Environmental Reporting Bill

It is a pleasure to rise and speak in the second reading of the Environmental Reporting Bill in the name of the Hon Nick Smith. I do so in my capacity as chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee. The select committee did, I think, good work on this bill during the submission stage and through the process of the select committee.

I noted with interest the comments made by the previous speaker, Megan Woods, who leads the Labour team on the select committee on this subject. I got a sense today, from listening to her speech, that she was opposing for the sake of opposing. There is a cloud of politics being played here that is so obvious. It is kind of sad, in a way, that a party that really should be supporting the bill—wants to support it, wants to be part of a good piece of legislation, wants to be supportive—is not going to do so because it feels that it needs to oppose for the sake of opposing.

This is a bill that creates a national-level environmental reporting system and puts that in place. The objective is to ensure that reporting happens on a regular basis and that the reports that are created and generated will be able to be trusted by the public as being independent, fair, and accurate. I think that the bill in its current form will neatly achieve that.

This bill has its origins back in National’s Bluegreen policy initiatives that are so well based and that are so well liked by National Party supporters, and, indeed, by the wider community. People who have a green streak actually understand, mostly, that there needs to be policy that is tempered with common sense, with reality, and with a measure of brand awareness that is something more than just absolutes.

This is a Bluegreens initiative, and the Hon Nick Smith made reference to that during his second reading speech only the other night. It was, as Megan Woods indicated, part of a policy that we put to the electorate and I am very pleased now to be part of a Government that is bringing that to fruition.

We are actually as a nation an outlier in terms of the OECD. We are probably the only member of the OECD that does not currently have a statutory framework for environmental reporting and this bill puts that to right. It is an anomaly that we are out of step and it goes against what we like to know as our clean, green image, so this bill will ensure that we get into line in a way that is meaningful and purposeful.

We should not as a Parliament underestimate for one minute the power of reporting systems to improve performance in a whole range of areas, so this bill seeks to do that. This is an area that I think New Zealanders actually want us to achieve more in and to perform better in. So by having standardised reporting in a way that is clear and transparent and formulaic it will actually not only improve our standing in an environmental sense as New Zealanders but it will also improve our standing in terms of where we sit in world best practice.

By having standardised reporting in areas like water quality, air quality, how well we are doing on protecting our biodiversity and on the survival of our most important species like kiwi, and what sort of job we are doing of managing our oceans, we will have a much better view and it will be a good step along the way to ensuring that future generations have the same access to the quality environment that we enjoy today. It is part of a broader role that this Government is taking and part of what we have been doing as Government. It is part of strengthening the institutions of government and public office.

This particular piece of legislation really supports three heads—if I can put it that way. Firstly, the Ministry for the Environment as the policy maker is supported and encouraged. It is the Treasury equivalent of what occurs in the economic space in terms of our legislation. Secondly, the Environmental Protection Authority acts as the agency created by this Government to act as the effective and independent regulator in this area, and that is not too much different to the role that, for instance, the Reserve Bank plays in the financial sector. Thirdly, just as we have an auditor, we also have an important role with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment acting in the environmental audit capacity. Her job is to provide overall independence of the system and provide environmental management. It is my view that we will be actually strengthening the role of the independent Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment by passing this legislation.

A great deal was made of clause 18 at the Local Government and Environment Committee and also by speakers in the first reading and, most recently, earlier in this debate. This is the provision that sets down which topics will be reported. The controversy that members of the Green Party and the Labour Party tend to make out of this is something of a nonsense. They seem to think that there is something wrong with having the Minister of Statistics and the Minister for the Environment setting the topics. Well, I do not see any issue or problem in that area at all and nor did the majority of the select committee.

The first thing I would like to point out is that this legislation makes plain the five domain areas that the topics must cover. They are going to be set out in the legislation. There will not be any ability to wriggle out of those. There will not be any ability to change those unless it is by further amendment to this statute, so those five domains are cast in stone. The bill goes further and requires the process of public consultation with the Government Statistician and with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. It goes further in requiring consultation with the public, with iwi, and with local authorities. Each of those subjects will be discussed with those various stakeholders.

