Sage Eugenie: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 25 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13734. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the Conservation (Natural Heritage Protection) Bill. The Green Party supports this bill and congratulates Jacqui Dean on her work in bringing it to the House because it will encourage compliance with conservation legislation and by doing this it better protects our natural and historic resources and our wildlife. Jacqui Dean provided a very comprehensive summary of the bill’s purpose and its contents so I will not repeat that but I will just say that it does not create any new offences or have any new powers and that may account for the small number of submissions. There were eight submissions to the Local Government and Environment Committee and all of those submissions supported the bill. None of those submissions opposed it. Submitters certainly stressed the value of higher penalties and the need for a much more consistent approach across the five pieces of legislation—including the National Parks Act the Conservation Act and the Wildlife Act which the bill originally dealt with. Now there are six pieces of legislation with the addition of the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Submitters stressed the need for effective penalties to encourage compliance and they also highlighted the value of having some flexibility in terms of sentencing options.So we certainly welcome the legislation but we do wish Jacqui Dean would encourage Government members to have a rather more consistent approach to the protection of our distinctive plants and wildlife. If you look at clause 4C of the bill which inserts new section 43C that has penalties in relation to “unlawful acts in respect of spawning fish:” and in section 26ZR of the principal Act—the Conservation Act—to “the use of a substance or electric device to take or destroy freshwater fish:”. Under the principal Act because of this bill the courts will be able to impose a sentence of imprisonment of up to 2 years or a fine of $100000 if you do anything to interfere with spawning fish or if you put a hazardous substance or a narcotic substance in the water with the intention of killing fish. Yet the very same department the Department of Conservation which is able to prosecute those offences with those penalties is not able to put evidence in front of the board of inquiry on theTukituki catchment proposal which would show how the intensive agriculture and irrigation that that catchment proposal enables could kill about 18 species of native fish in the Tukituki River because when the nutrient runoff—the nitrogen that is associated with intensiveagriculture—seeps into waterways you get more algal blooms and you get conditions that are toxic to fish.This bill increases the penalties for harming fish. Yet when the very same department with the very same statutory responsibilities to advocate for conservation to preserve as far as practicable all indigenous freshwater fisheries to protect recreational freshwater fisheries—the purposes that this bill is based on—tries to carry out that same statutory responsibility in relation to the Tukituki catchment and in relation to the GovernmentRuataniwha irrigation proposal it is not allowed to do it because a Minister of Conservation who has been as slippery as an eel in relation to his denials of having anything to do with suppressing that Department of Conservation submission has not allowed the department to put forward evidence of how irrigation can make rivers toxic. Yet this bill is increasing the penalties for an individual who does that. So we desire more consistency across Government.We welcome this bill but we think that the department should also be allowed to carry out its statutory responsibilities for freshwater fish and for conservation advocacy in a wider sphere under the Resource Management Act not just relating it to individuals. So we will be supporting it but it is a very great pity that the board of inquiry will not have any contestable evidence from a Government department in front of it when it considers the Tukituki catchment proposal. It will have evidence from the Ministry for Primary Industries but not from the department. Yet this bill is right on point in terms of recognising the department’s responsibilities for the protection of freshwater fish and for increasing the penalties for killing fish. Thank you.