Environmental Protection Authority Bill

In my contribution on this part I will deal with the question of the independence of the Environmental Protection Authority. In an earlier contribution I noted that three types of Crown entity are recognised by the Crown Entities Act. Firstly, there are Crown agents, which just give effect to Government policy. Crown agents are the closest type of body to the Crown one can get without having a Government department. The next layer of the onion, out from the executive, is an autonomous Crown entity. They must have regard to Government policy but are not required to directly implement it. Finally, the last layer of the onion, if you like, is the independent Crown entity. They are independent of Government policy, and the Minister must not give them directions unless he is authorised to do so by another Act.

If we look at clause 7 we see that the clear intent is to set up the Environmental Protection Authority as a Crown entity. The way in which the provisions interact make it quite clear—and I hope the Minister for the Environment will be able to speak on this matter and confirm it—that the Government’s intent is that the Environmental Protection Authority will be a Crown agent; that is, the closest type of Crown entity that is able to be brought within the powers of the Minister. It still has a board, so it is not a department, but it is amenable to ministerial direction.

One of the concerns expressed by a number of submitters to the Local Government and Environment Committee was that this meant that the Environmental Protection Authority would be too close to the Crown, that the authority would not be able to function with appropriate independence, and that it would be much better to constitute the authority from the start as an autonomous Crown entity. That would mean that the authority would act independently of the Minister and that it would clearly be an authority that the public could have confidence in because it would not have to do what the Minister told it to do on any particular occasion.

Supplementary Order Paper 242, which is in my name, makes it clear that the authority is to function as an autonomous Crown entity in terms of the submissions that I have referred to. Labour members on the select committee were persuaded by the force of those submissions. If one has a look at the ways in which the authority will initially function one sees that the majority of the decisions that will have to be taken by the Environmental Protection Authority will be those that it inherits from the Environmental Risk Management Authority, which is currently constituted under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act.

At the moment, the Environmental Risk Management Authority is an autonomous Crown entity, so if we adopt the Minister’s approach, then we are moving a key function of the Environmental Protection Authority, which is currently autonomous, much closer to ministerial direction and control. If one thinks about the nature of the power—being responsible for dealing with applications around hazardous substances and new organisms—then the folly of this becomes immediately apparent. Why on earth would we disturb the wisdom of a previous Parliament that said these types of applications around genetically modified material, for example, must be dealt with on a completely independent basis to the Minister’s? The applications must not be anywhere near ministerial direction or control, yet we are constituting an authority over which the Minister would have serious powers of control and direction.

No justification is advanced in the regulatory impact material or in any commentary that I have seen for moving this power closer to the Crown. I think it would be helpful to hear from the Minister as to why he feels that it is necessary to compromise the authority of the former Environmental Risk Management Authority by moving that power closer to ministerial direction. As I have tried to explain in my contribution, that would be a serious change.

If the Minister takes a call, I apprehend that he would point to section 17 of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, because it is a provision that would expressly prevent him from making a direction to the board on its key decision-making functions under Parts 5 and 6A of the Act. It may well be that clause 78 of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill provides a similar protection in respect of the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision making under the Resource Management Act. Clause 78 would expressly prevent the Minister from making a direction to the board in respect of certificates of compliance. If that is the case, then I accept—as do members on this side—that there is a degree of protection in respect of some key powers of direction.

But that is not really the point. The point is that when a new public entity is created, the overall scheme of the legislation is what sets the tone for its operation. Anybody who has worked in an establishment entity in the public sector would know this. But it is not limited just to the public sector; it is the same when one is starting a private sector entity. The overall direction, the overall tone, is set by the key establishment documents. In the case of the private sector, it is set by the articles of association and the mood of the owner as communicated to the employees and key staff. In the case of a public entity, it is set by the empowering statute. This statute starts with the premise that the Minister is able to direct; the Minister is able to control. The authority is not the independent or autonomous Crown entity that hitherto existed in respect of the Environmental Risk Management Authority, an entity that is abolished by a later provision of the bill. This is something that is closer to the Crown.