But the problem for members of the Opposition who are wanting to hang their hats on clause 18 is that these provisions that are in this piece of legislation are exactly the same as exist in our financial legislation—and that is not for 1 minute considered by them as something that we would want to change. Why is it good enough for our financial institutions and our financial ministries to have the reporting of financial matters and the dollars and cents of State perfectly adequately governed and monitored by the appropriate Ministers but not so the environmental area?

I cannot see the logic of that and I think it goes to the point that, actually, Opposition members, on this matter, are really just playing politics. They are opposing really just for the sake of opposing. In their hearts they know that the position they have taken on this bill is actually right in terms of the main thrust of it, but the point they are hanging their hat on in terms of opposing it, is actually dancing on the head of a pin. They just cannot bring themselves to support the Government in this very good piece of legislation. In any other arena they probably would support it because the detail of it would be of such small consequence that they, in fact, would not be willing to cast it asunder in order to oppose it. As Nick Smith said the other night, it is just crude oppositional politics and I concur with him on that.

This is a bill that will ensure that New Zealand does not just brand itself internationally as being clean and green, but that, in fact, we now report and monitor on our status in that term of being clean and green. What this bill will do is it will provide an honest, open reporting environment on the environment and show just how we are doing. It is the sort of bill that a National Government will always support and will champion because it is pragmatic, it is sensible, and it goes to the heart of the blue-green philosophy that we have as a Government.

We are a practical Government that wants New Zealanders to achieve economically, but, at the same time, we want to support and encourage and conserve our very precious natural environment. This bill and the reporting mechanisms that are established in it go a very long way to ensuring that we come to be world best practice in terms of our OECD role. This is also because we want to make sure that future generations of New Zealanders have the same access to the beautiful clean and wonderful pristine environments that we make so much of and enjoy so much as a nation. How we manage those resources is important to us as a nation. This is a good bill. I encourage members to support it and not to play politics with it. It is too important for that. I commend it to the House.

I had difficulty accepting that Mr Simpson was genuine in the argument that he put forward. I do not really think he believes what he was saying. He will have heard from the submitters to the Local Government and Environment Committee how seriously flawed this bill is. At the beginning it was the intention of the Labour Party, like all the other Opposition parties, I suspect—we were looking with much expectation at the introduction of this bill. We supported its referral to the select committee because we believed that there was going to be some genuine work done in terms of this Government reporting on and highlighting our environmental standards. But sadly, despite the evidence presented by significant individuals and organisations to Government members, they have gone ahead and continued with the present bill in a flawed state. I wonder whether the Government members who will support this bill at its second reading can, in 10 years’ time or 20 years’ time, come back to the House and tell us what the state of our riverways will be, what the state of our environment will be. If we adopt this bill it will do very little, if anything. In fact, what this bill does is it enables a Minister of the Government to play politics with the way the environmental situation is to be reported.

I think sometimes, because we live in a much bigger country than most of the Pacific Islands, we have difficulty understanding how real the environmental issues are. But I think if members were to travel outside our country and visit some of the Pacific Islands, they would see that there are real environmental issues, climate change issues, that our region is facing. The reason why, along with my colleagues, I was looking with high expectations at this bill is that if this bill is to be adopted and we get a standard measure of reporting on how our environment exists currently, then we will be able to set a standard that we could measure as the years go by. Unfortunately, the bill is contrary to what we heard in that select committee in terms of best practice. It is best practice that rather than having a Minister control what topics, what issues, are to be reported on, it should be independently reported on. Scientists should also be involved in the choosing of topics and how they are to be reported to this House. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

I have to say that despite what the previous speaker said about our clean, green image, is that really what we are trying to protect here? It does not sound like it. It does not sound like we are talking about the protection of the environment. It sounds more like we are trying to cover up the harm that we will cause to the environment, for the sake of economic development. I do not believe for one minute that what we are adopting in this bill is going to enhance, protect, and ensure the safety of our environment, not only for the present population but for future populations. We have often said—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I ask the member to sit. I am going to ask the Clerk at the Table to ring the bell as there is not a Minister present.

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Yes, there is.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am sorry. I apologise. [Interruption] It is all right. I apologise. I did not anticipate the Minister crossing over there. There is a New Zealand First sort of relationship—a Tauranga relationship—but we will go back to Su’a William Sio.

