Sage Eugenie: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 27 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8994. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 The previous speaker Nicky Wagner talked about a secure economic future but she missed a major thing out and that is because this Government does not understand that a secure economic future depends on a well-managed environment. That is the basis for economic prosperity and our well-being. Instead we have a Government that is hitting on the environment over and over and over again. It is dismantling our environmental legislation stripping out the environmental principles from the Resource Management Act making it easier for people to mine on conservation land and making it harder for people to have a say in protecting their neighbourhoods and the places they love from inappropriate development. It is a Government that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. 
We have seen that in the loss of 140 jobs—another 140 jobs—from the Department of Conservation this week because of funding cuts and continuing fiscal pressure on the department. There is a huge loss of professional expertise in biodiversity in recreation management in historic heritage management and in practical skills like predator control in these job losses. But there is something even more troubling in the staff cuts and the new structure that the Department of Conservation is rolling out. It is because there is a major change in the department’s strategic direction. It is changing from allowing commercial activity on conservation land such as tourism when it is compatible with conservation values to enabling it. That is confirmed in the briefing papers to the incoming recycled Minister of Conservation where we see a comment that the department has been charged along with the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment with identifying options for realising greater value from international visitors’ use of public conservation lands. Is that what we are going to see on conservation lands in the future? Is that a way of realising greater value—having McDonald’s outlets at the start of the Routeburn Track? That is what the department is potentially about with the new structure. 
The “Minister of Everything” Steven Joyce has directed along with the Prime Minister and Nick Smith that the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment and the Department of Conservation work on enabling more commercial development of conservation land. What does that mean? It means more mines more habitat destruction more inappropriate development like McDonald’s outlets potentially happening on conservation land. That is because this Government does not recognise the need to invest in nature and environmental protection if we want a strong economy and long-term prosperity for New Zealand. That is because this Government does not realise that overseas people are questioning whether the “100% Pure New Zealand” brand is real. We need to make it real and give it more integrity. 
This Government has a frontier attitude towards the environment. It sees nature as something to exploit. Its vision for Aotearoa New Zealand is to open up our oceans to deep-sea drilling. Its vision is to sell off our energy companies and use the revenue that that generates to put $400 million into subsidising agribusiness through big new irrigation schemes. That is $400 million into promoting irrigation when it will not put more than $150 million into the protection of natural heritage through the Department of Conservation. 
This is a Government that is in its fifth year in power and we have not seen a single new national park despite National saying that it would establish Kauri National Park in Northland despite it saying it would investigate a national park in the Waitakeres. It has been slow on protecting Maui’s dolphins and that species is potentially on a slow slide to extinction. We have got a Minister of Conservation who turns down a tiny marine reserve in Akaroa Harbour less than 12 percent of the harbour despite the fact that there is only one postage stamp - sized reserve on the whole east coast of the South Island. It is a Government that is toxic to the environment in its changes to legislation changes to the Resource Management Act and changes to the Crown Minerals Act and in its starving the Department of Conservation of funds and in the major change in the department’s strategic direction.