Special Report
A recent proposal for the Department of Conservation to increase charges the public for staying at mountain huts on public land is wrong in terms of principle, mountain safety and misuse of public funding says the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations.
“It runs totally counter to New Zealand’s egalitarian ethos of the outdoors being freely available to all New Zealanders,” said Andi Cockroft, chairman of the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations.
Another organisation Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust is also strongly critical of the DOC proposal.
Laurie Collins, spokesman for the trust said a proposal to charge people up to $57 a night to use many huts, will set a trend making the outdoors accessible to only those who can afford it.
“It is reverting back to the feudal system of the UK where sports such as deerstalking and trout fishing are virtually the preserve of the wealthy upper class because of high fishing and shooting rights fees,” he said. “The early European settlers set out to escape that class system and install an egalitarian society where the right to outdoors sports is available to all, regardless of wealth or ethnicity.”
DOC Not Under-funded
Laurie Collins said the Department of Conservation was not under-funded but simply had to stop wasting money on some bizarre projects and ecosystem damaging poison drops that cost multi-millions.
“If you consider the driving force behind most pest control in New Zealand, it is the accumulation of money from one group to the other and that money is supplied by the New Zealand taxpayer. There was no mention in the newspaper article of the silent forest and all the other protected species – from invertebrates, insects and birds – that have been sacrificed in pursuit of departmental financial gain.”
“It was ironic that more money is desperately needed to rectify a failing health system while with the cost of living crisis so many of tax-paying citizens are suffering financial stress,” he said.
Costly Poison Drops
Unofficial estimates put the cost of each 1080 poison drop at between $2-3 million.
Andi Cockroft agreed and said DOC appeared to be a bloated bureaucracy that contrary to scientific advice, ran expensive anti-wild animal campaigns and other similarly wasteful exercises.
“A major factor appears to be a culture spawned during the Rogernomics era of running government agencies like DOC and the police as “businesses.”
He said the concept of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) where public agencies placed profits before the public, had spilled over into government departments.
“Government agencies are not businesses because they are financed by tax revenue that the people are forced to pay whether willing or not and they are allowed to decide what “goods and services” we have to accept from them. They are also monopolies that have no competitors”
The duty of the Department of Conservation was to protect and manage public lands and resources for the benefit of the current citizens and future generations. That would require providing safe access to enable citizens of New Zealand to benefit from using their public property without significantly damaging or wasting its resources.
Mountain Tragedies
By setting up a disincentive for New Zealand to use mountain huts, built using public money, DOC runs the grave risk of being responsible for mountain tragedies during bad weather.
The establishment and maintenance of tracks, shelters and other amenities would contribute to enabling citizens to safely access and enjoy their public property in return for what they are forced to pay to fund DOC.
“Unfortunately it’s obvious serving the citizens of New Zealand who pay for the government institution is not a priority for the managers of DOC,” he said.
DOC’s main priority seems the extermination war against introduced species that is now going to cost over $18 billion. It will prove impossible, i.e. a failure and will have endangered native wild life as currently exemplified by the now endangered kea.
“The Predator-Free dream has created another industry that the wealth generated by productive working tax-paying people is funding, whether they are willing or not. “This is another example of the people we call the state, transferring the wealth created by productive workers to a few other people involved in that new industry.” said Andi Cockroft.
“DOC no longer serves and benefits the people of New Zealand that communally own the public estate.” he said. “The resources that are supposed to be managed for the benefit of all the people are now commercialised for the benefit of a few of the people.”
Paranoid Dreamworld
Andi Cockroft said it was ironic that DOC soon after it was formed in 1987 embarked on removing facilities such as huts and foot bridges, for which it was strongly criticised.
Laurie Collins said not only was spending on 1080 poison drops wasteful, the practice was ecologically damaging.
“DOC and it’s ideologically driven bedfellows like Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP) are living in a paranoid dream world of invasive predators dogma and are ignoring scientific studies that show the poison drops are ecologically disruptive in causing population explosions of rats and stoats.”
He cited studies such as a 2007 Landcare Research which showed within 18 months of a poison drop, rat numbers had recovered and three years later were three times original numbers.
“Then the super-abundance of rats, leads to the rodents’ predator stoats increasing in similar fashion. If you study the history of 1080 drops, there’s a marked pattern of four years later DOC having to re-poison because of the excess of rats. Apart from killing birds and insects, 1080 drops are chucking enormous amounts of taxpayer money away.”
DOC simply needed to do self-searching scrutiny, re-order priorities and spending and realise it is funded by the public for the public interest which is heavily outdoor oriented with public recreation such as tramping, hunting and fishing on public lands, popular public pastimes. The key word is “public” and DOC needs to be educated by the minister that the department is first and foremost a public service said Laurie Collins.
Laurie Collins – DOC needs to do self-searching scrutiny and re-order priorities
Excellent comments by CORANZ and Sporting Hunters Trust. Total agreement with DOC’s waste of taxpayer money.
