Environmental Reporting Bill

I think that talking to the title of this bill is something that we do need to spend a bit of time on, because I would like to have thought that the Labour Party would and could support any piece of legislation called the Environmental Reporting Bill that came before this House—

💬 Chris Bishop: So vote for it then.

—given that New Zealand is one of the only countries in the OECD not to have this regime of environmental reporting in play.

We are having some calls from the opposite side: “So vote for it.” Well, we would dearly like to have been able to vote for this. We would have voted for this legislation if it had been truly independent environmental reporting. In fact, we put it to the Government, both at the select committee and in the Committee stage in this House, that we would indeed vote for this legislation if the Government would agree to the amendments to clause 18—if we would make the changes that meant that we did have independent environmental reporting in this country.

This is not any slur on any particular Minister, because it is strongly our belief that Ministers on whichever side of the House—Ministers will only ever come from one side of the House, I guess—Ministers from whichever party in this House need to have legislative constraints within our legislation to ensure independence. We do not want to be legislating and allowing the potential for political interference.

So, rather than the Environmental Reporting Bill, I think this bill should more rightly be called the “Opportunity Lost Bill”, because this is a huge opportunity lost. It is a good thing that New Zealand did turn its attention to putting in place an environmental reporting regime, but we did lose the opportunity to do this properly. We have not done this in a way that is going to ensure that we have a robust and independent reporting regime in place that is going to report on the state of the environment and that is going to allow for better environmental outcomes. And for that reason, to us it is a huge opportunity lost.

I have been sitting in the Chamber throughout, I think, all of the Committee stage of this bill, and I have heard some contributions—some of them more thoughtful than others. One that I thought was a thoughtful contribution from the other side of the House this afternoon was from Todd Muller, who sits on the Local Government and Environment Committee. This was in response to the opportunity that my colleague Su’a William Sio put up in terms of New Zealand taking leadership in this region in terms of considering how what we do impacts not only on our environment but on our broader regional environment as well. Su’a and my colleague Kris Faafoi have made compelling cases around what the impact is on the Pacific. Todd Muller said that, perhaps, this is something we could consider later on in terms of synthesis reports—that this is something we could delay.

Here is another example of how this is an opportunity lost. We cannot delay considering the impacts of what New Zealand does in New Zealand on the broader environment of the region and what the impacts are for our Pacific neighbours. We do not have time, actually, to think: “We’ll put this off until mañana. We’ll put this off until another day.” This is something that we have to confront now. This is something that we do need to take a leadership position on. This is something about which we cannot simply say: “We’ll look at that in the future.”

Then we had some quite extraordinary contributions on this. My colleague Ruth Dyson has touched on the contribution from Mr Foster-Bell where he made some extraordinary comments around what the impact is of what New Zealand does on its environment and what its impact regionally would be. So, once again, we see examples of opportunities that are lost and how we did have the opportunity to do something much better.

We also could suggest another name for this bill, and it could be the “Not Independent Environmental Reporting Bill”. That is a topic that has been canvassed at length at various stages—at the Committee stage and in the earlier stages in this debate. It is in clause 18, where we sought those amendments around that, where we could have fixed this legislation. We could have made this a piece of legislation, I believe, that did have support across this House. We could have come to a consensus around what good, independent, robust environmental reporting looked like, and we could have had all parties—[Bell rung]

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Sorry, just before we continue—you have the call—the question before us is that clauses 1 and 2 stand part, and those are the title and commencement clauses. I am making the point that it is not just the title; it is the title and commencement.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: That might be her last two calls.

That is right. The commencement is something I am planning on addressing in subsequent calls on this piece of legislation.

💬 Chris Bishop: Well, that’ll be a cracker. Can’t wait for that one.

I know. Everyone will be eagerly anticipating it. I think that the title of this bill does deserve our consideration because, as I was saying, this is the “Not Independent Environmental Reporting Bill”. We have canvassed that, and we have also indicated how this is a bill that could have had cross-party support and how we could have got there with, actually, I think, some substantial but not huge tweaks.

