O'Connor Damien: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
O'Connor Damien: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:20676] 
Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR (Labour) 
: 
 There is much that we could debate about the Freedom Camping Bill but I will focus on the proposed amendments in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper 267. I go to new clause 28B “Charging hirer for infringement fee”. This relates basically to the situation of foreign visitors say a husband and wife from Finland who have come here and hired a campervan. Their knowledge of English may not be great but for some reason or another they have ended up camping in the wrong spot in their campervan. It does not matter whether they failed to do something; they just camped in the wrong spot. Then they have left and gone back home. 
The rental company then receives an infringement notice because someone has driven past and seen the number plate. The “poo police” whoever they are—a person with the bit of paper—has come along. They will not be respected in Northland and they will not be respected on the West Coast either. The “poo police” have come along taken the registration number of the vehicle and sent it to the rental car company. They see it is a Maui campervan or some other firm’s campervan. I do not like to mention brands and I am not in any way trying to imply that one brand is better than the other or worse. But anyway the rental company receives an infringement notice so it sends a copy to the people. I will quote from the Supplementary Order Paper. This is the wisdom that comes from the department after the first version of the bill when it recognised that there were mistakes but said it would improve the bill. Clause 28B(1) says “the rental company may not exercise an authority under a rental service agreement to debit the hirer’s credit card unless within 5 working days of receipt of the infringement notice the rental company—(a) sends a copy of the infringement notice and the rental service agreement to the permanent address provided by the hirer in the rental service agreement;”. 
Imagine this: the rental company receives a notice. The first point is that the company has to send a copy of it to the people from Finland. Is it to their email address or is it to their residential address? That is what the law says. The company is not allowed to do it for 5 days and it has to send it through to the permanent address. I take it that that will mean sending a letter to the permanent address. I do not know how long it takes to get a letter from Wellington to Finland or to some little town in Finland but the company has to send it there after that. It is somewhat archaic not to have provision for email contact. The clause does not say so; it says the notice goes to the permanent address. Is it an email address or a residential address? Maybe the Minister can clarify that question. Subclause (1)(b) says the company then “notifies the hirer that if the rental company receives a reminder notice for that offence the rental company will debit the hirer’s credit card”. 
Subclause (2) then says: “If the rental company does not receive an infringement notice for the particular offence but receives a reminder notice for that offence the rental company may not exercise the authority to debit the hirer’s credit card”. How do we get the money? If we put in place stupid legislation and stupid penalties that cannot be enforced will people just carry on and go out of the country? Maybe they will be held up at the border because someone says to them: “A notice has come up. You’re not allowed to leave the country because you camped somewhere and you haven’t paid the fine.” Will it go as far as that? This sounds like a wonderful recipe for Kiwi hospitality—I think not! This is a ridiculous situation. Subclause (2)(a) says the rental company again “sends a copy of the reminder notice and the rental service agreement to the permanent address”. I do not want to go on and on and round and round in circles but the whole thing is ridiculous. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous and this is a process to get $200 maximum maybe. 
Then of course there is the ability to challenge an infringement notice and the people from Finland may have a legitimate defence to say they did not understand English. Maybe the sign was knocked over—who knows? This is 5 10 15 20 days or a month after they have left New Zealand and we are chasing them around for a small fine in the hope that it will be a big incentive to behave better when camping on conservation land. If people out there are getting somewhat confused it is because the legislation is confusing quite frankly. 
Once again I say we are taking a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. This is all because a campervan has parked in a place where there is a nice view but some council has decided that it does not want people to park there overnight regardless of the fact that they have a fully self-contained unit and they have been fully aware of and compliant with every other law in the land. But this bill says the council or councillors can decide that people cannot stay there. 
Unfortunately the people from Finland may not have been able to read the  
New Zealand Herald 
. They do not go online very often. They probably do not think the  
New Zealand Herald 
 is worth reading very often. So they have not had early notice of or consultation about a particular area being out of bounds. 
I say in summary that the signage in this country is generally not up to scratch. If people are trying to drive around and find a place to camp then they will find on an international comparison that the signage is pathetic I have to say. People get lost; they do not know where they are going. I doubt whether the signage needed for the measures in this legislation will be sufficient to allow someone from Finland or a foreign-speaking country to understand fully what is going on here. There are international signs I guess. There is the skull and crossbones; that sign might be the one that aptly applies to this legislation. No doubt there might be a way to indicate that camping is banned but the finer points of for how long or where people may camp or of where they can go if they cannot park in one spot—200 metres or whatever—will make for a very confusing situation for people who come to this country expecting to be able to wander around in their fully contained campervan. It will be completely contrary to what they were told about New Zealand and what they understood a holiday in this country would be like. Then to top it off they will have in the mail notices from New Zealand demanding the Finnish equivalent of $200 or thereabouts for parking in a spot that they probably do not even remember. 
This bill is just ridiculous. We should not support it. We should get on and do the wise things about improving knowledge of how to reduce our impact on the environment when we are camping regardless of where it is.