Foster-Bell Paul; Tisch LindsayPAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Māngai o Te Whare mauriora. E ngā mema o Te Whare tēnā koutou katoa. E Te Minita tēnā koe. I would like to begin by acknowledging our wonderful Minister of Conservation the Hon Maggie Barry who does so much hard work protecting and defending the precious natural environment of our country. I want to thank the member who just resumed his seat Clayton Mitchell for the first 8 minutes or so of his contribution which made perfect sense and which I agree with but unfortunately he spoilt his otherwise good contribution in the last couple of minutes by engaging in some unfortunate numerical inexactitude. This is a Government that has invested considerably in extra support for our environment and in making sure the Department of Conservation which does such good work has the tools it needs the resources it needs and the staff power it needs to get out and protect our precious natural environment in New Zealand. I am going to agree with the contribution made by the Hon Nanaia Mahuta who said that this bill is a good balance between the individual rights of New Zealand citizens going about their business and enjoying nature and the powers of rangers to be able to do something when they detect someone they suspect of violating the general principles and the specific laws that we have in place to protect our endangered species—all of our native species—our plants and our wildlife. This bill brings in a great level of power to allow a full-time State-employed ranger to not just ask for proof of ID which was the previous situation but demand proof of ID—not just ask someone what their name and date of birth is but be able to demand it and we are backing that up with the legal powers to do so. This is a huge gain and this gives them a greater level of power than they have had in the last 60 years but when we are giving stop-and-search powers it is important that these come with a balancing level of control. There are not for a voluntary ranger the levels of integrity and code of conduct controls that can be applied to someone who is in the service of the State—someone who falls under State Services Commission rules. So I think it is important that we do distinguish between an honorary ranger who does incredibly valuable work—and as my colleague Scott Simpson the chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee said this is not to underrate the work they do. But when we are giving powers that could be considered by some to be invasive we need to balance that with a countervailing level of scrutiny. This is something that as a Government we have approached very carefully. We do not want rogue rangers and we do not want vigilante action and this bill achieves a very good balance between those things. It was disappointing to hear a half-hearted lukewarm and half-baked contribution from the Green Party which I thought actually stood for protecting our environment in New Zealand. This is a bill that significantly increases the powers of our hard-working rangers to be able to protect our natural environment and protect endangered species so it is disappointing to hear that from a party that purports to protect our environment. This is a very good bill it is a credit to a very fine Minister and I commend it to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The next call is a split call. Mojo Mathers—5 minutes.