Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill

Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill Third Reading Debate resumed. DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) (17:30): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s my pleasure to take a call on the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill. We oppose it, particularly in light of the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Act, which went through the House only recently, and then also the cut in funding for conservation—and also biosecurity, but that’s a debate for another day. Hon Kieran McAnulty: Relevant though, isn’t it? DAN ROSEWARNE: It is extremely relevant, absolutely. The Minister for Hunting and Fishing gave his opening statement, and it was relatively short. I was actually expecting a hunting story or something like that. Maybe he might be a “Tupperware” hunter? You know, he has all the gear but no idea! A bit like the National Party at Fieldays. They had their cute little blue Swanndris on. They must have just pulled them out of the bag and put them on— Hon Kieran McAnulty: Brand new. DAN ROSEWARNE: Yeah, brand spanking new. Then they went to their little corner, right on the boundary of Fieldays, and waited for people to come to them. In the meantime, we were out talking to the community, out there going around the stalls and hearing what people had to say. In the days that I was there, I didn’t see one National MP. But, as I promised at the start, Mr Speaker, I’ll get back to the bill, and we’ll start with a hunting story. My favourite area— ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): There was so much noise coming from the right that you can talk about what you like, because I can hardly hear you. DAN ROSEWARNE: My favourite place to hunt is down in Stewart Island. They have the elusive white-tailed deer, and 85 percent of that land is protected Department of Conservation land. The good thing about white-tailed deer is that they’re so elusive and you have to actually apply a bit of craft to shoot one. I’ve found the best way to do it is to go down there with a group of friends and you kayak around, rather than taking the tracks. You find one of the long beaches—there are fantastic beaches there, which just belong on a postcard. If you saw them on a postcard, you wouldn’t even know it was Stewart Island. You’d think it was somewhere in the central Pacific, or somewhere like that. Anyway, the best way to shoot a white-tailed deer is either first thing in the morning at dawn or at dusk, when they come down to feed on any kind of remains that are on the beach. Zero in your rifle ahead of time. I had a .308, so don’t bother zeroing it down there. Zero it before you get there. Hon Cameron Brewer: How’d you get that in the Koru Club? DAN ROSEWARNE: Absolutely—now, where was I? You wait for them to come down. If you try to shoot them during the day—because they go into the bush, and it’s thick bush, thick canopy—they’ll just hear you coming and they’ll take off. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): And then you get in your boat and go up to the wapiti block, don’t you, because that’s what we’re talking about. DAN ROSEWARNE: Absolutely. But, if you’re there dawn or at dusk and you set up shop, you’ll eventually see them come down. The main point with that story, Mr Speaker, is that the whole appeal of shooting white-tailed deer is not because it’s easy; it’s because it’s hard. That’s why I oppose this bill, because the key aspect is that this legislation asks the House to shift the purpose of our national parks. The National Parks Act 1980 is clear in that these places are to be preserved in their natural state, and introduced species are to be exterminated as far as possible. This bill cuts directly across that principle. It creates a legal pathway to deliberately maintain introduced species, such as deer, inside national parks for hunting purposes. That’s the contradiction at the heart of this bill. You cannot preserve a natural system while sustaining introduced animals within it. I particularly liked Celia Wade-Brown’s contribution. She highlighted that those on both sides of this argument care about the same thing. You can be a hunter, absolutely, and you can support this bill. I truly believe that. At least with Cameron Luxton, he gave some kind of half-hearted hunting story. I was getting really excited about that, but then it kind of nosedived—typical of the ACT Party poll right now, but, again, that’s a story for another day. We oppose this bill. Dr VANESSA WEENINK (National—Banks Peninsula) (17:35): Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to take a call on the third reading of the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill. We know, and hunters know, that when deer numbers are too high, the bush is devastated. That’s why, under this bill, it brings in small areas where there’s designated management plans to be in effect. Those plans require ecological surveys of the browsing intensity levels, and they’re aiming to get between the levels of about 10 to 15 percent in those areas. What we know is that, at present, some of those unmanaged areas are seeing areas getting about 50 percent of browsing. That is way beyond what we’d expect to see for a sustainable forest. This will put more attention into those areas and improve the conservation outcomes where those herds of special interest remain. It allows them to continue. It allows people to still be able to hunt white-tail on Stewart Island, as the previous member, Dan Rosewarne, so enjoys. Hon JO LUXTON (Labour) (17:37): Thank you, Mr Speaker. One of the things that I think has been a bit misconstrued throughout this debate is the fact that the members on the Government benches have said that members on this side of the House don’t think that hunters are conservationists. That’s simply not correct. Nobody on this side of the House, and particularly in the Labour Party, has said that hunters are not conservationists. Hunting has a very important and special place here in New Zealand. We do it for recreational purposes. Many people and their families head out for a trek for a day, for a camp for a few days, particularly to go on hunting expeditions. It’s in the fabric of who we are here as New Zealanders, and hunters make a real contribution to the management of deer on public land, and they do deserve respect and recognition for that. But this bill goes too far. It’s a bit like my colleague Ingrid Leary said before in her contribution: this is about trophy hunting, not necessarily