Why should we be concerned about this? As has been said by a number of speakers in this debate so far, what is needed desperately in this country is a strong, central, comprehensively empowered, independent authority to deal with environmental issues. Do we have that in this legislation? Regrettably, no. This should be of particular concern to members who want to contemplate the make-up of the establishment board, because not only do we have a power being brought closer to the Crown but also we have an establishment board chaired by a former National Party candidate. Kerry Prendergast is somebody for whom I have a lot of time and respect. She was an excellent Mayor of Wellington. She treated all people with whom she had dealings politically with absolute fairness, in my experience. But, none the less, she was a candidate for the National Party at a not too distant general election.

The chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee is yet to make a contribution in the debate, but I do look forward to that contribution, because everybody agrees that he is a fine chair of the select committee. I wonder whether he would perhaps like to think about whether the “optics”—to quote one of his colleagues—of this is a very good look here: a politicised chair of the establishment board, as well as these powers being much closer to the Crown than is the case at the moment.

So rather than see a statutory scheme where the Environmental Protection Authority is obliged to give general effect to the Minister’s objectives, with specific exemptions for independence where the Minister thinks that that is a good idea, we prefer the reverse position. We should start with the position of independence or autonomy, and then give the Minister specific powers of direction if this Parliament thinks he needs them. That would be a perfectly acceptable way to proceed. It would allow the Government to communicate its general policy objectives to the Environmental Protection Authority, but it would allow the Environmental Protection Authority to proceed on an independent basis and to win public confidence. I say to members that we are not putting that scheme into place; we are putting in place the opposite scheme. I think, and I know that other members of this side of the Chamber agree, that this is the wrong way to proceed. When it is the desire of the House to create a new, independent, transparent organisation, the statutory scheme is actually the opposite of what is desired to be created here.

It is often said that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good, meaning that if something is good enough, it is good enough. But that is not the case with the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. This is a case of the inadequate, the mediocre, and the unsatisfactory being the enemy of the good.

Labour members voted for this bill at the first reading, because we thought that to establish a strong, central, independent, environmental regulator would have been a big step forward for New Zealand. Disappointingly, the bill that has emerged from the Local Government and Environment Committee and come back to the House is really a pale shadow of what it could and should have been.

We listened carefully to submitters at the select committee and four key problems, concerns, emerged from that process. The first is that the functions of the Environmental Protection Authority are far too narrow for this new organisation to exercise any real kind of leadership in the environment sector. Second, the objectives are inadequate; bizarrely, it does not include even the task, the responsibility, of protecting the environment. Third, the Environmental Protection Authority is not sufficiently independent from the Minister for the Environment. Its independence is compromised. Fourth, on the question of its need to take into account Māori perspectives in its decision making, the legislation is confusing and, in fact, sets back the environmental legislation in that regard.

I will first talk about the functions of the Environmental Protection Authority. I point to a couple of amendments that are on the Table in the name of Charles Chauvel. One of them would insert a new paragraph in Part 2—clause 12(c)—which would charge the Environmental Protection Authority with carrying out the administration of the Waste Minimisation Act 2008. My colleague has brought this amendment to the House, because we believe that the administration of the Waste Minimisation Act is one of the functions that it was always obvious that the Environmental Protection Authority should be responsible for. It makes complete sense, it is logical, and we are at a loss to understand why this has been excluded from the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority. Similarly, we are baffled as to why the climate change legislation and the various functions of the Resource Management Act have not been handed over to the Environmental Protection Authority.

The second amendment in the name of Charles Chauvel to Part 2 is new clause 12(e). It would give the Environmental Protection Authority the responsibility “To protect and enhance the Coastal and Marine Environment, and to carry out the environmental management of New Zealand’s Exclusive Economic Zone.” That is of course an issue that is on the minds of everybody in New Zealand at the moment, because of the deep-sea offshore drilling that Petrobras is doing off the east coast of the North Island. It is a matter of great concern to all New Zealanders that that drilling should be properly regulated and that our marine environment should be protected for generations to come. We have no confidence that that kind of protection is in place, and we are mystified as to why the Environmental Protection Authority has not been given the responsibility to discharge those tasks.

It is interesting. We have noticed a bit of a trend with some of the legislation that is coming through the Local Government and Environment Committee. There is something about this bill: it is unformed. It is partially formed; it is just not all there. It really should never have been brought to the House by the Minister at this time. He should have waited until more of the groundwork had been done and until there was a more substantial, more comprehensive, more developed bill for the Environmental Protection Authority. We have seen that in the Building Amendment Bill (No 3), which is currently before the Local Government and Environment Committee. We have seen it with the weathertight homes financial assistance package, which has a deferred commencement date because the Government is still negotiating with the banks that are supposed to be providing the finance for that package.