Unfortunately, we have a Government that has not been willing to listen to this and that did not listen to the petitioners who came to the select committee and made their very good submissions, and we are talking about some people who think long and hard about these issues. We are talking about the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. We are talking about the Resource Management Law Association. We are talking about the Environmental Defence Society, Fish and Game, and Forest and Bird—substantial bodies in New Zealand that give a great deal of thought to these matters. They came to us and said: “Please make sure that this is truly independent environmental reporting, because the bill you have in front of you”—and the bill we are now about to pass through its Committee stage—“is not independent environmental reporting.”

It saddened me that Government members refused to listen to that and that at every stage of this legislation they have not listened to very good advice about how we could have had a much better piece of legislation. It would have been wonderful to have all parties in this House able to support it and to have all parties in the New Zealand Parliament able to say: “I think it is a good thing that we put in place a robust environmental reporting regime, like the rest of the OECD, and that we join the ranks of those countries that do that.” But instead what we have here is a dim piece of legislation. It is a dimmer version of what it could have been.

When National first came to power, it offered us a brighter future. Well, here is the dimmer future in this piece of legislation. This is a shadow of what we could have had. This is not a brighter future. This certainly is not living up to that. The Minister in charge of this legislation, Nick Smith, has been in charge of a lot of things that are not really living up to the brighter future. We could, perhaps, rename this the “Nick Smith Blunder No. 323 Bill”. That could be another name. The number keeps rising, so unless we pass this quickly we will probably be looking at No. 512 in only a few days’ time.

What we are seeing is a Minister shepherding this through who should have been listening to the very sage submissions. It was started by Minister Amy Adams, who introduced the bill, and was then finished off by her successor, the Hon Dr Nick Smith, who should have listened to those submissions. He should have listened to what the substantial bodies were saying and what their advice was, but that was not something he was willing to listen to. Maybe that is because he is quite preoccupied in other portfolios. We do see that particular Minister having to put out fires in other portfolios that he has, and that is why I suggested that title. That title is something that I suggested, and that is the reason for it.

It saddens me that we are in this Chamber debating the Environmental Reporting Bill, a bill that is called the Environmental Reporting Bill, when it is not everything that it could be, when it has not lived up to that name, and when, really, we still have the opportunity for it to become a political instrument of this Government or of any Government. Whoever is in power, this legislation allows environmental reporting to become a political instrument.

It saddens me that we have the Minister being both poacher and gamekeeper. That is something I think we should avoid in any legislation that we pass in this House. It should just be part of good practice that we set up robust processes so that we do separate out those functions and that we do have someone else making the decisions for solely environmental reasons.

If we look at the title, the Environmental Reporting Bill, that should be the primary driving force around what we choose to report on, not what serves the Government of the day, whoever that Government may be, and what it wishes to report on. The Environmental Reporting Bill is not living up to its name. It is not going to adequately report on the environment.

I am going to call the Hon Ruth Dyson.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I think that that was an exceptionally wise choice. I look forward to hearing my colleague Stuart Nash’s contribution on the conclusion. I am speaking to clauses 1 and 2 of the Environmental Reporting Bill. Clause 1 is just the title of the bill, and clause 2 is the commencement.

I want to pick up on the proposal that Dr Megan Woods made in her contribution, and that is to replace the name of this bill, the Environmental Reporting Bill, with an alternative. In my view, the “Lost Opportunity Environmental Reporting Bill” would be appropriate, and I say that for three reasons. The lost opportunities in this bill actually sadden me because it is a bill I would have been very enthusiastic about supporting.

The first lost opportunity is the one that has been predominant in the conversation in regard to clause 18, and that is the lost opportunity for independent environmental reporting. That key element in the division in this Parliament about the nature and progress of this bill should be reflected in the title of the bill. I know that independence in the reporting of the Government’s achievement and of the country’s achievement is a risk. I note that the current Minister in charge of this bill recently used that exact term, “a risk”, in relation to democracy in Canterbury when he talked about the possibility of his twice-broken promise and commitment to the people of Canterbury to restore democracy. The Hon Nick Smith said: “I won’t restore democracy in Canterbury because it’s too much of a risk.” Actually, the risk in independent environmental reporting is accepted, but I think that it is a risk that a Government that is courageous and wants to demonstrate leadership should take. This Government did not take that risk and did not take the opportunity, and therefore the phrase “lost opportunity” should be properly reflected in the title of this bill.

