Minister’s Wildlife Decision Attacked

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31028, 6 April 1966, Page 16

Minister’s Wildlife Decision Attacked

*New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, April 5, A charge of “high-handed empirebuilding” was levelled at the Minister of Internal Affairs (Mr Seath) by the Auckland Acclimatisation Society today after advice that he had ordered his department to take control of wildlife in a 60 to 80 square-mile area centred on Tokoroa,

"If this move goes unchecked," said a spokesman for the governing council of the society, “it could result in the absorption of all societies.

“Mr Seath is making a big mitetake if he assumes that the generosity of the Auckland society in ceding parts of its area to the department on previous occasions is a sign of weakness or unconcern.

“Since this boundary change was first mooted five or six years ago, the council has repeatedly sought meetings with Mr Seath and department officers to discuss it," said the officer. “But each approach by the council has been brushed aside, and it has never been given the opportunity to discuss what is now developing into a bureaucratic take-over.

“The society has served sportsmen in this region for 99 years with the liberation of more trout and pheasant, anl provision of duck habitat —all at no expense to taxpayers—than the department could ever hope to provide.

“It was the Auckland society which first liberated trout in the Rotorua district and Taupo lakes before these areas were taken by Ministerial action.”

The council was unanimously determined to resist Mr Seath’s "high-handed empire building directive to take over game control in the Tokoroa area."