Financial Review Debate — Ministry for the Environment

I welcome this opportunity to speak to the Appropriation (2008/09 Financial Review) Bill on the financial review of the Ministry for the Environment. I was not a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee. That committee is incredibly important to the Green Party, and my colleague Sue Kedgley was a member of it.

💬 Hon Member: And still is.

She still is a member. As I said, there was an issue discussed that I want to describe today. Instead of having a broad-brush approach to a range of issues, I will talk about the serious nature of cutting funding for what may seem to be an obscure issue. Last year the Ministry for the Environment suffered a number of cuts because we were in a recession and because the Government did not seem to have the same commitment to the Ministry for the Environment that we would like to have seen. One of the cuts that was discussed at that select committee that has had a serious effect was the cut to the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund. The Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund is administered by the Ministry for the Environment to assist regional councils to investigate, plan, and remediate contaminated sites in their regions. It is an incredibly important fund, because it seeks to assist communities and councils to clean up the mess concerning contaminated sites that has not been addressed for many, many years. The Ministry for the Environment fund was cut from its 2008 level of $5 million to $1.78 million in 2009. That might seem like very small beer, but in reality we need a lot more than $5 million to deal with the legacy of toxic sites across this country.

Only this week the Māpua community had a very serious report into the ongoing health effects of the failure of the Ministry for the Environment to properly clean up a site at Māpua. It was very unfortunate that the Government decided to cut the fund from $5 million, which barely covers several major contaminated site clean-ups—if, indeed, it would cover those—to $1.78 million for 2009 and 2010. The Green Party is very concerned about that for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is that it is in the context of councils having just been forced to create registers of contaminated sites, thanks to a proactive journalist who went to the Ombudsman. We are hearing that it is not a matter of each region having just a few sites. Many regions have hundreds of sites that need the assistance of the Ministry for the Environment to help clean them up. We could argue that the polluters should pay, and in fact I will be arguing that point through a liability bill. But right now it is the responsibility of the Ministry for the Environment to make sure that there is sufficient funding to assist communities to clean up contaminated sites. So we see it as a very retrograde step that in the last financial year that funding was cut.

Another reason why it is a bad time to cut that funding is that the Government has not yet even finalised the soil standards for toxic sites. Those standards have not been set, and they will set the real cost of clean-up. Until we know what the standards are, we do not know what those costs will be. We can guarantee that the clean-up of toxic sites is not getting cheaper.

What is the history of this issue, in terms of the Ministry for the Environment? It is important to recognise why I am concerned about that cut in 2009, and why I am talking about it during a financial review. It is because the Ministry for the Environment has serious responsibilities for a number of toxic sites around the country. There are hundreds of them. We have some information about the real cost of cleaning up contaminated sites. For example, the Waipā sawmill at Rotorua was contaminated by pentachlorophenol, and $28 million will still be spent over the next 35 years to try to treat the water that comes out of the sawmill. The water goes through the Puarenga Stream, into Whakarewarewa—where children dived for money—and into Lake Rotorua. That is an ongoing cost of $28 million over 35 years. So, clearly, that is the kind of money we are talking about for one contaminated site. Another example is the Kopeopeō Canal in Whakatāne. It is estimated by the local people, who have been very active in looking at a positive way of dealing with the issue, that $3 million to $6 million will be needed to clean up that one canal. That is only one of 28 orphan sites around Whakatāne that will need a clean-up, even if the trialling of the bio-remediation model, which is being worked on at the moment, is successful.

The last one I want to refer to is, of course, Māpua. The Ministry for the Environment estimated that it would cost $7 million to clean it up. The costs have since doubled, and it is still a mess. Some clean-up took place, but the off-site impact of the experimental mechanism used to clean up Māpua has created more risks and thus more costs. The people of Māpua found out yesterday that there were many chemicals that they were exposed to at that site that were not monitored for, such as polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxin, etc.

It is my pleasure to speak in the financial review debate and to refer to the report of the Local Government and Environment Committee on the 2008-09 financial review of the Ministry for the Environment. As the chair of that committee, I must say that I am very pleased with what has been delivered. The committee itself is a hard-working and diligent committee with a high level of commitment to quality outcomes, a little like the example given by the National-led Government.

In the 2008-09 financial year we have seen a new Government with new priorities, significant changes to the ministry’s structure and governance systems, and a reduction in baseline funding. The new priorities included the reform of the Resource Management Act and developing new policy on the roles and functions of agencies operating in the environmental sector, including establishing an Environmental Protection Authority under the Resource Management Act. The amended Resource Management Act reduces the time for processing consents and reduces the paperwork required without forfeiting obligations to New Zealand’s unique environmental heritage. As part of the commitment to environment management, an Environmental Protection Authority has been established, and it will become effective on 1 October. It has been a pleasure to be involved with the first phase of the Resource Management Act reforms, and certainly those reforms clean up an awful lot of rubbish. It was mentioned on the other side of the House and that is where the rubbish emanated from. I look forward to the critical phase of two reforms later this year. Two call-ins have been completed—Te Mihi geothermal and Te Waka wind farm—and two new proposals have been called in.

The way we handle resources is very, very important. The Ministry for the Environment produced some excellent work in preparation for changes to the Resource Management Act. Indeed, it is possibly worth mentioning that it made an exceptional commitment at a staff level to making those changes and bringing recommendations forward. We could not have asked for more assistance than we got. It was exemplary.

I note the comments of the Green Party member who has just spoken and I certainly would not lessen the gravity of the toxic waste clean-ups. They have occurred, but I am not quite sure I agree with the member about the success or otherwise of the Māpua one. We had a report just yesterday that indicated that the situation is hopefully not as serious as could have been imagined initially. That work is being done and the report is out there for 6 weeks, during which time members of the public, particularly those with any concerns, are encouraged to make contact with the Ministry of Health. I encourage them to do so and, indeed, people in Māpua, where I was on Friday, are encouraged to get in touch with me if they think I can be of assistance with their inquiries. I would be happy to do so. It has been a long journey for them. It is not over yet, but, again, the way the Ministry for the Environment has worked through this has been an exemplary indication of commitment to getting things right even though they were wrong. I congratulate the ministry on the way it has done that work.

The emissions trading scheme has been an important priority during the reporting period. We have seen the Climate Change Response (Emissions Trading) Amendment Bill implemented. This was drafted to tight time frames and was introduced in September 2009. The Emissions Trading Scheme Review Committee reported back to the House on 31 August 2009 with recommendations and the Act was passed on 25 November 2009. Features of the amended Act include: revised entry dates of 1 July 2010 for transport, energy, and industrial sectors, and 1 January 2015 for agriculture; a transitional phase until 1 January 2013, with a 50 percent obligation, and a $25 fixed option for the transport, energy, and industrial sectors, and incentives for afforestation created by a domestic and international market for carbon credits.

Another important step that has been made is the investment of $36 million in a bio-diesel grants programme. This will promote bio-diesel production to kick-start the biofuels industry. Thank you.

Report noted.

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