National park fees for foreigners scoped

It would be hypocritical of me to support such a charge targeted just at tourists, because I hate such policies while travelling myself, especially when they are obvious cash grabs. Known New Zealand bureaucracy and inefficiencies, much of the fees would be taken up in collection or would simply disappear into the consolidated fund. But for the most part it is simply a way to distract attention away from the massive amounts of underfunding the conservation estate currently receives. Just fund DOC properly, rather then putting simply another tax on visitors.

I agree with @militaris.

Foreign tourists pay GST while in NZ but receive few central government services in exchange. Visitors to the country can not escape paying GST and the marginal costs of collecting the tax are low. By comparison, identifying foreign users of our national parks and collecting fees from them is complex and costly. A portion of the national GST take should be diverted to DOC and local government to pay for the costs of hosting the visitors (hut and track maintenance, local road maintenance, water supply, sewerage, rubbish collection, ...).

the govt barely give a toss, or they wouldnt have cut $50 million out of DOC's budget in the first place. they want the conservation side of DOC weak to avoid them opposing commercial developments in the parks the govt only care about parting tourists with their money, and there isnt enough of that happening in the parks for them to care about supporting DOC any more than they absolutely have to

A fee for only tourists entering parks could well end up one of 2 ways A: A fee for everyone B: costing more to collect than it raises. How is a tourist going to pay? How will they be identified once in the park? How can you be sure that the ranger can prove you are a tourist or nz resident. I regularly tramp with club members who are second and 3rd generation NZers but still would struggle to call English there first language.