Thread: Quick and easy submission for the Game Animal Council select committee

Guys,
We desperately need submissions from all hunters to the GAC select committee process to ensure it doesn't get hijacked by the antis and greenies. These submissions need to be in by the 20th of this month so please do one now!
For those of you who are unsure about what to say, below in blue is a draft submission you can put in your own words to the select committee. You can copy and paste it in, but make sure you change some of the wording. Feel free to add to it anything else you feel strongly about.



“I support the creation of the Game Animal Council and the intent of this bill because –

It will set up a Council that is a statutory organisation that is directly responsible for the comprehensive management of our deer, tahr, chamois and wild pigs. This will be an organisation that I am part of and that I will have the chance to have real input into how it is run and what it does. This is not the case under the current system. As a hunter I recognise the need for the numbers of game animals to be controlled and believe that through the Game Animal Council this could be done more effectively and more efficiently whilst providing better hunting opportunities for myself and my family.

I strongly support the Establishment Committee’s recommendations. Those recommendations were made after an extensive consultation process in which hunters overwhelming stated what they wanted and needed! They represented the best way forward in establishing a Game Animal Council that has the necessary structure and functions to deliver benefits to hunting and game animals. I request that the select committee recommend that the bill be amended to bring it back into line with how the Establishment Committee proposed the Game Animal Council should be established.

I also give my support to the ‘collective hunting sectors’ submission and recommendations, especially the recommendation that there be at least 50% recreational hunter representation on the council.

I do not wish to appear before the Select Committee.”



This is the link to the page where you make your submission.

http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/PB/SC...l-Council-Bill

To anyone who is still unsure that the GAC as the establishment committee proposed it is essential for our future, have a read of Eugenie Sage from the Green Party’s speech at the first reading in red below. Eugenie is almost guaranteed to be the Minister of Conservation in the Labour/Green’s alliance we’re going to have in the not too distant future, and her speech leaves no doubt what we’re in for as recreational hunters when that happens!

If anyone has any questions or queries about the proposed GAC, please fire away here and I’ll answer them, or talk to someone who can answer them if I can’t and come back to you. The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask!
Greg