We have seen it, as I said, with the Building Amendment Bill (No 3). A number of reforms are being proposed for the building and construction industry, yet people in the industry have come to us saying that the cart has been put before the horse, the industry is not ready for it, and these things are not being sequenced properly. So a bit of a pattern is emerging of inadequate, underdeveloped, poorly thought-through legislation being brought to this House. One can surmise only that it is because of the electoral cycle that Ministers—not just this Minister but others—are keen to be seen tabling some bill and trying to get some runs on the board before the election at the end of this year.

We question whether in fact the Environmental Protection Authority being established by this bill is sufficiently credible and substantial to survive. There are real questions about its long-term viability because of the inadequacy of the structure, the mandate, and the roles that are being put in place. A number of powers and responsibilities are being transferred from existing bodies, but it is happening in a piecemeal fashion.

A number of submitters pointed out the legal situation in regard to the Environmental Protection Authority and its relationship with other key bits of legislation—the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, the Resource Management Act, and the climate change legislation. All of those bits of law will have to be read in conjunction with the Environmental Protection Authority Act, and vice versa. That will have the effect of making our environmental law more complicated, and less accessible and less intelligible to the layperson.

A related concern we have is that the bill gives the Minister the power to direct the Environmental Protection Authority to carry out additional functions. The Minister has assured the House that such functions are likely to be minor and ancillary to the current functions of the Environmental Protection Authority. We remain concerned that this is an unsatisfactory way of setting up the future development of the Environmental Protection Authority. There is no brightline test to determine whether something is an ancillary or a substantive function; it is up to the Minister of the day. He or she will make a political judgment, and that could not only confuse the public but undermine the integrity of the Environmental Protection Authority, if that is the way it is going to grow and develop over time.

The second big concern we have is that, as I mentioned, the objectives in Part 2 do not include even the explicit tasking of the Environmental Protection Authority with the job of protecting the environment. It brings to mind George W Bush’s Clear Skies Act in the United States, which, perversely, actually, substantially degraded the quality of the regulation of air quality in the US. To call this bill the Environmental Protection Authority Bill raises real questions about truth in advertising. It is not really an environmental protection authority, and, when we look at the bill’s objectives, we see that that becomes even clearer.

Charles Chauvel has put forward an amendment to clause 11(1), which proposes to insert new paragraph (c). That amendment would rectify this defect in the bill by explicitly stating that the job of the Environmental Protection Authority would be to protect, maintain, and enhance New Zealand’s environment. It is pretty basic stuff, but it is a mystery to us why that is not in the bill as we see it.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am very pleased to pick up the theme that my colleague Phil Twyford put before the Chamber this afternoon in respect of the pattern beginning to emerge in the environmental policy of this Government.

I note that just yesterday Minister Smith announced the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. That statement was looked forward to with enormous anticipation, I think, by anybody with an interest in the environment of this country. It was, obviously, brought together under the process of the Land and Water Forum, a very good Scandinavian model. I applaud the Minister for setting that up, but there is enormous disappointment emerging from some members of that forum. They are looking at that policy, just as they looked at the shape and form of the Environmental Protection Authority, and they are asking what happened and where the driver of good sound environmental policy went. There are just so many bits missing that deserved to be there.

In respect of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, for example, although we see that councils are supposed to bring in and implement its outline over the next 3½ years, there is actually an out-clause: if they find it impracticable to meet the deadline then they have another deadline. That deadline is December 2030. If we were looking to that document as an example of this Government delivering on environmental outcomes, we would be waiting a long, long time before we began to see the final results of those environmental changes.

That is paralleled by the lack of any clear commitment to environmental policy in the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority, and that is why I support and applaud the amendment proposed by my colleague Charles Chauvel. The amendment would give this organisation some real functioning form that relates to environmental policy and objectives, and is not a bland assertion of bureaucratese.

The other parallel I draw between the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and the Environmental Protection Authority Bill is on the weakening that has gone on between the versions. The basis of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill comes out of National’s much-vaunted A Bluegreen vision for New Zealand, from 2006.

💬 Hon Member: Oxymoron.

