Davis Kelvin: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Davis Kelvin: Freedom Camping Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:675;Page:20689] 
KELVIN DAVIS (Labour) 
: 
 Part of New Zealand’s heritage is at stake here. New Zealanders have always been able to go and participate in the outdoor environment and camp as we have heard get up in the morning and go off and do some form of activity. That is now in jeopardy because of the Freedom Camping Bill. What we should be doing is focusing on the people who are dumping effluent and who are dumping waste and rubbish around camping areas. We should of focus on them not on the act of parking up and resting overnight or sitting in a car or lying in a tent or caravan waiting to do some sort of activity the next day. I have to say that Kevin Hague has covered the issues really really well. They are well-thought-out and he is right. 
One of the main points I want to pick up on is the whole enforcement of this bill. If we take the Far North District Council for example we see that it is responsible for an area the size of Israel. It has four service centre towns and about 30 or 40 little villages and hamlets. The problem is that there are no facilities around those towns and hamlets to cater for freedom camping. We need to be looking at the facilities but instead we are pinging people. We should be looking at the facilities. But in respect of enforcement the Far North District Council will just not have the staff to cover that whole area to cover the 30 or 40 towns and the four main service centres. It will not have the staff. It struggles with staff anyway just to do less controversial tasks yet here we are expecting that somewhere in the middle of the night someone will go around popping up and knocking on the windows of caravans or cars or calling out from outside a tent to tell people to move on. That is just ridiculous. It will not happen. It is a nonsense to even include this measure in the bill. It will not happen in areas such as the far north. 
Last night we covered the issue of notification—informing New Zealanders and overseas tourists about the areas where they can or cannot camp. We have heard that those areas will be published in the  
Gazette 
 which is a publication I have to admit I have never read. I have never read it I have never seen it and I would not know how or where to access it. As the Hon Rick Barker said how on earth will people from overseas know where to access that publication and find out where they can or cannot park up for the night? Not only that but those areas will be notified in the daily papers of Auckland Wellington Christchurch and Dunedin. I do not know in which edition and I do not know on which date the information will be published. But if it is published today how will someone who turns up in New Zealand next week know where to find out where they can or cannot freedom camp? They will not know. It is not like it will be the headline on the front page of the  
New Zealand Herald 
 or the  
Dominion Post 
; it will be tucked away somewhere in the back pages. No tourist is interested in looking through the “For Sale” signs and the “Places to Rent” notices in order to find a little notification as to where they can or cannot park their caravans overnight. Those parts of the bill are silly. In fact we say the whole bill is silly. 
We still do not know about the blanket bans. We see that the bill says that there are to be no blanket bans. Local authorities will not be able to put blanket bans on freedom camping but that means that they may be able to exclude just a little area—a car park or a couple of car parks in one little town—and say that they have not put in place a blanket ban over the whole of the area. And they would be quite within their rights. So there is actually no definition of what size the blanket ban can be. Again we say that this is a nonsense. 
The bill is jeopardising the way of life for New Zealanders. Freedom camping is something that we have been able to do since as I said last night my tupuna Kupe turned up on the shores of New Zealand. He was New Zealand’s very first freedom camper because when he turned up and parked his waka up on some beach he did not actually stay there build a permanent structure and live there for the rest of his life; he circumnavigated the whole of the North Island naming places around the whole of the North Island. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: Before there were some trains there. 
KELVIN DAVIS 
: Ha ha! So he circumnavigated the whole of the North Island before heading back off to Hawaiki. It is something we have been able to do since humans first set foot in New Zealand. 
I was just talking to my colleague Mita Ririnui about the absence of facilities and how his rugby club—he says it is the best rugby club in the Bay of Plenty the Rangataua Rugby and Sports Club—is right on the shores of Rangataua Bay. He says that in the summer the club opens up its ablution blocks and facilities to allow people to camp on the sports field which brings in income for the club. I think we need to do more of that all around New Zealand. There are numerous little sports clubs little schools and marae that could benefit from some extra income if the facilities could be upgraded so they are of a reasonable standard for campers to use. There we go. There is a way forward to create the facilities for freedom campers to use and to enjoy. As Mita Ririnui was saying at Rangataua Rugby and Sports Club they have been doing that for the last 40-odd years and people have returned year after year after year. 
So what we need to do is to encourage local government. If we had that subsidy scheme that the National Government canned to help improve facilities if there were joint ventures with sports clubs maraes and schools we could have a whole network of excellent facilities all around New Zealand that freedom campers could use. They would not have to park in car-parks in Nelson as I heard and in other towns. We would have more facilities that could be looked after and used and we would not have the problem of people just parking in lay-bys and places like that. There is a lot more that could have been done. This bill is not really very specific. It does not address the real issue which is the dumping of effluent and rubbish. Instead of targeting people who actually break the law—laws we already have—it is actually making criminals of people who just need to park up before they head off to their recreational activities or move on to the next part of the country they want to see. 
Finally I will finish off by talking about the effect on tourists and tourism. Free and independent travellers land in New Zealand get into their campervans and head off around the country. The last thing we want to happen to them when they get back to their country of origin is for them to get a bill in the mail for $200 because they unwittingly parked somewhere on the side of the road and somebody took down the number of the vehicle. What sort of lasting impression of New Zealand will that be for them? We want those people to go back to their homeland and tell their friends and family what a great place New Zealand is and then those friends and family will visit New Zealand on that recommendation. Visitors will not be recommending much if they have got a silly little fine of $200—well it is not actually very little—when they get home. They will think what a miserable place New Zealand is. Kia ora.