Mitchell Clayton: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 13 April 2016. Volume:713;Page:10525. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): Thank you for the opportunity to rise tonight to speak in the annual review debate on the Environment Sector specifically on the Department of Conservation (DOC). When I thought about my contribution tonight I thought it was a good idea that I start with the finance Minister’s speech last year on the Budget debate and some of the comments that he made in relation to that. He was talking about this Government having tighter controls on spending and a strong focus on value for money. He also went on to talk about the Government’s fiscal priorities and some of those priorities were: “Returning to surplus this year and maintaining surpluses in the future.”—I would certainly like to see how that goes and the jury is certainly out on that mark—and “Reducing net debt to 20 per cent of GDP by 2020 including repaying debt in dollar terms …” I wonder whether that includes selling off State houses selling off banks and further sell-offs of our power companies to try to get to that surplus and maintain it. Finally we go on to: “Using any further fiscal headroom to reduce debt faster.”I have to bring it to the attention of the Committee that there has been a real shortfall in that Budget speech from last year despite all of the MPs on the other side who take great pleasure in telling us what a fantastic environment we have got—and I do agree with the Minister that DOC does a magnificent job. However the reality is that tourism which has been driven so heavily through our conservation—through our beautiful rivers wonderful lakes mountains and our walks; the ecotourists who come to New Zealand for this beautiful country—is certainly not being taken seriously by the Government and is not being funded adequately.I bring your attention to page 13 of a 13½ page speech which has two sentences dedicated to looking after the department. It says: “Kiwi are New Zealand’s most iconic birds but numbers are declining every year. The Budget contains $11 million of funding over four years for breeding and predator control programmes run by community groups as well as the Department of Conservation.” The Government has not increased funding. In actual fact it has taken it from one department being the Natural Heritage Management System and put that into the kiwi fund. It is just a shuffling of paper and relocation of funds. If it really was taking conservation seriously it would adequately fund this very very important organisation which has seen job cuts.We have seen the closing of walks and tracks the closing of DOC huts and of course restructuring of $12.5 million which has just been absolutely worthless unless you are talking about that restructuring losing 100-plus jobs. If you were trying to create low staff morale and job uncertainly I think the Government did a good job in that sector. Our brand of “100% Pure New Zealand” is a brand that other countries like Ireland are trying to take up and hold on their mantel—its Government is taking conservation seriously looking after its flora and fauna and its topography and creating an environment where tourists and ecotourists can go and see it. We need to seriously fund the department and I hope that we see that coming in the Budget very shortly.I will also tell a quick story about life being a journey and at any point in time you could take your location in life but it does not give you a clear picture. Life is actually about the trajectories and the direction—the vectors—on which you are travelling. What we can do is ensure that the trajectory that the department is travelling on through the guidance of this Government is the right one.In 2009 the real expenditure for the department was $403 million. In 2015 it had dropped to $342 million—a $60 million drop since 2009. In real terms that is a negative trajectory which shows the Minister of Conservation and this Government are not putting the priority on to one of our biggest exports—in fact it is our biggest. Our biggest export is the export tourist dollar. Then of course we have got capital expenditure. In 2008 $98 million was being invested in the department particularly into track upgrades and DOC huts around the country. That has fallen in 2015 from $98 million to $23.5 million.