurred in Vote Environment. The first is on RMA reform I alluded to earlier. It would appear that the National Party would like to just chuck it in a bonfire. But we however on this side of the House are seeking to do it in two tranches: the first is in freshwater protection and the second is a complete overhaul—Erica Stanford: Nine years in Opposition haven't done a thing.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —looking at a broader project of holistic assessment. I'm glad that members of the Opposition have raised nine years of inaction on their behalf in this area.The next point that I would like to speak to is that of climate change. We are currently going through over a thousand submissions oral submissions from the public showing the immense amount of interest in this issue.The fourth is that of waste management. This is us moving away from a take-make-waste economy to designing waste out of the system.