In terms of the branding, what is the brand that we want for New Zealand? Do we want the brand of 100 percent pure, clean, and green? Is that the brand that we want? If it is, the reporting regime that this bill provides for does not guarantee that we are going to strengthen, enhance, and protect that branding. In fact, sadly, I was surfing on the internet to see what the international arena would throw up in terms of our branding. HBO had a clip on John Oliver. It was a teaser about the Prime Minister, ponytails, and wine. I am not going to get into that—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No.

—but the branding of 100 percent pure, clean, and green is the branding that we should be collectively looking to protect and enhance. The only way that that can be achieved is by ensuring that the reporting on our environment is independent, is scientifically robust, and is assessed. The best practice that is used, not only locally but at the international level, should be the topic. It should not be that a Minister in any Government, whether it be them, or us in 2017—Ministers of any political persuasion should not have the unfettered power to be able to choose what topics are reported on and how they are reported on. What can then arise is that Ministers may choose not to report on a topic because there is public opposition to it, or Ministers may choose not to report on the way our waterways are because they do not want to highlight the current situation.

I could not help but hear earlier the member talking about our waterways being protected and safe. I have to say, there is a lake out in Ōtara. In the 1970s we used to go fishing in there and we used to swim in there. Today you can no longer do that. Over the years, as a result of development and the runoffs, it is unsafe. There are signs there: “Do not swim.” and “Do not eat anything out of this lake.” If in the 1970s it was safe and in 2015 it is unsafe, should it not be the desire of this House, and certainly any Government that has any sense, to ensure that we return that lake to how it was when people were able to eat from it, swim in it, and use it on a day-to-day basis? If that is the case, then this bill cannot proceed and should not proceed. Any right-thinking, good, sensible Government that has no arrogance whatsoever would know that this is what it has to do. It is not about politics; it should be about doing the right thing for present and future generations.

I note that in the department disclosure statement it says that it spoke to Te Puni Kōkiri. There is a requirement when it comes to the environmental issues that Māori ought to be consulted. If memory serves me right—and my Māori colleagues may want to correct me—Māori, similar to many indigenous cultures, are well versed in terms of tradition in how they protect the environment. It is embedded in much of the thinking of the elders that when we are using the land, the rivers, the air, etc., not only do we need to use it for the present generation but also leave something for future generations. That is what should be our goal. That is what we should be aiming for.

Unfortunately, the way this bill is drafted, it is more about economics. I want to read something that highlights this point. It is more about economics, and if that is the case, it is not going to last very, very long. Here, again from the departmental disclosure statement, it reads: “Improved access to consistent, high quality information on New Zealand’s environmental performance is expected to assist businesses in marketing their products and services overseas.” That seems to be the basis for why this Government is prepared to allow a flawed bill to proceed. It is not about protecting our environment for present and future generations but about promoting goods and services to international markets. I have to say that that is not a principle that will allow future generations to enjoy the kind of environment that we have been fortunate to have.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Just before I address the issue at hand in this second reading debate, the Environmental Reporting Bill, I would like to add my voice to the congratulations that have already been offered in this House to Mr David Wilson, who is taking up the position of Clerk of the House. Last week I travelled to Kota Kinabalu, Sabah state, in Malaysia to attend a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association conference. One of the focuses there was the importance of the role of the Clerk in good governance and transparency in a democracy such as ours. So well done to Mr Wilson for taking on that very important position.

Turning to the matter at hand, the Environmental Reporting Bill, firstly, I would like to congratulate the Minister Dr Nick Smith. The Hon Dr Smith has been a longstanding and very passionate advocate for the environment, for conserving our endangered species—in fact, all New Zealand indigenous species—and for advancing sensible and pragmatic policies that allow us to continue to have economic growth and a robust economy in New Zealand, to provide for those goods and services and lifestyle that we would like to have as a country, whilst balancing that against the need to make sure we have clean air and water and sensible regulations in place to protect species and that environmental lifestyle that we also value here in New Zealand.