Well, it is something of an oxymoron. One of the things I have learnt as Labour’s spokesperson on water is that the most toxic of all the algae to be found in the now polluted river ways of Canterbury is a blue-green algae. It is the cyanobacterium that forms the matting on the bottom of rivers. If dogs go in and eat some of that matting, they will die. So in many rivers in Canterbury it is no longer safe for people to take their dog down to the water. We were looking for the Environmental Protection Authority to be a watchdog on those issues. We were looking for the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management to be a new tool—a powerful new tool—and for the Environmental Protection Authority to have some role in administering and enforcing it. But I am afraid that both of them are weaker.

Let us look, for instance, at the original version of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. It required that conditions be imposed by councils on all discharge permits affecting fresh water, so as to protect the environment—so as to protect the environment. What did we see in the version delivered by the Minister yesterday? It simply requires councils to regard any adverse effect. One could not get a blander requirement of a council taking a role in enforcing water quality than that. The Minister is hiding behind the idea that there is an ultra vires legal opinion. I have not seen that tabled yet. He has indicated that he might table it at some point, if somebody does not say no to that. I welcome seeing that advice. I say to the Minister that he needs to find a way to give that national water policy statement some teeth. There is no point in having something that is simply wishy-washy and does not put any onus on councils.

I note the irony that just over a year ago in this House, over 30 hours of legislation, we passed the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Act, which did away with the councillors of the original Canterbury Regional Council. I must acknowledge that at least with the Environmental Protection Authority Bill we are taking it through the normal passage of Parliament, and I welcome that. That, I must say, is an advance. I go back to the “Environment Canterbury Deconstruction Bill”—I think it had another name; it was called the Environment Canterbury (Temporary Commissioners and Improved Water Management) Bill, which is an oxymoron in itself. That bill did away with the councillors because the councillors of that regional council were not delivering effective water policy in that region.

Of course, they argued very strongly that they had great difficulty in enforcing water policy because there was no national framework underpinning what they were trying to do. The Minister claimed that it was the only council that did not have a water plan, but I say to the Minister that that is not correct. Environment Southland did not have its water plan in place until April 2010, which was exactly the same time as he said that Environment Canterbury was the only one that did not have a regional water plan. So that was not correct.

We come to the situation now where we are seeing the requirements for taking charge of water quality being handed back to regional councils, without an underpinning framework. So what does that mean? Does it now mean that if councils decide to be good environmental watchdogs—as I think Environment Canterbury was attempting to be, admittedly belatedly, after some “gold rush” went on for the water resources of Canterbury—and get too vigorous in enforcing the environmental side of the equation, they are likely to face the same fate we saw happen to Environment Canterbury? It has been sheeted to them that they will have responsibility, but there is nothing underpinning them under the national water policy statement that gives them the basis for making their decision. We have neither fish nor fowl in respect of the national policy statement, and it is a bit like the Environmental Protection Authority in that respect.

The Environmental Protection Authority has been created without a proper goal and objective. The bill does not state that the Environmental Protection Authority is there to protect and enhance the environment. It is formed by an amalgam of existing Government agencies. Most of the staff will come from the Environmental Risk Management Authority, from the Climate Change Office, and from the fast-track mechanism that the Environmental Protection Authority already embodies. I see nothing to suggest that there will be any staff there to enforce issues like improving water quality.

The Minister made much, much noise today and yesterday about the big increase in funding for improving water quality. There has been a $7.5 million a year increase—whoopsie-do—but at the same time half a billion dollars is being created to facilitate irrigation projects. Of course, some of those projects are likely to come to fruition before the several long years the Minister has indicated arrive, when we will see the new environmental rules, which he still heralds are coming. He says that it will be several long years, but some of those new schemes, funded by the Government’s half-billion of largesse, will come into play. They will not be required to meet any tough new requirements. I suspect that we will see a further deterioration in water quality, and that is not even counting the schemes already under way, such as the Darfield Fonterra plant. I think there is a view in the industry that if it can push ahead and get some new production in place before new rules come in, well, that is what it needs to do.

I think the industry is being encouraged by a Cabinet cabal that the Minister is not part of. He has clearly lost the arguments on both the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and the Environmental Protection Authority. This is not the bill that was intimated. It is not the bill that was indicated. It does not deliver on clear goals and objectives to improve the environment, as one would have hoped. I am glad to see that we are picking it up. I hope that we might get some support for some environmental goals and objectives for the Environmental Protection Authority, as enshrined in the amendment from my colleague Charles Chauvel.