“Tēnā koe, Mr Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak on the first reading of the Game Animal Council Bill. The Green Party opposes this bill because of the pre-eminence that it gives to introduced deer, tahr, chamois, and pigs in the management of our public protected lands, and the way that that cuts across the statutory purpose of conservation legislation. The bill creates the Game Animal Council as a statutory authority, and in so doing, elevates and gives special status to hunting and problem animals such as deer and tahr. The bill is a big lollipop for United Future, but it is a huge backward step. It is poisonous for conservation, and particularly our indigenous plants. Our alpine flora evolved without browsing mammals, and species such as Ranunculus lyallii, the Mount Cook buttercup, are very vulnerable to the heavy browsing and trampling of big introduced herbivores such as tahr and chamois. So we believe that our conservation lands should be managed to protect their indigenous ecosystems and provide for a range of recreation, not managed as game preserves for hunting. These game preserves are in direct conflict with the purpose for which conservations lands are managed, and that is to protect our natural indigenous ecosystems, wildlife, and habitats.
Although Mr Dunne may say that this bill does not dilute existing powers in the legislation, it creates very real tension between the delegated functions of the Game Animal Council and the Department of Conservation. We have seen how many hunters interested in protecting deer from by-kill through 1080 operations have opposed and raised a lot of public concern about 1080 in order to protect their hunting interests, and that same tension will be evident with this Game Animal Council.
The bill enables the Minister to designate herds of special interest, and allows the Game Animal Council, not the Department of Conservation, to manage areas of conservation lands for hunters and recreational hunting. In giving this privileged status to hunters and hunting, we seem to have forgotten the deer menace and the huge financial and resource investment by the Crown over many decades in controlling deer and other pests on Crown land. Deer were declared noxious animals in the 1930s, and it was the Department of Internal Affairs and then the New Zealand Forest Service that employed professional cullers from the 1930s right until the end of the 1980s to eradicate deer from New Zealand. We understood then the ecological impacts of deer browsing. We understood that it could contribute to erosion. We understood that it severely reduced the capacity for forestry generation. So the Crown funded those professional cullers, and that saw nearly 3 million deer culled between the 1930s and the mid-1950s.
It was that effort in professional deer culling and helicopter recovery of venison that dramatically reduced deer numbers in the South Island. It was this House that passed the Wild Animal Control Act in 1977, in recognition of the need to control these harmful species and to regulate the operations of both commercial hunters and recreational hunters, if we were to get effective wild animal control. This bill undermines that past commitment and that investment of Crown resource, because of the privileged status it gives to hunting. In our view, the Government’s conservation priorities are all awry. Having cut conservation funding by $54 million, the Government is now proposing to allocate $100,000—it says in the regulatory impact statement—to the Game Animal Council, when the Department of Conservation is having to pull back on its work. How is that $100,000 to be found? Through reprioritisation within Vote Conservation. So it will be robbed from work on our indigenous species. A tramper emailed me only yesterday to say how impressed he was by the work of the department in the Hurunui Valley, where staff are working to protect great spotted kiwi. They and he were worried that those staff would lose their jobs in the next round of restructuring in the department. The Government can increase the spending on noxious animals such as tahr, but not on our indigenous species.
As the regulatory impact statement highlights, there is no need for this bill and no need for the Game Animal Council. I quote from the statement: “There is no information clearly establishing that current institutional arrangements in the management regime for wild animals requires change to improve participation among the different groups with interests in these animals and their effects”. It goes on to say: “There is no evidence that current user groups and organisations (for example the Deerstalkers’ Association) are deficient in representing their members’ interests.” We already have the Conservation Authority and conservation boards, which enable people to participate in the management of conservation lands.
We have an example of what happens when you get a herd management plan, in the tahr control plan in the central Southern Alps. Himalayan tahr numbers were reduced to around 3,000 in the early 1980s. Now, with that plan, which emphasises the role of recreational hunters, we have seen tahr numbers climb to over 10,000, with huge impacts on the alpine flora of that region, including a number of threatened plants, like the Mount Cook buttercup. So this bill, in putting hunting interests first, potentially compromises all of those indigenous ecosystems.
I look forward to being on the Local Government and Environment Committee and hearing public submissions. There will be, I think, a strong swell of opposition, because of the way the bill cuts across the Conservation Act and the conservation purpose to preserve and protect our indigenous biota. Thank you.”

Just tried but the link comes up as 'link not found', tried to find my own way in but it looks like you have to post two copies in, surely there must be an email option?? Can you re-try the link

Steve,
Not sure why its not showing the whole link on the page. It does when I go to edit, but keeps shortening it when I go save. Anyway, you can go to that link, go to select committee's, and then scroll down to the GAC one on the 20th, then click make submission on the left side. I'll keep trying to get the full link in.
Greg

New Zealand Parliament - Game Animal Council Bill

Works now. Just scroll to the bottom of the page to the button that says "make online submission"

Thanks Greg, was looking for some help here as I want to submit but the brain and keyboard seldom work in sync.

Also the AATH submissions are also coming up due too. 18 April close. Any pointers there to assist with a submission.
EmailMe Form - HELI-HUNTING or AERIALLY ASSISTED TROPHY HUNTING

James,
We're trying to get a 2 week extension on that one, so we've got time to get as many submissions on both as possible. If we can't, I'll come back soon with some help on that one too.
Greg

Done.

Greg would you mind if i copy and paste your 1st section and email it to my local NZDA members so the guys can have a crack at putting a submission in, it is something our club falls short in.

Mal, go for your life!

done

Submissions for both myself and Hastings Branch NZDA done

Is the GAC going to end up more of a F&G type entity? Or a government department?.... Sorry for asking the obvious but i have not followed this at all politics dont interest me.....

Adam,
Neither, but closer to a Fish&Game type model.
It is going to be a council of representatives from all with an interest in big game animals. Under the new act, it will have the power to manage our big game animals and take their mismanagement away from DoC.

Originally Posted by Greg Duley

Mal, go for your life!

Cheers for that.

I hope they are able to better manage, but I dont want to see my hunting under lock and key, thats my only potential qualm... At sea till monday then have a very long drive to hamilton so ill get my bit done once I got that all over with.... Cheers