As part of that legacy that Dr Smith has, this bill fits in perfectly. It is a very credible piece of legislation to bring us in line with the majority of the other OECD countries that have some form of environmental reporting regime. I have to say, sitting on this side of the House and hearing some of the previous contributions from the Opposition, that it is with a sense of irony—in fact, it is a little bit rich—that I hear that this is an inadequate measure, given that in 9 years of the previous Government nothing was done to advance an environmental reporting regime of this nature. Similarly, we have had many comparisons made so far in this debate between environmental reporting and financial reporting, which was implemented in the early 1990s to ensure that we did not have another situation whereby the population of New Zealand was misled as to the finances of the country going into an election. I think that is a very valid comparison to make.

If the members across the other side of the House were serious in their concerns about aspects of this legislation, they would note that the legislation in the financial area does provide exactly the same degree of independence for officials in terms of what is chosen to be reported on in that area. It would not be useful or helpful for the people of New Zealand, for members of this House, or for the functioning of our democracy, for instance, if Treasury or the Reserve Bank or other financial agencies of State were to branch off into weird and wonderful and bizarre areas of financial academic interest and report those at great expense to the taxpayer rather than those core pieces of important information that the people of New Zealand need to know.

Similarly, it would be equally strange to empower officials to be making expensive decisions around what areas of the environment should be reported on, and this piece of legislation—

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Read the bill.

—contains very clear guidance. I have read the bill, Dr Woods. You may interject across the House with the regularity of the world’s most tedious metronome, but I am here to say that we have in the bill very clearly laid out the five domains that the public of New Zealand need to know about and certainly members on this side of the House are interested in—that is, air, land, fresh water, atmosphere, and climate—and noting that our climate change reporting is covered elsewhere as well.

On aspects of the climate such as particulates in the air, we have heard recently a very interesting report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment that actually demonstrates the need to have legislation of this sort that will futureproof. There is no point in locking in a reporting regime that is based on old science, that is based on the old levels of particulates, given that we know now that when it comes to dust from building sites or particulates that may come out of the petrochemical industry, emissions from our vehicles and fireplaces, etc., it is the very small, nano-sized particles that are actually the most dangerous to human health and most injurious to the environment.

That is just one small example of how science has evolved and why we need legislation that is futureproofed and will give us some assurance into the future that we can report in a sensible fashion and in a useful way, but also in a cost-effective way, given the significant investment of taxpayers’ money that goes into commissioning any of the reports in these areas.

I would like to turn now to some of the definitions we have actually used, because I think this is quite pertinent, so that we know we are getting reports on these five domains on a 6-monthly rotational basis that will be useful. The air domain—the clean air that we value in this country—means the domain surrounding the earth is composed of gases, vapours, and particulates. We have heard some gases and vapours from the other side of the House, but those that we are concerned about on this side are the variety that make our environment good and healthy to live in, so that we can breathe clean air and so that our species that depend on levels of gases and vapours as they are now can continue to survive, given recent reporting around some of the scientific challenges that those species face in terms of climate change.

The biodiversity that we are talking about is the living organisms and ecological complexes. These are very broad categories; they are broadly defined. We are not talking merely about individual animals, but we are talking about diversity within species and the relationships between groups of species and their ecosystems. In terms of the climate, we are talking about meteorological conditions and variations, solar radiation, temperature levels, humidity, clouds, precipitation, atmospheric pressure, and wind. These environmental conditions that can be impacted upon by human activity, and I for one am by no means a denier of climate change being an anthropogenic factor. That is something that human activity has influenced. It is important that we keep that broad definition here in that regard.

In terms of the freshwater domain, we are talking not only about the physical water—the rivers—but all the animals, vegetation, and structures associated with our rivers. So far, in the last few weeks on the Local Government and Environment Committee, we have heard about the long-finned eel, the tuna, as Māori may call it, and the challenges that we face in accurately measuring but also understanding that population of important creatures—which Māori regard as a taonga; not simply as a source of food or as an interesting feature to put in an aquarium but actually as a treasure of their people—to make sure that they are preserved and protected. So that is just one example, again, of the sorts of domain reporting that would be useful, rather than having officials launch off into new, interesting, and innovative areas at great expense to the public purse.

