Press Release. Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of NZ (CORANZ)

State Control of 1080 an Arrogant Move

A national outdoors forum, the Council of Outdoor Recreation Associations of NZ (CORANZ) has hit out at the Minister for the environments announcement that local regional councils will no longer vet the use of 1080 and that the only power to do so, will be with central government.

Co-chairman of CORANZ, conservationist and author Bill Benfield said it gave government extreme sole power to spread 1080 and brodifacoum.

"Basically it’s government wanting to ram-rod anything about poison chemicals through.”

He said the move diminished people’s right to protest at the use of these chemicals in the environment.

“And there’s a rapidly increasing number of people who are veery concerned or opposed to the use of these poisons,” he said.

Bill Benfield said New Zealand uses dangerous ‘ecosystem poisons” that could not be treated with a cavalier, dictatorial attitude.

“As bad as 1080 is, brodifacoum is worse as shown by its withholding period of 36 months compared to 1080’s six months.”

The move by government was to arrogantly effectively impose state control and was echoing the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's call for more 1080.

“To put things in true perspective, the PCE’s doctorate is in public policy, basically an administrator’s qualifications,” said Bill Benfield.

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