It is truly disappointing that we are here passing this bill. It will not deliver the environmental gains that we were hoping for. It is a watered-down agency that is an amalgam of existing functions. I ask the Minister, for instance, whether we are going to see any staff in the regions. To date, it was projecting to have about one person in Canterbury. Will we see any people starting out in the regions, enforcing issues like water quality, like air quality, like environmental risk management, or will we see a Wellington-based bureaucracy that will be small and tight, with no objective and no real capacity to improve on the environment, which was supposedly enshrined in the objective of this bill?

I move, That the question be now put.

I rise to advise the Committee that in the last half an hour I have developed an amendment and it should be in front of colleagues now or very shortly. It reflects a similar concern as that articulated earlier by my colleague Charles Chauvel—picking up from various concerns that my colleague David Clendon and the Green Party have raised earlier in the Committee and during the first reading—that there is a fundamental illogic in the Environmental Protection Authority Bill here. It can be clarified, or rectified, with some fairly simple wording. If we look to the purpose in Part 1 and the objective in Part 2, it is in relation to clause 11, “Objective of EPA”, that I offer the amendment. Clause 3 states: “The purpose of this Act is to establish an Environmental Protection Authority”—that is, environmental protection. When we look at the objective of the authority, it is to carry out the purpose in every Act. The objective, as has already been noted, says nothing at all about protection. Clause 11, “Objective of EPA”, states: “(1) The objective of the EPA is to undertake its functions in a way that—(a) contributes to the efficient, effective, and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment and natural and physical resources;”.

It makes no sense to establish a protection authority that does not explicitly contain in its objective the protection of the environment. My proposal in my amendment is the following: “The objective of the EPA is to undertake its functions in a way that—(a) ensures the protection of NZ’s environment and natural and physical resources, while having regard to their efficient, effective, and transparent management.” That wording keeps the intended thrust of the Government—that is, the efficient, effective, and transparent management of resources—but it precedes that with the superior obligation that is implicit in the bill and in its stated purpose, which is the protection of the environment. I repeat its objective: “(a) ensures the protection of NZ’s environment and natural and physical resources, while having regard to their efficient, effective, and transparent management.”

I submit that amendment to the Committee and, with your indulgence, Mr Chairperson, I would like to raise a separate point, but may I do that in a separate call?

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Is the member finishing the call?

Yes. I am indicating that there is a separate point I would like to explore, but I would prefer to do it in a separate call, if that is possible.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): We are on Part 2. The member may want to continue because I cannot guarantee the allocation of speaking spots. While the member has the call, he might want to continue with it.

Thank you, Mr Chairperson. I appreciate your advice, but I will in fact leave it at that and give it a shot later.

I move, That the question be now put.

I appreciate this opportunity to speak on the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. I fully support what Dr Kennedy Graham said, particularly in relation to the word “protection”. It is almost unbelievable that someone like the Minister in the chair, Dr Nick Smith, does not know better. I have gone with him to meet with the Institution of Professional Engineers and to discuss a lot of these issues. When he is promoting a bill like this, where we are talking about a protection authority, there has to be something in the functions of the authority that uses the word “protection” in regard to the environment. It is very sad to see that he has very limited objectives for this authority.

In the 1980s I had the opportunity to do some research with the Department of Agriculture in the US. Part of that research was to work with the Environmental Protection Agency over there. That research related particularly to water—to groundwater and water management and soils. One of the important things that the Environmental Protection Agency did was to research and become involved in those issues, particularly land-based issues. The US agency was established 40 years ago. One of its major functions is science, research, and development, but this bill says nothing about research and development. I ask the Minister to take a call and let us know where the bill talks about research and development, which should be part of the Environmental Protection Authority.

This bill, as I see it, is all about fast tracking controversial projects. The authority has half a dozen projects before it right now, and they are all related to development. They are not directly related to either the protection of the environment, particularly land-based issues, or to water quality. My colleagues have raised the issue of water quality, and I am also really concerned about that issue. I am personally aware that major issues are developing around water quality and agricultural lands. There are two areas: the first that is being talked about nowadays concerns the dairy industry, where the number of dairy herds is increasing but there is a whole lot of pollution runoff from the land that is polluting our water. At the moment there are no standards, although I know the Minister announced something today about water standards. I still need to be convinced of what he is trying to do.

