Andrew Dickens: Reality lost in conservation bill rhetoric

The hubbub yesterday over the Conservation Amendment Bill brought to light three issues for me. Firstly, how bad much of our law is, and that stems back to how it’s written and processed. Secondly, that many concerned organisations are not afraid to scaremonger and exaggerate to win their way. And thirdly, how many New Zealanders rely on social media to keep informed on the issues of the day. For those who were spooked by the news that land in the Conservation estate could be swapped or sold, they only had to go to Google, and they could find a myriad of expert opinion. For many, much of the new law updates were sorely needed for a piece of legislation that is 40 years old. On Newsroom, one expert planner also pointed out the sales and swaps of conservation land already happens, and all this amendment does is make the process less clunky. Others pointed out that it takes power away from a Minister which was a check and balance. All agreed it’s a badly written law that’s been rushed and is currently before a select committee with a tight deadline of July 2nd. A complaint about our modern law that Sir Geoffrey Palmer pointed out last week. But one wondered why the reality and the rhetoric were so different, and that lies at the feet of groups like Greenpeace and Forest and Bird who made it seem like 60% was going to be sold. And then that was amplified by so many getting their information from biased social media, and not realising the full story. A word of advice to the Government: you’ve failed to explain this and you might want to take the foot off the gas.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.