Barker Rick: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
Barker Rick: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:20671] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Labour) 
: 
 I will pick up on a couple of points made by my colleagues. I think they were very very well made. I turn to clause 16(1) in Part 2 of the Freedom Camping Bill to pick up the point that “A freedom camping notice is published in accordance with this section if a summary of the notice—(a) is published in the  
Gazette 
;”. In all of my time as a tramper and a hunter the very first thing we did before we did anything else—before we examined the weather forecast and made a plan—was read the  
Gazette 
 because we knew that the  
Gazette  
was the most important part of our information requirements for going on any trip. It is a very widely circulated document and is avidly read by New Zealanders every day. I am surprised the  
Gazette  
is not in the newspaper awards as one of the most widely circulated documents! 
Let us face it: this publication as far as the public is concerned is published in secret. It is a secret publication. How many New Zealanders have ever read the  
Gazette 
? I ask how many parliamentarians have ever read the  
Gazette 
. 
Hon Kate Wilkinson 
: I have. 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: The Minister in the chair says she has read the  
Gazette 
. I want to ask her what was on page 2 of today’s publication. I bet she cannot tell me. Let us be honest: most people look at it as a quaint document that no one has ever heard of. To publish in the  
Gazette 
 is to have a decision of the old-fashioned Star Chamber. It is in secret. It is a closed society. No one will know about it. 
To make sure that people have some notice of freedom camping restrictions the writers of this legislation go on to say—it is hilarious—that the notice will be published in papers in the following areas: Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Dunedin. Well everybody knows that those papers go to all the camping areas of New Zealand! How much freedom camping is done in the city of Auckland? How much freedom camping is done in the city of Wellington? I would say it is next to zero. Not only will we have publication of documents in secret but we will have publication of documents that are completely irrelevant to the places where people go freedom camping. 
But it gets even better! I could not believe this. The third option put up by the drafters of this legislation said it would be “published if the director-general is satisfied that the notice is of local or regional interest only in a newspaper or newspapers circulated throughout the locality.” That means effectively that it will never ever be published. There is no place in New Zealand where freedom camping could be undertaken that is only and exclusively of interest to the people in that area. For example if we are to have a publication about freedom camping on the West Coast it would be impossible to argue that it was of interest only to people on the West Coast. The people of the West Coast live there. They have houses there. They will never go freedom camping there. Freedom camping on the West Coast would be of interest to people who live in Auckland. But because it is of interest to Auckland people it cannot be published in the local paper because it is of interest outside of the West Coast. By logic and definition the director-general cannot publish it in the local paper because something that is to happen on the West Coast of the South Island is of interest to the whole of New Zealand. Because it is of interest to the whole of New Zealand it is not of interest only to West Coasters; it is of interest to all New Zealanders. By definition the man or the woman who is the director-general cannot publish it in the local paper. 
So what do we have as a notification? We have a notification processed by the  
Gazette 
 which is read by nobody. It is a publication in secret. We have a publication in newspapers that is completely irrelevant to the areas in which it is published and then we have a clause that means it is impossible for the director-general to justify publishing it in a local paper because it is not of interest only to those people in that area; it is of interest to people across the whole country. This is a nonsense. 
We then get back to the other point made very well by Phil Twyford that under clause 11A by-laws must not absolutely prohibit freedom camping. Well there is an easy way to get around that. Councils can simply set a small part of a council district as a freedom camping area. It could be the council’s backyard that has a big fence around it and is locked so that people cannot get into it. As long as it is designated as a freedom camping area that justifies the council having the whole of its district wiped out from availability to freedom campers. The Minister shakes her head but she has not thought of the inventiveness of local councils. 
What we have now is a Freedom Camping Bill that means that a council if it is hostile to freedom camping—and some may be—will designate an area that is hostile to freedom campers and say it is the freedom camping area. It effectively means that it then has a freedom camping area. It can be 0.5 percent of the area available or it could be 0.1 percent but as long as the council has one area available it can say it has not absolutely prohibited freedom camping. There just has to be an exception to prove the rule. It does not have to be a certain percentage. Just one exception justifies the council saying it has not absolutely prohibited freedom camping. 
On the other side the council makes the decision and who will be able to challenge the council? The council makes a decision to designate one minor small inconsequential hostile area to freedom campers. The power rests with the council. A freedom camper can turn up get a $200 fine then go through the council’s by-laws and say that they have done all the right things. They have gone back and read the  
Gazette 
 and they made sure they did that before they went. They have gone through all the back issues of the  
New Zealand Herald  
before they left to go to the South Island and made sure they checked all the public notices to find out all the information they needed but missed it somehow. They get themselves there and are then confronted with this. Will they take the council—firstly I presume—to the District Court? If they fail there can they go to the High Court the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court thereby exercising all their legitimate options? Let us face it. Councils are litigious. If they lose they will appeal. We will have a freedom camper with a $200 bill for camping trying to overturn the council’s policy decision and having to go all the way to the Supreme Court because the weight of bureaucratese will be with the council. There is no balance in this. 
I find this extraordinary coming from National which pushes itself forward in the public as the party of freedom and the party of choice. National lauds itself as the party of freedom and the party of New Zealand and of protecting New Zealand’s heritage. What a load of bunkum. National has set up legislation that ensures that the information is held in secret: it is published in the  
Gazette 
 or in a paper that is irrelevant to where freedom campers are. It is a notice that cannot be put in the local paper because as I said it has to be of interest only to the people in that area to be published locally. If people outside the area are interested in it it cannot be published locally. 
Then the bill says a council has to have only a small aspect of its council area available to freedom camping to show that it has not absolutely banned freedom camping. It needs only one example to prove it. It could be beside the rubbish dump it could be beside—I do not know—the sewage station the sanitation plant or the oxidisation ponds. Here we are: here is a place that freedom campers can have beside the oxidisation ponds. Because the council has designated that place it has not banned freedom camping absolutely. It can find all sorts of hostile places such as a mill that works 24 hours a day. A sawmill can go for 24 hours a day and be completely hostile to freedom campers but as long as the council puts up a sign saying “Freedom campers welcome” it has not absolutely banned freedom camping. 
This bill goes far too far. There is no balance logic or reason in it and I think the process of consultation has been abysmal. This legislation is from a party that says it is there for individual freedoms and individual rights. What a load of rubbish. This shows the paradox in National. National members talk about being anti - nanny State then they introduce nanny State policies. They talk about getting the Government out of people’s lives and then they put more government on people. They talk about having less bureaucracy and what do we have? More bureaucracy. In fact they are taking people’s freedoms away by stealth and by orders of that well-read paper the  
Gazette. 
 I cannot believe it. It is impossible to believe.