conservation. I understand there have been points made throughout the several readings of this bill and the committee stage, etc., about the importance and tourism opportunities—that having a herd of special interest creates tourism opportunities. Many people come to New Zealand to enjoy the beautiful flora and fauna that our national parks provide, and they are also coming for those tourism opportunities. I don’t think we should necessarily say that the opportunity for trophy hunting is the be-all and end-all of providing or creating tourism opportunities here in New Zealand. We heard from Rachel Brooking in her contribution about some of the devastating impacts that deer have on our forests, on our flora and fauna: eating saplings and the undergrowth so then it’s not enabling it to regenerate. Our wild deer population in the country has absolutely exploded, and we heard Rachel Brooking when she talked about her one shot from 300 or something metres away. Then she talked about the fact that you don’t need to be 300 metres away to shoot a deer these days, because the population has exploded so much; it’s just about not even hunting. You hear of farmers who go out on farm and, basically, the deer have come in from the bush and they can just stand there and shoot—that there’s about 30 or 40 of them just sitting there. That does bring me to another point, because I wanted to talk a bit about—I just want to find my notes on it—the exploding deer population and, as I mentioned before, the issue around the deer coming on to farms. Now, we know that the deer are moving a bit more freely between conservation land, private farmland, and forestry blocks, and if we elevate particular herds of special interests, we do risk creating pockets of higher deer densities that will spill on to adjoining farmland, particularly, potentially— Hon James Meager: No, not true. Not true. Hon JO LUXTON: I don’t know. Are you fencing it off? Are you, Minister? Hon James Meager: It’s not true. You manage the numbers down. Hon JO LUXTON: Are you fencing the deer off for this specific— Dr Vanessa Weenink: We’re not doing any fencing. Hon JO LUXTON: Well, there you go then. So they’re not going to want to go to other places and, potentially, on to farmland. But anyway— Hon James Meager: Yes, because there’s going to be fewer deer. Hon JO LUXTON: You can have another call later on if you like, Minister. However— Hon James Meager: The bill will be passed. Hon JO LUXTON: Oh dear—anyway. It’s the farmers that bear the brunt of the cost if we have this deer exploding population. We have wild pigs; we have all these things coming in and destroying productive land, eating crops, and it’s just not fair. In a note here, in a Federated Farmers survey, farmers are spending significant sums of money on control work in lost production. More than half of the survey’s respondents report deer numbers have increased in the past five years. Now— Hon James Meager: It’s almost like you should manage the numbers down. Hon JO LUXTON: The Minister says, “That’s why you manage the numbers down.” What is the correct number, though? What is the ultimate number to ensure that you have a deer population that you can keep under control? Because, from what I understand and what I’ve heard from other people— Dr Vanessa Weenink: It’s about the state of the bush. It’s the browsing intensity, not the number of animals. Hon JO LUXTON: Take another call if you wish. Take another call if you wish. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Miss Weenink, I believe you’ve had a call. Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Not a very long one. Hon JO LUXTON: That’s right. Miss Weenink could have taken a longer call if she had more to say, but she didn’t. However, the issue is, though, that when you create—that’s right; I was speaking about the exact, the best, the perfect number. There can’t be a perfect number to have for herds of special interest, because I think it was Lan Pham that mentioned before, unless you cull them by a specific percentage, they are going to continue to get out of control and it’s just simply not going to be in the best interest for our beautiful taonga, our beautiful native parks. This piece of legislation has gone through the House, and it seems that it’s gone through following an awful lot of lobbying and just-in-time policy making, a complete lack of evidence and data regarding impacts on native flora and fauna, a lack of recognition of Te Tiriti, and a transfer of far more decision making to the Minister than I believe is actually necessary. It’s also an additional cost to New Zealand taxpayers for an unnecessary piece of legislation that’s not even required to allow hunters to continue hunting. That is the thing: this piece of legislation doesn’t allow more hunting or anything like that, because the hunters can continue to hunt as they have always done, and they can continue to hunt these herds of special interest or these trophy deer, as we’ve heard. We don’t need legislation to allow them to continue to do that, because at the rate that these deer—what’s the word—have more deer— Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Reproduce! Hon JO LUXTON: —reproduce—I don’t think there’s going to be an issue, right? We just see the population exploding. I do think that this particular piece of legislation is actually unnecessary, because, as I’ve mentioned before, we can’t keep on top of our invasive species as it is, so I just think that it is completely and necessary. I mentioned before about the lack of recognition of Te Tiriti, and it was that question of whose voices are heard that also extends to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, because if the Government’s prepared to listen to those advocating for these herds of special interests—those that have lobbied, the hunters, etc.