charge for access to national parks?

depends where you go, the backpackers are more like sheep and frequent a specific range of the more popular easier tracks in higher numbers having picked up word of mouth info from others about what tracks they have done... they arent all backpackers though, i've come across some very experienced trampers from overseas who are freeloading, one freedom camped right on a great walk outside of the designated campsite, he knew it wasnt permitted and hid his campsite. he was a very fit ultralight tramper. some people have tunnel vision, all that registers with them is completing a track and not fulfilling any obligations to pay.

Sorry. In this instance I'm defining a backpacker as anyone who travels free and independently and spends time enjoying NZs tracks. There are MANY of these people who do scrimp in any way they can to pay for the big-ticket thrill experiences. I'm not saying they don't have money; they all do. I am saying that they hold NZ in disdain, by doing those things mentioned; using tracks and huts without paying, dumping rubbish (heaven help anyone I see doing that!), and putting a strain on the environment with little to no reimbursement. What we need to be doing is taking their money for these things, rather than have them "stretch out their holiday" by freeloading in our huts, tracks, camp grounds, native forest. It has to stop, or NZ will lose what makes it unique, and quickly.

"every F.I.T coming to NZ have to purchase a hut pass or some sort of NP pass on arrival." Is there any practical way to run a pass system without requiring every person within a park to be carrying verifiable identification?

Visitors to NZ impose a diversity of costs on local communities (water supply, sewerage, rubbish collection, etc.). Only some enjoy our national parks, beaches, etc. The visitors all pay 15% GST but receive relatively little back from central government but a lot from local government. Rather than introduce problematic and expensive-to-collect and easy-to-avoid new fees a proportion of the GST should be paid to DOC and local government.

" The visitors all pay 15% GST but receive relatively little back from central government " I would argue they do. Tax is the price you pay for civilisation, and everyone who is in this country is enjoying directly or indirectly the benefits from it. And GST is the primary vehicle by which visitors (who earn little to no income in this country) contribute to general taxation and their general welfare while they are here. But most visitors are looking to enjoy our Conservation Estate in particular; it's what draws so many of them here. Merely directing some GST away from the Consolidated Fund toward Conservation diminishes the primary purpose of GST ... without creating any new funding to support the extra DoC specific costs visitors generate, nor the facilities and benefits they expect.

It really depends on how things are framed. I'm generally of the opinion that visitors probably pay much more in GST than they receive in services (I'll bow to someone who produces numbers showing otherwise), but New Zealand's tourism is also an export. A flip-side of that is to consider if temporary visitors should have any real say in how *any* tax is spent when they already have no lasting stake in selecting or living under the government of the people who do live here. In one sense the tax that's levied on everything is just a cost of coming here. But I also think the conservation estate's current problems go much deeper than finding extra cash to pay for things here and there. There's not a serious plan or binding commitment. It's fantastic to see the government signing up to the 2050 goal, and yet its still seeing fit to use this whole thing as a toy for testing its public-private-partnership ideology instead of making a serious public commitment. To demonstrate, Maggie Barry gave an interview to the BBC the other day on the predator free goal. (See it on her facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/maggiebarrynz/videos/1456051737754066/ ) She mostly did really well in terms of promoting it as a possibility, yet towards the end when quizzed about the "billions" of dollars it was estimated to cost, her response wasn't "yes we agree but it's definitely worth it for the economic gain", or for any gain. It was "yes that's true, but don't worry as that won't come from taxpayers -- our strategy is to get others to pay for it, and we've had a collection of foundations donate $100 million up until now". The health of the conservation estate has never been treated as fundamentally, by any government, as other sectors like health, education, social welfare, even defence. If Defence were being treated like Conservation, we'd be telling our Defence Force to run bake-sales or get commercial sponsorship to fund the next frigate. Instead it's been awarded about twice as much direct Crown funding ($20 billion) over the next 15 years as the current estimates for making NZ predator free over more than twice the time. The difference? Governments and the people see "defence" as a national responsibility that must be paid for, but retaining the conservation estate is still treated as a luxury. Scrapping around for new sources of cash to pay for stuff which the government won't even seriously and fundamentally commit to dealing with itself isn't going to solve the problem. It might be useful if there *was* a serious commitment and plan, but there isn't. At best, it'll kept to keep the head above water for a bit longer. Meanwhile, I look forward to some hopeful advances in stuff like predator control, and hope that new possibilities might help to inspire future governments to actually *have* a real plan and serious commitment.

@izogi " I'm generally of the opinion that visitors probably pay much more in GST than they receive in services" Only if you measure what they 'receive' directly. Let me put it this way; a few weeks ago I was sitting in Vientiane airport (Laos) and got to chatting with a bloke who'd lived in country for over 16 years. (Working for a variety of development agencies.) I found him really interesting, but the most memorable quote was "Laos is a really great country to live in, until you need something." In other words, you needed medical, police, legal, social or any kind of emergency help. Or even something as basic as toilets that work, water that's safe, or needing to depend on someone to be educated, reliable or knowledgeable enough to perform some service for you. Living in NZ we grow up taking all these basic features of a developed society for granted, and tend to forget that much of it is the result of sound, functioning government, both national and local, and this is all funded from taxation. When framed like this, given visitors only pay GST, and not income taxes as residents do then I'd argue they indirectly receive full value, if not more, than they pay. Otherwise I completely agree with the rest of your thinking. The problems go much deeper than just funding.

Hi @PhilipW. Yes I agree.

Quoting myself from a couple of days ago... "Is there any practical way to run a pass system without requiring every person within a park to be carrying verifiable identification?" Is a potential requirement for carrying ID an issue for anyone, or is it just me who's concerned? (I'm struggling to see how a conservation pass system could be practically managed without it.) I'm mostly curious if there's even concern at this point. I personally think it'd be quite a leap to say that it's no longer legal to cross the line into the conservation estate, or parts of it, without carrying verifiable ID to confirm who you are on request, and yet another barrier to entry for people who aren't well resourced and organised.

why do you have to have ID? you buy a pass and use it without ID, open to abuse. but better than nothing, without getting too bureaucratic..