One area that my colleague Nuk Korako may address later but that I just wanted to, perhaps, presage before he got on to it was the amendment that the committee has suggested to clause 4A in the bill, the “Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi” clause. We have suggested a change there to take into appropriate account the Treaty of Waitangi and to provide for Te Ao Māori to be an impact category when we are preparing the synthesis and domain reports, and to ensure that the reports are informed by a Māori perspective. That is something that we on this side of the House do consider to be important. I think there was a rather spurious contribution from Su‘a William Sio before about how Māori, perhaps, were better stewards or guardians of the environment. Actually, as a person of Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa descent I am not entirely sure that we can talk about being better or worse, but I can say that we have, perhaps, different perceptions among Māori and other New Zealanders as to the meaning and the importance and the ways to manage the environment better.

So for that reason I am happy to see that we have, under clause 4A(b) required consultation with iwi authorities before regulations pursuant to this legislation are made. I think that is a positive change and a useful amendment, and evidence that the committee has worked hard on this and come up with some useful contributions. Thank you very much.

Tēnā koe, and congratulations, Mr Wilson, on being appointed as the incoming Clerk. The Green Party supported the referral of the Environmental Reporting Bill to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We did that, but we made it very clear at the time, in the first reading debate, that we had significant concerns about the bill, because although it is good to have regular, consolidated, and accurate national-level environmental reporting guaranteed by law—and we would be catching up with the rest of the OECD—we need to have independent reporting. This bill will certainly bring a measure of consistency and coherence to our very devolved system of environmental decision-making and management, but it is not the real deal on state of the environment reporting, because it fails to provide for independent reporting.

We are dealing with a Government that has repeatedly increased the powers of Ministers and the executive at the expense of a strong and independent public sector, at the expense of local government, and at the expense of democratic accountability. It has increased the powers of Ministers to direct councils. It has increased ministerial regulation-making powers. It has replaced elected councillors with appointed commissioners. It has abused the provisions of the Official Information Act by manipulating the release of official information, and blocking and delaying release for as long as possible.

So where we have something like clause 18, where the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Statistics get to decide the topics on which environmental reporting is to occur, we see that as the latest chapter in National’s undermining of local democracy, and it sets the scene for quite Orwellian manipulation of public information and of what the public understands as the state of our environment and what “clean, green” New Zealand is really all about. It is certainly not crude oppositional politics, as the Minister has claimed, to oppose this provision in the bill.

The Green Party made quite constructive contributions, we think, to the debate at the select committee, which did result in some improvements to the bill in terms of clause 16 and some of the other clauses, but this clause, clause 18, is the heart of the bill. We need to know what state our environment is in, the severity of our biodiversity crisis, how water quality is continuing to decline, and what sorts of land uses are contributing to that decline.

If state of the environment reporting is to be credible, if it is to be robust, it needs to be independent. It is not independent because in clause 18 we have got those regulation-making powers for the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Statistics. Those powers include prescribing the topics that are to be covered in the domain reports, which are going to be published on a rotating basis every 6 months. Those powers also prescribe topics that are to be in the 3-yearly synthesis reports—the pressures that are changing the state of the environment, and the impacts that those changes are having.

So that gives quite sweeping powers to Ministers. They can interfere in and restrict the scope of the matters to be reported on and the types of information that will be relevant. So it is another example of the very centralised decision-making that we are seeing under this National administration. The Environmental Defence Society in its submission opposed these significant powers being given to Ministers, as did about half of the submissions on this bill. The Environmental Defence Society said that this would politicise what should be an independent process. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment highlighted that clause 18 created the opportunity for political interference.

If you have got Ministers having control over topics to be reported on, then you have got that risk of environmental reporting becoming another exercise in spin. Recent history has highlighted that our concerns are real. In 2008 the Green Party showed that the Labour Government had suppressed the final chapter of the 2007 state of the environment report, Environment New Zealand 2007. That suppressed chapter showed that increased car use, dairy intensification, and over-consumption were driving environmental decline, and that chapter concluded that regulation was needed to protect the environment and our clean, green reputation. Why was it suppressed? Presumably, it was an attempt to play down the need for both policy and legislative change.

