Barry MaggieWILDLIFE (POWERS) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingHon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister of Conservation): I move That the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I am very pleased to be able to rise to take the first call for the second reading of the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the work of the Local Government and Environment Committee chaired by my colleague Scott Simpson. The intellectual rigour those members brought to the process the thorough nature of the approach that they took in examining all the details and their recommendations have added value to the bill and I think rigorously tested its parameters in a way that means that nature will be better protected. I will speak on those measures shortly but first I think it would be useful to explain to the House and the wider public the context and the purpose of this bill. Our native wildlife faces many threats. Introduced predators—the usual suspects: rats stoats and possums—are destroying our biodiversity. Our Government's response to that has been to announce the visionary target of Predator Free 2050 and our Prime Minister is right behind it as is our entire caucus. I think too the people of New Zealand have realised that our threatened species need better protection. Weeds are also a very big threat to our biodiversity. They smother habitat and food sources they cause disease and they cause a range of problems hence the policies that I have brought in around the War on Weeds naming the Dirty Dozen and putting many millions of dollars some of which I will be announcing tomorrow around wilding pine control and other measures because we acknowledge that our plants as well as our precious taonga species are under threat. Poaching is a very real threat and at times it can be overlooked. We have to face the reality though that it is a growing problem. There is a lucrative international black market in our native species our spectacular geckos and skinks and that drives some people to break the law to seek to take advantage of our country's remarkable wildlife. This can and does pose a major threat to its security. For example reptile smugglers tend to target pregnant females which is a real problem for the small fragmented populations that breed very slowly. We know of one gecko population on the Otago Peninsula for example driven almost to extinction by smugglers and another population where poachers took almost half the breeding females. My colleague Jacqui Dean's excellent member's bill the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Act passed in 2013 and that increased and standardised the penalties for offences against protected wildlife with fines of up to $300000. It was designed to deter and to punish smugglers as this Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill is. Dealing specifically with the problems of illegal hunting is important and at the heart of this bill. Over the past few years people have killed whio tūī kererū kea kākā shags petrels oystercatchers and herons and tried to sell blue duck chicks. Hunters and domestic dogs have killed kiwi gulls and weka. The Wildlife Act protects our unique taonga species from being illegally taken hunted killed or smuggled out of New Zealand but its enforcement powers which were given to DOC rangers have not been updated for 60 years and are no longer fit for purpose when our threatened taonga species are so in danger. Some of the language in the old bill is outdated. I have referred before to how it specifies that only men can be enlisted to help rangers. More broadly the powers themselves need to be expanded and clarified to fit modern times and the threats that our biodiversity and our ecology face. The purpose of the Wildlife (Powers) Amendment Bill is to better protect wildlife by modernising the protection and enforcement powers available to investigate and prosecute offences against protected wildlife. The bill affects only the Wildlife Act and changes only enforcement powers. It does not change the protected status of wildlife or how wildlife is managed. The current training given to rangers covers the ground and making these minor changes to the Act will not impact on DOC's budget. They will though give full-time rangers four new powers. There is the ability to take action to prevent an offence about to occur or in progress or to stop offending in progress which will potentially enable rangers to prevent or minimise the harm to wildlife. In other words they can act in a timely fashion to intervene before a crime is committed. Temporarily they can stop persons suspected of an offence to allow investigation. This can be very important in situations where an offender is trying to evade the rangers or is trying to hide evidence of the offending. It will also enable our rangers to seize a broader range of evidence such as laptops cameras and mobile phones. This can help build a case or help to prove intent—for example whether an offence is commercially motivated. Also they will have additional powers requiring proof of identification details from suspected offenders—specifically their date of birth and evidence of their identity. This will support rangers to get information that is legally required before a person can be charged. In addition this bill grants the power to arrest. That is limited to very serious offending against absolutely protected wildlife such as that involving illegal hunting killing or export. Access to that power of arrest is also very limited: to full-time DOC rangers who are specifically warranted to use it. That is a very small team of highly trained specialists many of whom are former policeman. This will most likely be used for the serious offences that I referred to earlier such as international smuggling because these can pose significant risks to absolutely protected wildlife such as our native lizards and because the suspected offenders are a potential flight risk. I welcome the Local Government and Environment Committee report on the bill and the 14 tweaks and adjustments that are recommended—12 from DOC and two from the select committee all of which have been adopted. They have clarified the nature and extent of the new powers and their relationship to existing provisions in the Act. The new section 39AA specifies which rangers will have access to the powers to seize evidential material to require people to stop and to intervene to prevent offences. New section 39AA clarifies that these powers are available to DOC full-time rangers specifically those who are warranted and trained in enforcement work. They are also available to police officers and to fishery officers as well. They are not available to DOC honorary rangers or honorary fishing officers or to any honorary Fish and Game New Zealand rangers. There was and there is a very simple reason why this was the case. Honorary rangers are at arm's length from the Government. They are not public servants and are not subject to the Public Service Code of Conduct which binds DOC and other full-time Crown staff who are employed by the Crown—and obligation transparency and accountability are very important parts of the rigour of this process. The select committee also clarified the safeguards around some of the powers. Any evidence seized must relate to the investigation of a suspected offence. The power to stop a person may be exercised only in relation to a suspected offence and does not enable the use of force. A person may also be stopped only for a time that is reasonable in the circumstances. The committee replaced the existing section 40 of the Act to clarify the type of behaviour that constitutes obstructing a person acting under the Wildlife Act. The changes to the section take account of the new powers. The committee further amended the new section 66A to make it clearer who can require identification information and what types of identification information can be required from suspected offenders. The committee extended the ability to require suspected offenders to provide their date of birth to full-time Fish and Game rangers. That is I think appropriate for the level of offending that they are generally dealing with when they are managing game-bird hunting under the Act. The full-time Fish and Game rangers do an excellent job as do the full-time DOC rangers and I commend them all for the great work that they do and for their sincerity and for the—frankly—heroic nature of the work that they sometimes do in the field. Rangers are out in the front line of conservation day in and day out sustaining the very essence of our New Zealand identity. Our DOC rangers maintain the tracks the huts the reserves the special places and the landscapes that we all—including visitors to this country—enjoy so much. They make our nation famous to the world they keep the standards high and they care. They also protect our native species in the heat of the summer in the cold of the winter and in the driving wind and gales which seem to come in every season and which make it very difficult for the young fledgling chicks to survive—our DOC rangers are there every step of the way. They do that work in the face of often ill-informed and vicious abuse from the likes of the anti-1080 poison lobby. I take this opportunity in the House with this bill to commend the fortitude and the stamina of the DOC staff. This bill is a small but vital way to help make their work a little bit easier and to help them be even more effective in protecting our national monuments which are our national taonga from poachers. I commend the work of the DOC full-time rangers the Fish and Game full-time rangers and I commend this Wildlife (Powers) Bill to the House.