| The
Government should rename the Conservation Department the
Confiscation Department, United Future environment and outdoors
spokesman Larry Baldock said in Parliament today, in slamming
DOC for “running roughshod over” the public
with the Great Barrier Marine Reserve. “It’s
confiscation, pure and simple,” Mr Baldock said.
In
tackling Associate Conservation Minister Rick Barker in
Parliament, he said DOC under its Minister, Chris Carter,
was effectively confiscating
one of Auckland’s favourite fishing spots and thereby
depriving recreational and traditional fishers of their
birthright. |
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“I have
constantly asked the Minister in this House to explain how
he and his department can ignore the objections of the New
Zealand Recreational Fishing Council, the Ngati Rehua hapu
of Ngati Wai, the Auckland City Council, adjoining landowners,
option4 and the Big Game Fishing Council, representing hundreds
of thousands of hard-working, tax-paying New Zealanders.
“It seems he is perfectly happy to impose his will
over all these groups,” Mr Baldock said.
“This ‘we know best attitude’ is not acceptable
and will probably lead to the Minister being an ex-Minister
in the near future.”
He said the rail-roading through of the marine reserve was
completely at odds with Mr Carter’s recent public
claims that he wanted marine reserve areas driven by working
groups of stakeholders and not pushed through by DOC.
“And then this one is driven through with only lip-service
but no action on the views of the majority,” Mr Baldock
said. |