So it has happened in the past where the Government has intervened, and with clause 18 it could happen in the future. Clause 18 could be amended, and we pushed for amendments at the select committee so that the topics to be reported on could be set out in a schedule to the bill. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment could set the topics on her own or in consultation with the Government Statistician and the Secretary for the Environment. Another suggestion that came through in submissions was that a panel of scientists could set the topics. We will be promoting Supplementary Order Papers in the Committee stage to make some changes to clause 18 to give that independence and to make the bill much more robust.

The Minister has sought to justify this ministerial power by saying that because environmental reporting can be expensive in terms of collecting information, it has budgetary implications and therefore it should be within the Minister’s domain to set those topics. Well, of course, Ministers have a perfect right to set budgets through the whole Budget process, so they can take care of those concerns there. National members have also sought to discount the need for independence here by claiming that it is a parallel with the way financial reporting is done. But the Ministers under the Public Finance Act, where you have got GDP and those traditional indicators of economic progress, are way out of step with what is happening overseas. If we had the Government Statistician herself setting the indicators, then there is a potential for those indicators to follow what is happening overseas with a much broader suite of sustainability indicators, which shows us how the economy is in real terms, in terms of the health of the environment, the health of our society.

The Green Party’s Dr Kennedy Graham has drafted a Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill, which has a much wider suite of sustainable indicators, which would be a much better indication of the health of our economy and society. That bill is in the name of my colleague James Shaw. The indicators in that bill are set out in the bill, rather than requiring Ministers to set them. So we have got that problem of very narrow indicators—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: We know who she’s voting for. She’s standing by him.

—because they are being set by the Minister.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!

Thank you, Mr Bridges.

Another problem with this bill is that there is no regulatory impact statement that analyses the implication of the bill’s implementation and what is going to be needed at the local government level to align the reporting that councils do with national environmental reporting. The bill puts a lot more work on councils, but, once again, there is no funding being provided by central government to support that. Even the Government’s own appointed commissioners at Environment Canterbury complained about this. They said that the new reporting system would require quite considerable input from councils, in terms of the practicalities of data gathering, staff time analysis, and interpretation of raw data, if you were going to get that consistency. So that is going to have an impact on councils’ work programmes, and there should be funding provided to assist.

In concluding, I would like to thank the over 320 submitters on the bill. Their submissions and their analyses have helped the select committee to improve the bill, particularly the submissions from the Officers of Parliament. One useful change that the select committee has made is to clause 16, which was quite a major concern of the Green Party and submitters, because in the bill as introduced it cut across the statutory responsibilities of the Officers of Parliament, such as the Ombudsmen, and their ability to do their work and to undertake their investigations. The changes to clause 16 also constrain the non-disclosure provisions, which were in the bill as introduced, and ensure that the Government Statistician is only able to decide to withhold access to untested and unpublished information.

We are opposing this bill because you cannot have credible and robust state of the environment reporting unless that is independent of Ministers and free from the potential for political interference. This bill does not do that because of the problems in clause 18. Thank you.

New Zealand First opposes this bill, and we opposed it at the first reading too, because, as Andrew Williams then said, the bill appeared to sideline the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, and that is absolutely true. The bill does allow the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to report, but that should actually, in our view, be mandatory, too.

But there are other reasons, and I want to acknowledge the opinion by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, obtained by Fish and Game New Zealand. New Zealand First agrees with him, and supports the position of Fish and Game on the bill. They, of course, have an obvious and serious dependence on the need for good-quality environmental reporting, and, above all, they need to be assured that there is independent environmental reporting in this country.

Like them, New Zealand First wants to see improved environmental reporting in this country, but this bill is not what is needed. The purpose of the bill, following a select committee amendment, is simply to require regular reports on the New Zealand environment. The reason why the purpose no longer refers to reports on the environment that can be trusted by the public as independent, fair, and accurate is that the public will not now actually be able to have that trust, as a result of this bill, because the bill actually gives the Ministers full control of the topics to be reported, or, in fact, not to be reported. So how could such a system possibly be regarded as independent? Of course it is not, and independence is absolutely essential.

This is not saved by clause 14, which requires the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician to act independently, because the Ministers actually, as I have said, get all the power, far too much executive power in this case. The domains to be reported on include those in respect of air, atmosphere, and climate; freshwater; and land and marine domains. But under clause 12 the topics to be reported on are to be chosen by way of regulations made under clause 18—agreed on by the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Statistics, and not Parliament.