Another particularly important issue is non - point source pollution. That means pollution that is coming from the farms, particularly the nitrates and pesticides in the runoff from the land due to dairy farming and agricultural land that is used for cropping. In the horticultural area there is a huge issue. In major horticultural areas like Levin there is a major problem with the leaching of nitrates and runoffs. I have not seen anything in this bill that tells us what the Environmental Protection Authority will do about that non - point source pollution, which is a major issue for our rivers.

Members who have seen the Manawatū River after rain will know that a huge amount of soil comes through from the Wairarapa and through the Manawatū area. All that soil comes from the runoff from the land. I am personally very keen for the Minister to take a call on that issue and on other issues to tell us what the Environmental Protection Authority will do about them.

The Environmental Protection Authority Bill is flawed. I highlight my colleague Charles Chauvel’s press release, because we have tried to fix the bill, have we not, I say to Charles. The reality is that members opposite do not want us to help fix it. Labour opposes this bill quite vigorously, and I will tell members why. I will focus on a New Zealand Government press release that was issued at 2.47 p.m. on 16 November 2010, and in it Dr Nick Smith said: “The EPA is about providing stronger central government leadership on environmental issues.” I find that statement incredibly interesting. Members opposite seem to want to protect environmental issues, but they do not have as a mandate of the bill or of the Environmental Protection Authority the fact that they should protect the environment. It is completely ironic to have a bill that will not fulfil any of the objectives in the name of the bill.

I want to highlight what is meant by Nick Smith’s words “providing stronger central government leadership”. We have found that it actually means minimising the opportunity for local people—mum and dad New Zealanders—Māori, and other interest groups to have a say about developments that are happening where they live. I will use a few examples. One of them is the Waterview Connection project, which is particularly relevant to my colleague David Shearer. I will draw on some press releases about what has happened with the Waterview Connection project, and the way the Environmental Protection Authority has undermined the opportunity for local people, for elected members of that community, to be involved in decision making about projects such as the Waterview Connection project.

We had people like councillors Simon Friar and Cathy Casey at the time and other community leaders who were given only 20 days to have their say as local people in local communities about an extension that, as we all know, has a huge impact on local people—homeowners and business people. There was a 40-volume application with 54 resource consents and seven new designations, but that community was given only 20 days to respond. I find it incredibly interesting, because the community was engaged. Those councillors and leaders wanted to have their say and they wanted to represent the interests of local people, but they were denied an additional 10 days. One has to ask how flawed is a process that is supposed to be about democracy—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I have listened carefully to the member’s contribution. There is nothing in her speech that has any regard to Part 2, which we are currently considering.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I remind members that we are on Part 2, and that is the Environmental Protection Authority. I ask the member to come back to that matter.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. I am just saying that the functions of the Environmental Protection Authority are to exercise the powers and carry out the functions and duties conferred on it under this legislation. I am trying to highlight that, in fact, this bill erodes democracy and erodes the opportunity of local people—mum and dad New Zealanders—to have a say in developments that are happening in their communities. The mandate of this bill means that if it is designated to have national significance, then those mum and dad New Zealanders who live in communities will not have the opportunity to have a say about developments that will affect their daily lives. I want to highlight that that is what Nick Smith was actually talking about when he talked about “stronger central government leadership”. It is actually about the erosion of mum and dad New Zealanders in our community who have a connection to where they live, who obviously have a sense of responsibility for the way that their community will develop. This bill will undermine their opportunity to live in that community and to contribute to decisions that will affect their community. That is what I want to highlight.

I also want to highlight that the National Government, as we have in our notes, has a bad track record on environmental protection. I say that the National Government has a record on environment non-protection. That is the reality. National has extended the deadline for the National Environmental Standards for Air Quality to 2018 and has ignored warnings that doing so puts people’s lives at risk. National obviously does not care. National has watered down the emissions trading scheme, and that will add billions to the taxpayers’ bill for—

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. The member’s comments have absolutely nothing to do with Part 2. None of the issues she has raised are relevant to the part.

💬 Charles Chauvel: Mr Chairperson—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I do not need any help. I warned the member earlier that the emissions trading scheme is not part of this debate, and the member had just mentioned the emissions trading scheme. The member has 7 seconds remaining.

For anyone who is listening, I think they should seriously consider what “stronger central government leadership” means.

I move, That the question be now put.