Kate Hall: Breaking down the controversial Conservation Amendment Bill

The proposed Conservation Amendment Bill has made a lot of headlines of late.  

The bill modernises regulation of the Department of Conservation’s estate, and previously included a clause that would make it easier for conservation land to be sold – which was been removed after significant backlash. 

Kate Hall is an advocate for sustainability and environmentalism and has looked at both sides of the debate, and her perspective is a nuanced one. 

She joined Jack Tame to break down her thoughts on the bill, the things she’d support and the things she’s more cautious towards. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Tame podcast
from News.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Talks BE and our sustainability expert Kate Hall is with
us this morning, Killeder, what I How are you doing
in that chilli home of yours? Have you been doing? Okay?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
Yeah, I think I need to invite some gloves.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Do you not have gloves?

Speaker 3 (00:29):
No, but my head is somewhere. I don't know. I
just always washed my hands and don't care.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I've got my gloves. I
have this terrible thing when my circulation for some reason
is just like is appalling, and so even in the
half of the summer, my hands are freezing cold, and
I always have to apologize when I introduce myself to
someone and shake the hand. Yeah, I'm always like, I'm
really sorry, I'm not I know this sort of feels
like a cadaver, but actually I am a living person

(00:56):
and I do have blood circulating through there. It's just
for some reason it's not circulating very well.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Do you have to kind of expose it's probably rude
to blow on your hands and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah exactly if you do what you did, they don't
want to be doing it with an eyesight. You know
you don't want to. Yeah, so I've got my jobs out. Yeah,
they've been rolling. Hey, we've only got I mean, we
don't talk about politics that much, but we only have
for like twenty something days sitting days left for this
parliament before it fully kicks off into election campaign mode

(01:26):
and the House rises for the election. And you were
keeping a very very close eye on the conservation reform BLA.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yes, that has been I've actually have been pretty proud
of like the media and online circles. I'm not sure
if it's just because I'm in this space, but everyone's
talking about it and everyone is quite outraged by it, right, rightly,
So I think it's pretty Yeah for New Zealand, I
in conservation is like the backbone of our country. It's yeah,

(01:55):
pretty wild what they are suggesting to happen to our conservation,
like our protected spaces.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Right, Okay, So try and give us as best you can.
I know that you're probably opposed to some of the stitutions,
but try and give us the non biased view, like
the non finger on the on the scale view. Tell
us about what the bill is actually proposing. So I guess, yeah,
to be clear, there are some things you support, ah, yes, yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Things that it's really hard though, because you can say, oh, yeah,
I support that, But I guess underlying the bill is
proposing that the primary purpose of conservation land become more
economic development focused, so you know, you can support, like,
there are some great things around generating more funding of conservation,
asking international visitors to contribute more towards the spaces. You

(02:46):
know that they're coming to enjoy, streamlining some of the
Duck's processes, so making things, you know, so they can
happen faster and better, kind of long term planning that
supports the conservation and responsible like public access. There's a
whole of things there that I'm like, yeah, that would
be great. You know, it'd be great if we had
more need for conservation. It'd be great if if we

(03:10):
could streamline things so things could happen faster to protect
these spaces. But the basis of it, and something that
I think there's been a lot of people power pushing
to change, which they have actually updated some of the
parts of the bill already or you know suggests yeah,
is the fact that no one in New Zealand, not

(03:33):
anyone kind of that that I've met who's been talking
about this, wants any of our conservation land to be
unprotected or to have any sort of protection or wriggle
room kind of taken away around what can happen in
that land. And while I understand, you know, we need
more space for housing, we need you know, like there's

(03:55):
there's more infrastructure or different needs there that may contradict
with conservation, I think it's such a slippery slope that
if we you know, you can't take things back. If
you start claiming conservation land for other sorts of purposes,

(04:16):
it's very unlikely that're going to go back, you know, backtrack.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
So in general, like submissions open now, which is great,
and they're actually we're going to close several days ago,
but they've lengthened it until the thirteenth in July. Yeah, right, Yeah,
so it's really important that we submit on this because, yeah,
what is New Zealand without our hardcore protected conservation spaces.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
I mean so I always look at things kind of
through my the you know, with my other hat on,
my my other professional hat on, and you know, there
are always, like you say, there are there are components
that I think a lot of people will get behind
with the bill and some more controversial things, and not
everyone's going to agree on them. But I suppose there's
always a balance, isn't there In New Zealand, like between

(05:03):
I think all of us. No one is suggesting that
we will to have, you know, destroy our conservation estate
and sell it all off and dig everything up into
it all on car parks and all that kind of stuff.
But it is always it is always a balance between
some of those kind of economic drivers as well. Yeah, yea,
And I suppose you know, that's what the government would

(05:23):
say that they're trying to They think the balance is
slightly had aware can that there's some opportunity there and
that they want to kind of adjust the balance at
the moment.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yes, yeah, yeah, So it's not Yeah, I think it's
not black and white, which I guess people may be
a surprised to hear me say that, because you know,
like you can when you hear the bill, we think,
oh my goodness, no, we don't want to take away
a conversation there. But like you said, yeah, there's a
whole lot of nuance. There's a whole lot of different
paths to the bill, which is like it's great to

(05:51):
submit on it and to say what you like or
you don't like about it. You can find I mean,
the bill is obviously quite a long complex, lots lots
going into it.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
You come, okay, this is my life reading legislation, read
proposedly just like you get excited.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
You can find summaries of it and yeah, different headlines
and bullet points. But I think having a balanced view
is really important because there are some things that could
be great for conservation, but there are parts of it
that are very christiable.

Speaker 2 (06:28):
Yeah, okay, thank you so much. Kate, stay warm and
we will catch you again in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
Thanks Jack.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
There's Kay Hall. You can find her, of course on
social media. Just look up Ethically Kate on the social
media platforms and you'll be able to track it in
in no time.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame, listen live
to news talks i'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.