Even the term “topics” is not well defined in the bill, and it is vague as to what will actually be covered. In addition, there is the strange clause 15, under which the Secretary and the Government Statistician are required to assure, in their reports, “a fair and accurate representation of the state of New Zealand’s environment … or the state of the domain being reported on”, but only “so far as it is reasonably practicable”. The words “so far as it is reasonably practicable” completely compromise the assurance of fair and accurate reporting, which is the core of this legislation.

In agreeing on the topics, the Ministers must have regard to pressures on the environment that could cause adverse environmental impacts, and they must be satisfied that the pressure topics chosen have an impact on significant areas, resources, or numbers of people, measurability, and the relationships between topics and impacts. But in the end these requirements actually place very little limitation on ministerial discretion. So the Ministers could simply decide to report on the sum topics, but could also simply decide, without telling anybody, not to report on other topics at all, and that is a gross defect, in my view, in this bill. Not only will the bill fail the transparency test in this way but it will also prevent the Official Information Act from operating as intended, by limiting access to what is called untested information. The officials will be able to withhold the information that they prefer to avoid for that reason.

Clause 16 of the bill now exempts from this requests made under the Ombudsmen Act and the Public Audit Act, but members of the public cannot get the so-called untested information they should be entitled to. There is scope for data and other information not reported on to be withheld permanently, for no satisfactory reason. All of this raises one fundamental question: why would the central aim of the bill, which is to enable decisions on what should be reported, be achieved by way of delegated legislation—regulations decided by two Ministers under clause 18—when this would be better achieved by the legislation itself by way of schedules annexed to it? These could still be amended from time to time by way of the full parliamentary process.

The Government, of course, has argued that matters like changing environmental measurement techniques require flexibility, and that would be too difficult if left in the legislation, but I think that that is a very weak argument. Parliament should retain control over matters of this scale of importance. Schedules to other legislation are often amended in this way, after all.

The new requirements for consultation are a step in the right direction but are actually not nearly enough. The truth is that the Government wants to increase the power of the executive, sideline Parliament, and increase secrecy. In this way, the Ministers can protect their Government from adverse reports, which might cause it political embarrassment or damage. Some regulation will, of course, be necessary, but this should cover only matters of detail and other administrative issues, not the substance of the reports themselves. So this is another way in which this arrogant Government is building its own power for its own purposes. The question of what should be reported to Parliament and the public should be decided by, and subjected to the scrutiny of, Parliament, not the executive members of the Government.

This bill is an example of what Sir Douglas Kidd called “the ongoing tendency of all Governments to stray from the paths of constitutional righteousness, seduced by the sirens of power, efficiency, and convenience.” But one of the worst features of the bill is the treatment of the public, which I have already alluded to in respect of unpublished information on the spurious basis that it is untested. Nowhere else is that excuse used. Information, after all, is just information. People should be able to judge or test its worth for themselves. This new regime of secrecy of information relevant to environmental reporting is actually contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which guarantees freedom of expression. That includes the freedom to obtain official information, tested or not, and to discuss and offer opinions on it if that is what they want to do.

Although the Government-dominated select committee responsible for this bill has made some useful changes, overall, the bill, if enacted, will give the Government more executive power to create a regime of secrecy and potentially incomplete environmental reporting—

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I have rung the 2-minute bell, but I am going to give the member a warning with regard to the reading of speeches. There have been some pretty clear rulings from the Speaker and the Deputy Speaker that we are moving away from the reading of speeches, and I am ruling that the member is, at the moment, doing that.

Mr Assistant Speaker, that is strange because, in fact, there are only notes here, not a written speech. So if it sounds written, then that is not actually the case.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well, that, therefore, is a compliment to the member.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker—thank you. In any event, I will repeat my last paragraph because that is what it is. The select committee dominated by the Government has ensured that this bill will enhance the power of the executive, and will mean that environmental reporting in this country is likely to be incomplete, and will certainly not, under the provisions of this bill, be independent. As you can see, Mr Assistant Speaker, that statement certainly was not read.