The wrong culture is the underlying cause in that DOC bureaucrats have forgotten they are first and foremost public servants. For that matter, so too are MPs and cabinet ministers, so Conservation Minister Potaka should act accordingly in calling DOC to account.
Has DOC considered that for a family of four, 4 x $57 equals $228, well above average motel rates?
DOC gets title of “Scrooge of the Year”.
Besides hasn’t the public paid during the year, via taxes and vote allocation to DoC?
DOC is now stuffed with woke university graduates (mainly, it seems, women) whose knowledge of nature was acquired in lecture-rooms. It is a bloated, smug empire of ignoramuses, apparently determined to eliminate what’s left of our wildlife, native and exotic. Its disbanding would be a boon to all of us, human and non-human, and the sooner this crowd are down the road the better.
PS. There may be a few good buggers left, but they’re in a diminishing minority and have little influence.
Absolutely right on Dave…glad to see you are still setting ’em straight …we are the last of a dying breed….from one of those “good buggers left”….never stop.
Yes, I fully agree with everything that has been said, and the sooner DOC disbands altogether, the better for all concerned. The outdoor adults of NZ do a lot for our young ones but this will discourage them and drive them back to their phones. Every New Zealander should have the God-given right to enter our bush areas. God gave man dominion over the land so all could use it he did not close areas off or make anyone own land .The DOC land belongs to the people and we, the people tell DOC what to do not the other way around . Laying poison is not the answer and DOC are very slow to learn this only because there are too many invested interests
The “conservation estate” is public lands and resources that belong to all NZ citizens in common.
The Department of Conservation was established and is well funded to manage this public property for the benefit of current and future citizens of New Zealand.
The objective of this management are to enable citizens to have safe access to their property and prevent waste of the resources.
In past times when the management of DOC was fit for purpose, access tracks, huts and other shelters were established and maintained to provide safe access and reduce wasteful damage of the resources.
These publicly funded amenities were beneficial for the citizens that tramped, climbed, hunted, fished, bird-watched and enjoyed access to their property in many ways.
The culture and perceived purpose of the Dept. of Conservation changed in the 1980’s when they were wrongly encouraged to function more as a commercial enterprise than providers of publicly funded services.
The reality that DOC is NOT A BUSINESS that owns assets and sells goods and services to willing buyers was replaced by a delusion that it is a commercial enterprise that manages and sells access to “DOC LANDS”.
The adoption of a user pays culture ignored the reality that the citizens of New Zealand have already paid for the establishment and upkeep of amenities in their communal property, are still paying and will continue to pay to provide the generous government funding that DOC receives.
Visitors to New Zealand also contribute to this government funding when they spend their overseas earned income while visiting New Zealand. That tourist revenue supports NZ business and generates a significant amount of government tax revenue.
The DOC approach to “business” is to exploit their monopoly and privilege of managing our communal assets to charge people twice for access. First by taxing their wages and spending and then again by charging for access.
This double charging is more like extortion than proper business.
The main priority of the people managing DOC is now to try to achieve the Predator Free AMBITION by using our money to pay for contractors to apply tons of extremely toxic poisons to our public property.
The cost of achieving this “ambition” was estimated to be about 9 Billion dollars but has now increased to over 18 billion and is still increasing.
The Predator Free Ambition has become a commercial industry by which the wealth generated by productive working people is transferred to the owners of private businesses contracted to do the poisoning operations.
This is a huge industry that is likely to continue indefinitely because the survivors of the species targeted for eradication breed more prolifically after the poisoning and replace the fatalities.
No other nation has ever approved of such an extreme method of controlling the numbers of unwanted species by serially polluting public property with deadly poisons at the expense of the productive working taxpayers.
Only the productive working citizens of New Zealand are forced to fund such a deluded and potentially dangerous “ambition” without being properly informed about what is being done and agreeing to pay for it.
The people that are paying for this foolish “aspiration” have also been prevented from knowing that Billions of their hard earned dollars are being taken from them and funneled into the pockets of the private enterprises that DOC hires and pays to do the killing.
If asked, most ordinary NZ citizens would probably say that this Predator Free Ambition is necessary to “save the birds” by controlling the “predators” and is not costing them very much at all.
The Predator Free narrative and propaganda does not inform the people of the facts about the “weapons” being used, the dangers involved, the lack of success or the ballooning costs they are being forced to keep paying.
The productive working people whose incomes fund DOC and the other government “enterprises” are struggling to pay the necessary costs of living but are also being forced to keep funding more and more government “initiatives” they did not ask for and cannot afford to pay for.
Now they are going to be forced to pay for shelter from the elements that they have already paid for .
But wait! There is sure to be more because fools and their money are soon parted by greedy extortionists that are supposed to be SERVANTS OF THE PEOPLE.
Get rid of forest and bird also as they seem to be a doc lobby group and nothing else
We only want to stay in them not buy them. DOC you are getting a bit greedy .