Roughan on DOC campsites
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:16 pm by David FarrarJohn Roughan writes:
Not much that happens in summer grinds my teeth but last weekend the Herald on Sunday reported outrage among a certain class of campers because the Department of Conservation might let private operators run its camp grounds.
Their outrage was particularly rich because the previous Sunday the same reporter, Kieran Nash, had found at Urupukapuka Island in the Bay if Islands that some of DoC’s regular customers are cheating those who would like to share the pristine places we pay for.
In case you missed it, they book out their favourite places every season by reserving much more than the tent site they need. One way they do this is by booking a site for every person in the tent.
They don’t have to be very clever, the department’s online booking clerks don’t appear to care how many sites someone takes. The sooner the place is booked out the better for the booking team. They were all on holiday when the paper sought comment.
Nor do the greedy need much money. In the hallowed principles of public ownership the department lets each site for as little as $8-$15 a night.
You could take three or four sites for the price of a night in a privately run camping ground.
No wonder DoC’s website usually has no vacancies. It is only when disappointed customers make a day trip that they find just a few scattered campers enjoying paradise.
Which is one of the reasons why subsidies often lead to inefficient allocation of resources.
In principle the Conservation Department wants as many of the public as possible to enjoy the estate their taxation maintains. In practice, it is not very good at making that possible.
Happily the department also has to minimise the public outlay and supplement its income where possible by allowing some commerce in the parks. Profit-makers are very good at maximising public use.
They have the right incentives to do so.
The department is talking to the New Zealand Holiday Parks Association about running its camp grounds and there is consternation in the wild.
A petition is circulating against roads, bollards and marked sites. The Green Party says the camps will resemble the suburbs people go on holiday to escape. Labour’s tourism spokesman predicts “canvas subdivisions”.
I camped in a canvas subdivision at a Coromandel beach last week. It was not the sort of suburb I live in – it was open to the neighbours, children played everywhere, family life was public. During the day people walked around totally unconcerned about how they looked. In the evening they socialised.
I thought people who talk of caring, sharing and social equality liked this sort of thing.
No, no, no, no. One can’t actually mingle with the masses.
So what exactly would be the problem for critics of private enterprise? It can’t be the cost because DoC’s fortunate few will pay that much for multiple sites. And it can’t be the environment because a camp operator would have an interest in helping to protect it.
Their problem, it’s very obvious, is people – too many people sharing their space and in their face. There’s no snob like a social democrat.
Exactly.
Driving around the Coromandel last week it struck me again how daft we are to lock up the mineral wealth of that whole peninsula. It is not wild and rugged like the Southern Alps, it is not covered in native rainforest like the Ureweras. It has attractive coasts, common in the north.
This country is not so blessed with economic resources that we can preserve the conservation estate for an intrepid few. Obviously a beautiful lonely landscape has to be kept that way for its economic value but there is plenty of room in our pristine environment to hide accessible resorts operated properly, profitably and fairly for the greater good.
Yep.
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:27 pm
NZers want to have their cake and to eat it too. Pristine, unsullied beaches which they can exclusively pollute and have maintained by the public purse. When these cheapskates ask them to pay for the priviledge properly its all about their ‘right’ to do what they want.
Good luck trying to send bulldozers over the Cromandel on days like today.
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 12:31 pm
Hard to believe that some of this commonsense was penned by Roughan. A pity the Minister can’t see it.
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 12:45 pm
But do we need to let the wealthy people of China (oe elsewhere) eat the eyes out of NZ’s beautiful places?
““We’re all New Zealanders, we all love the country so I think it’s healthy for us to have the debate and make the right decisions for our country…. but hey!…. young people coming through see it as “our planet” rather than “our country”
Vote:http://static.radionz.net.nz/assets/audio_item/0011/2385074/mnr-20100824-0842-More_than_800-million_dollars_worth_of_property_on_display-m048.asx
January 23rd, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Read Coyote Blog, my favourite blog. The guy who runs that runs a parks business. He contracts with government to run public parks, and he pays government for the privilege, relieving funds starved state governments. He pays his bills with park fees, accommodation, and a park store. That’s it.
He made a great point about the difference between government run parks and privately run parks. When a tourist shows up to a government run park, the public employees see only a cost: the park cannot keep any revenue it earns, that goes back to govt. The more visitors, the more toilets and showers to be cleaned, the more litter to pick up, etc. And so government employees do what they can to attract as few visitors as possible. The worse they are at their job, the easier it gets.
Private park managers have a different incentive. Every visitor to their park brings revenue, and that revenue is vital because without it there’s no way to pay the wages, the government’s rental fee, and, your own business. Accordingly, the visitor is welcomed, encouraged to come back next year, and private managers have every incentive to make their stay as pleasant as possible. Private managers have every incentive to make the environment as pristine as possible – that, afterall, is why the visitors come.
And still, the Left protests. Warren, the Coyote Blog guy, says the single most common objection he gets is that he will build a McDonalds if he gets to take over a park. This despite the fact his 120 page contracts with state governments prohibit this, among many other things, and that he has no reason to do this anyway, since his target market won’t like it. There is no reasoning with these people.
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Here’s a good post from Coyote on this: here. Turns out governments tend to run down maintenance and call in private management firms as a last resort and have them pay for a good deal of repair and upgrading. Hard to see a better win/win than having somebody else pay your maintenance and then pay you rent to produce a better product, when the alternative is run down facilities that cost you a fortune to not maintain.
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 1:10 pm
hj
But do we need to let the wealthy people of China (oe elsewhere) eat the eyes out of NZ’s beautiful places?