Before I start my speech, I want to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the sudden passing of Ērima Hēnare, son of the late Tā Hēmi Hēnare, father of our parliamentary colleague Peeni Henare, and grandfather to his mokopuna. He was a tribal leader, a statesman, and a true rangatira, taken all too soon in the prime of his life. My aroha goes to Peeni, the Hēnare whānau whānui, and the many iwi who will feel this loss. Kua hinga te tōtara o Te Wao-nui-a-Tāne, takoto mai, takoto mai, takoto mai, e te rangatira. [The podocarpus of the Great Forest of Tāne has fallen, lie down, lie down, and lie there, esteemed one.]

I am pleased to stand to take a call in the second reading of the Environmental Reporting Bill in the name of Nick Smith, Minister for the Environment. This is a highly important piece of legislation, because for the first time the New Zealanders of this country will get an opportunity to read an environmental report that has all the information they require and that looks across the five domains at the same time that the Ministers will receive it from the independent reporters.

I just want to talk a little bit about a couple of the domains, because they are very dear to what I have been part of. One of the first domains is all about the water. I have heard a lot of people talking about water, and farmers, how farmers treat the water, and all the rest of it. I come from a farming background, and I can tell you that the regulations around the discharge and use of water on our property are horrendous. We have a highly regulated regime for looking after the water supply on our property. Actually, since this Government has been in power, there has been $103 million invested in cleaning up the waterways of this country. With the work that we have been doing, I am proud to say that we have been part and parcel of helping to clean up those waterways on our property that drip down into Coal Creek, which goes out to the Pohangina River and out to the sea.

💬 Todd Muller: Excellent, well done.

Thank you—thank you.

💬 Todd Muller: So are many other farmers.

Thank you. I also want to put a plug in—even though we are sheep and beef farmers—for the dairy farmers, because I do know that they have a strict regime for keeping the water clean in the use of their milking facilities and making sure that they are recycling some of their water so that they can put it out either for cleaning up the facilities in their dairy sheds or using it to help water their properties. These have been very big regimes of regulation that they have had to come to terms with, abide by, and comply with, otherwise they would not be able to run their businesses.

I want to talk a little bit about the total investment that this Government has put into cleaning up those iconic water bodies like the Rotorua lakes, Lake Ellesmere, and the Waituna Lagoon. That is $350 million. When we look over the history of the previous Labour Government, there was no money that went into helping to clean up those waterways.

💬 Hon Member: Shame.

It was very shameful. I remember when I was doing a degree at Massey University—I did a biology degree—we were sent down to—

💬 Paul Foster-Bell: Is that right? Very pertinent.

Yes, I am full of surprises. We were asked to go down to do some testing on a little, kind of discharge area over at Aokautere. It was quite amazing how what we found in that particular area was quite high in a lot of unwanted discharge with bits and pieces in it. I can say that that has been controlled through the regulation that the Government has put in for managing our freshwater environment.

May I say, while I am talking about water, that I am going to carry on with the marine environment as well. We have been very clear in making sure that through our exclusive economic zone policy we are looking after the environment—the substrate of our oceans and the marine life—to make sure that we can still have some economic advantage there without wrecking the environment that animals and plants live and subsist in.

So that is my spiel around water, because it is dear to my heart. We have got it flowing. It bubbles out of our ground. It is spring water and it bubbles out of our ground, and we know that it is a very special thing that Papatūānuku gives to us, and we have to look after it.

Talking about Papatūānuku, I want to talk a little bit about the clause—I cannot remember the name of the clause—inserted in the bill for the Treaty of Waitangi. We all know that Māori have had a vested interest in wai māori for mai rā nō—for ever. It has been what we have been interested in—the air, but mainly the water.

I am pleased to note that through the iwi leaders we have a group of iwi representatives who sit on the Te Wai Māori Trust, chaired by Ken Mair from Wanganui. I know Ken, and he is a no-nonsense kind of man. He does not take any rubbish, and he makes sure that we stick to looking after the freshwater environment. Look at the Whanganui River, for instance. Look at that big body of water and the signing of the Treaty settlement legislation around the—I see you are standing up, Mr Assistant Speaker.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 6 p.m.