—then they should be prepared to listen to those who have longstanding cultural, historical, and environmental interests in these landscapes. Yet this bill contains no meaningful implementation of Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles, no recognition of important cultural values associated with the conservation estate, and that includes places of immense significance to iwi, such as Aoraki and the Tōpuni status as recognised by Ngāi Tahu. When we’re making decisions about the future of our public conservation land, those values should not be an afterthought. If this Government believes that the interest of hunting groups deserve recognition and legislation, then it is also fair to ask why the interests and cultural values of tangata whenua have not been given the same consideration in this piece of legislation. To recap: no one on this side of the House has said that hunters are not conservationists. Hunters can still, and have always been able to, continue hunting, regardless of whether there is a specific species made a herd of special interest or not. Hunters play an important part in trying to keep our deer population down. Our deer population is continuing to explode, so it takes more than our hunters; it’s going to take a variety of options to ensure that our deer population comes down. We do not need this piece of legislation. We do not need herds of special interest, because our hunters can continue to hunt. They have always been able to hunt. No matter whether there is a deer that is a just an ordinary old wild deer or whether there is a special wapiti deer or whatever it might be, they’re still destroying our flora and fauna, and they should not be protected. Hunters can still continue to hunt them. They shouldn’t be given special recognition. TIM COSTLEY (National—Ōtaki) (17:47): I would like to respond, to, I think it was Rachel Brooking, that said the Minister’s comments were contradictory. Now, if I lay aside all the factually incorrect comments that we’ve heard from the other side of the House, if we want contradictory, in rode Dan Rosewarne, the “King of Koru”, to say that at Fieldays you couldn’t see a National MP, while six of us at a time were at our stand engaging with hunters, engaging with the rural communities, next to the empty site of just plain grass that was the alleged Labour Party stand. To then stand up here and say that they are speaking for hunters, they’re speaking for conservationists, they speak for the regions—they wouldn’t know what they were. They’re moving electorates because they’ve—they’re moving away from the regions. This is a great bill. It is bang on target. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Dr Duncan Webb—the Te Pāti Māori call. Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central) (17:47): Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you for giving me this call, and I know it was at your discretion, because I do intend to make a substantive contribution. It’s always struck me as a funny old thing when you drive up Lindis Pass and you get to the top of the pass or thereabouts, and there’s a monument there, and it’s celebrating the introduction of the first deer in New Zealand. I look at that sometimes—I’ve stopped there and read the plaque—and I thought, “Well, you know, it’s actually not something I would actually celebrate.” Now, they’re here and they’ll always be here, but to suggest that it’s a fantastic thing to have these introduced species running rampant through our forests is a really kind of odd thing. Now, I accept that hunting is a thing—I’ve done a little bit of it myself—and that many of the hunters do have great conservation values. The whole idea of trying to divide us for and against hunters and not hunters is a really bad thing. But when you travel to some of our most remote regions, when you do get to those places where there are very few of these browsers, you get for the first time an impression of what our forests used to be like, where the entire forest floor is a thick undergrowth of mosses, of saplings, of small plants, of all kinds of amazing biodiversity. Of course, within that is hidden all kinds of fungi and insects and invertebrates and all sorts. That’s what it used to be like. That is why we have national parks, because our national parks are set aside—at least they currently are—to protect our most treasured areas. That’s why, when we have national parks, we don’t have arrangements where we protect, within those parks, herds of introduced species, essentially, for recreational purposes. Of course we can, and hunters do and should hunt in national parks. We can have herds of interest, and we have management plans in national parks, but we can have management plans which look to preserve hunting in other parts of the country which aren’t our most treasured areas. But what this does, and why it makes no sense, is it says, “Look, we think we should promote hunting”—that’s OK by itself—“and we think we should have national parks.”; that is to say, “We should preserve the utmost pristine nature in our most remote areas, and let’s do those two things at the same time in the same place.” That’s the madness of this bill, because we should, in fact, recognise that our national parks should be kept as pristine as possible, and while we have deer and other browsers in our national parks, and all kinds of other introduced pests, we shouldn’t be encouraging them. There’s plenty of land in New Zealand where deer and other species can be managed, and hunters can go and hunt them at their will. But if they’re going to a national park, let’s make it hard. Let’s make sure there are as few of these browsers damaging our national parks as possible, because, as Rachel Brooking said, if you look at an area where deer have proliferated, where there are a good number of them, there is nothing below deer level. There’s nothing growing. There’s nothing on the ground. It can be near barren, and, certainly, all the branches on the trees have been chewed off. It’s a really terrible thing. And yet we’ve got a Minister for Hunting and Fishing here who’s quite happy to see that happen in our national parks. This is an incoherent piece of legislation, which, unfortunately, is pandering to a very small group of people, because most people do want to keep our wildest areas the most pristine. I would suggest that the Minister get his boots on and go and trek to some of those truly remote areas, and perhaps then he’ll appreciate what we’re trying to preserve here, because it’s a treasure that, once gone, will never come back; once sold, can never be bought back. A party vote was called for on the question, That the Game Animal Council (Herds of Special Interest) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. Ayes 67 New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 55 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Ferris; Kapa-Kingi. Motion agreed to. Bill read a third time. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): Members, we are one minute short of the five-minute call. The New Zealand First member has indicated he intends to take a full 10-minute call. That will take us beyond 6 o’clock, and I know people are looking to catch flights tonight, so the time has come for me to leave the chair. Have a good weekend. Thank you . The House adjourned at 5.54 p.m.