Oh good. The racists are back. Because Chinese people visiting beaches is exactly equivalent to eating the eyes out of a living creature.
You are a racist and a disgrace.
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 2:34 pm
He made a great point about the difference between government run parks and privately run parks. When a tourist shows up to a government run park, the public employees see only a cost: the park cannot keep any revenue it earns, that goes back to govt.
Oh so true and Doc’s unofficial policy for years is that it simply doesn’t want people in their fiefdom anywhere. Having just been in the Nelson/ Takaka region and talked to people that’s very evident. Their most popular camping ground is badly run and and has a permanent sign that is apparently not taken down that says the camp is full. Their booking sysem says so so the sign never comes down.
Vote:I kid you not and they close the office during the middle of the day.
How ever its worse than that. DOC South Island is rapidly becoming an extension of Ngai Tahu. so before much longer Ngai Tahu will call the shots and Kiwi’s will no longer own South Island land.
Same thing is happening in the North Island but spread around some of the tribes for example look at the bullshit fuss last weekend from DOC aka as the local tribe when someone dared have their lunch on top of Egmont.
Like socialism its a creeping cancer.
January 23rd, 2011 at 2:51 pm
DOC were under pressure and promised to open 10-100 of their ‘areas for campsites to may up what was being lost to private developers of Apartments and such.
That was some 5 years ago.
To the best of my knowledge there have been exactly none.
Why work when you get your salary anyway.
Communists are now Conservationists. it is the new brand of Maoism/Stalinism/Leninism.
Collective indolence.
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 3:38 pm
now im gonna spend the rest of the day angry. cheers dpf!
Vote:January 23rd, 2011 at 4:44 pm
Just like carving up the Forest Service into commercial and non Commercial(i.e. what became DOC), there is a good case I suggest for doing the same thing to DOC.
Vote:I aam of the opinion that all Govt. depts. like DOC, MSD, education, health,HNZ, should have a board of Directors just like any other organization that attends to the Govt.’s needs and that the CEO has to answer to. Presently there are too many Public Service CEO’s that please themselves according to their agenda and then jerk their ministers around by using the system and various other means of obfuscation.
January 23rd, 2011 at 8:35 pm
My biggest gripe with the DOC camping areas is the almost total ban on dogs. Campers can have unrestrained cats roaming free, children wrecking and vandalising, camps can be left strewn with bottles (whole and broken) plastic waste,cans, fecal matter and tissue, vehicle damage from inappropriate use, but a registered responsible dog owner with a pet under total control at all times, no, never, never, never, ever.
Vote:I have observed youths killing weka with sticks and my dog, Yes I was breaking the stupid bloody rules, sat with me in the movan watching the legal campers enjoying the outdoors in their own inimitable way.
We value our pets and keep them safe at all time on a leash when outside but the muppets in the DOC regard them as all marauders and killers of wild life so no exceptions, jesus wept.
January 23rd, 2011 at 10:28 pm
Ok there are clearly some issues here, but anyone who is now suggesting opening up more of ‘our’ land to greedy motor camp owners can go get f@cked.
In a recent trip around the bottom two thirds of the South Island, I was disgusted in what we were charged for un-powered tent sites, it is daylight robbery and it stinks.
Vote:Something is wrong when we can’t enjoy our own country any more without being forced into some greedy bastards motor camp.
The more DoC sites the better as far as I am concerned, or perhaps some regulation on camp park fees.
January 23rd, 2011 at 10:33 pm
By the way, some of the un-powered tent sites cost more than a night in a hotel in the USA with a free breakfast, and that includes accounting for the exchange rate.
Vote:January 24th, 2011 at 12:27 am
The Caravan Club of GB are the Worlds biggest campground operators and indeed owners.
They run very ‘tight ships’, and make money for re-investment. They call it a surplus. The facilities are immaculate, but there is a
definite issue when the Manager is called a Warden.
DOC need to open up 1 a month, and get in committed Managers on a profit share.
Vote:January 24th, 2011 at 8:40 am
surely this is just a matter of repairing the booking-system…?
..hardly reason to privatise them all…eh..?
(i think your ideological-slip is showing…)
..(i do agree with the dog-comment tho’…
..humans/cats are the big environmental despoilers….not dogs..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:January 24th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
DOC campsites.
Magpie obviously uses them but spotlighting is a no no.
What a dilemma.
Vote:January 25th, 2011 at 12:31 am
Right , having just come back from a week under canvas in a DOC camp doing Survivor Northland. Some observances.
1) Precious few non FTE’s go camping. Its too expensive. Never mind the camp charges, a semi decent family tent will set you back $500+ for Nylon and $2k for Canvas, add to that a few comforts like gas cookers , sleeping bags and you can rack up $2k of “stuff” very easily.
2) No Sky TV. That keeps alot away
3) Sheep are not impressesd with spinning the scoobie through several 360 degree dougnuts. No audience is a killer for hooning.
4) Maori don’t stay in DOC camps. Sorry but there it is. Plenty use the day visitor facilities. I suspect they have family nearby they visit in summer and then hit the beaches. The number of sleepouts I saw around Kaitia is what give me that impression.
5) Maori run alot of DOC camps. You see the same faces each year. My suspicion is that DOC have an affermative action programme as it eases tensions with local land owners.
6) This week we stayed at a non bookable DOC camp. Ok the weather was crap but the camp full sign did go up on Dec 22 and came down again on Jan 2.
7) Freedom campers and campervans were about 1/3rd the total number at any one time.
8) Every DOC staffer I have spoken to has always complined about chronic under funding.
Perhaps the time has come to price the resource accordingly.
Vote: