Williams Andrew: Game Animal Council Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Game Animal Council Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:14914. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First): I will take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Game Animal Council Bill. Sometimes I do wonder whether I am sitting in the same select committee because some of the comments that have been made today—Maggie Barry: We do wonder too.ANDREW WILLIAMS: I am supporting you Maggie Barry. Do not knock me—do not knock me. I do wonder having gone to Christchurch and having been in a packed room in Christchurch with interests from all over the game animal sector—from recreational people to commercial people to people involved in all aspects of it—whether all the members here today who have spoken actually were at that particularhearing and did hear from the submitters because quite frankly this does bring together all the people who have an involvement in big-game animals in this country.I looked back today just to reference that on the website of the establishment committee—the Game Animal Council Establishment Committee. It says on there that back in 2007 a ministerial panel looked into future options for managing game animals and recommended the formation of a big-game hunting council as it was originally intended. The establishment committee was formed representing hunters and game animal managers. It was to have regard to the environmental effects of deer tahr chamois—or shammy—and wild pigs. It was to relate to the hunting farming and management of those animals including recreational hunters commercial hunters farmers and the public in general. Game animal numbers needed to be controlled for conservation reasons.That was the basic premise back in 2007 of the ministerial panel recommending the establishment of that committee. Further it was given terms of reference and the main terms of reference were that the establishment committee would encourage participation in hunting and farming of deer shammy tahr and wild pigs; it would coordinate hunting activities to reduce conflicts; it would establish agreed national standards for hunting activities; it would advocate for the interests of its membership to the Minister of Conservation and to the public generally; and it would advise the Minister on matters relating to the management of big-game animals in New Zealand. Those are pretty clear terms of reference for the establishment committee.The establishment committee originally consisted of five representatives who represented recreational deer hunters pig hunters commercial deer hunters guiding services to recreational hunters and deer farming and safari park operators. Those were the original five. This Game Animal Council Establishment Committee then went on and spent the last 6-odd years—we are now in 2013—developing this through the whole process with widespread consultation across New Zealand with all those involved and affected including in the areas of conservation and with the Department of Conservation environmentalists Fish and Game New Zealand and in all sorts of other areas.As a result the first bill when it was first brought to this House had various angles on it that New Zealand First initially had some difficulties with. We were quite happy when we saw that it was going to go to a select committee and be really really thrashed out. And it was. I was most impressed that as a result of the select committee process we really were able to get into it get some much better outcomes from it address many of the concerns particularly the concerns that were coming out of some of the environmental and conservation areas regarding this and address the concerns of the recreational hunters in tandem with the commercial hunters.At the end of the day it was very very pleasing to be in the same room with so many of these people who were finally starting to see eye to eye with each other and to see the value and the scope that this Game Animal Council would finally have to cover the interests of all those people. As a result of that it was recommended of course and agreed that the committee would end up with a membership of between nine and 11 members to ensure that there was much wider representation across all interested parties and that it would have a chair who was capable of chairing it and who would have skills in the area of conflict of interest and be able to resolve issues and bring parties together. As a result in this bill it does state that the chair will be required to have those skills to bring all the parties together.It does concern me that there are members in this House today who say that recreational hunting has been left out and ignored. That is not the case—not the case at all. Quite clearly the term “hunting” covers all aspects of hunting whether it berecreational whether it be commercial whether it be guided services for recreational hunters or whether it be the industry side of deer farming wild deer recovery and that sort of thing which overlaps into our deer farming industry and the like.I believe that at the end of the day we have achieved some good legislation here. It is significantly different from the original legislation that came in the House but is the result I believe of a good process that saw over 600 submissions a good process that heard very very good oral submissions and very good representatives of so many sectors coming to the select committee and putting their views which were taken on board by the members of Parliament—or at least taken on board by the members of Parliament who listened but obviously not by some who did not listen. As a result of this I think this legislation is a good piece of legislation now and New Zealand First will be supporting it. We like the idea that it has a 3-year review period so anything that perhaps has been missed or where there could still be some fine-tuning some tweaking or some areas that may still be assisted with the result within the 3 year period we would like to see that occur. New Zealand First commends this bill to the House.