The second lost opportunity is not as significant in terms of integrity, but I think it is a lost opportunity in terms of a message that this Parliament could have sent. If the whole of our Parliament had agreed and supported the Environmental Reporting Bill because it had independent topics set, then we could have sent a very clear message to New Zealanders about the values we hold in terms of our environment and the standards we want to see progressed. Instead, we have a divided Parliament and, unfortunately, a very closely divided Parliament on this bill. Again, therefore, it is a second lost opportunity, which I think should be reflected in the title.

The third lost opportunity, which, again, I think should be reflected in the title, is the opportunity that was provided to this House by the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of my colleague Su’a William Sio. That is in terms of our recognition of the impact that New Zealand’s activities have on our broader neighbours in the Pacific, and our interest in supporting our neighbours in the Pacific by saying we are going to recognise not only environmental progress in New Zealand but the impact that has on our Pacific neighbours. Many of our Pacific neighbours look to New Zealand and to Australia—and, hopefully, New Zealand ahead of Australia—in terms of the support we can give them, particularly against the impact of climate change. I know that the recently highly regarded scientist Paul Foster-Bell, a list MP from the capital, sees himself in a different aspect in the review of his scientific capabilities. He goes against the entire scientific community. He said that our contribution to climate change—economic, social, and financial—was negligible in the Pacific. That is what he said—“negligible”. I think we have lost an opportunity to provide leadership in this space, and that is why I think that that lost opportunity should be reflected in the title of this bill.

In terms of the commencement date, the current bill says: “This Act comes into force on the earlier of the following: (a) a date appointed by the Governor-General by Order in Council”—then it goes on to say—“(and 1 or more orders may be made bringing different provisions into force on different dates):”, and that really hides what is one of the key elements of this legislation in that the Ministers can bring in by Order in Council the actual topics that are going to be determined under this bill.

I seek leave to correct the votes on behalf of the Māori Party on Supplementary Order Paper 87—all clauses—and Supplementary Order Paper 92—two votes in favour for each.

Leave is sought to correct the votes. So what would those votes be, please?

💬 Joanne Hayes: The votes are for Supplementary Order Paper 87, all clauses—two votes in favour—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Just one moment. Leave is sought to correct the Māori Party vote on all the votes that were taken on Part 2. Is that correct?

💬 Joanne Hayes: Correct—it is just the Supplementary Order Papers.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Well, there are a number of Supplementary Order Papers. There is No. 92 and there is No. 87, and there is an amendment to insert clause 11A as well.

💬 Joanne Hayes: No, just the Supplementary Order Papers 87 and 92.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Supplementary Order Papers 87 and 92. Right, leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is no objection. Therefore, the votes on those amendments as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 87 and Supplementary Order Paper 92 will be Ayes 60, Noes 61. The amendments are still lost.

I back up a lot of what my learned colleagues were saying, and I think that it is quite rough, actually, to have a go at Ruth Dyson. She has been a valuable member of the environment caucus in the Labour Party for a hell of a long time, and she knows a lot more, I suspect, than the vast majority on the other side of the Chamber could even hope to know. When we are talking about the commencement date, it is slightly unusual, I must admit. Normally, a bill says “on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” But this, actually, gives a 9-month lead-in period.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Gestation.

A gestation period—is it 9 months on purpose? Do they need to think about it? Do they need to give birth to this bill? The analogies are quite staggering. As Ruth Dyson said, the commencement is “by Order in Council”. Therefore, Ministers can determine when they are going to do this, which, again, just plays into this whole argument about a lack of independence.

When we talk about the name of this bill, some very good names have been suggested, but I would like to throw a couple more in there if I may. The first is the “Environmental Bitter Pill Bill”. Really, this just does not acknowledge that there is a huge depth of competency and expertise in this country, which absolutely could have been utilised in terms of making this bill so much better than it is. It would have been very easy. Labour offered a compromise to one clause, which would have seen us support this bill and get it on the road and make it happen. Even that was turned down. One clause and we would have got across the line; we would have had the vast majority in Parliament supporting the bill.

Another name that I think is quite apt is the “Brand Damage to the Wider Global Environment Bill”. By this I mean—and I talked about this in an earlier speech—that this is what we go to the global market place with: our clean, green, “100% Pure” image. If we are not seen to be playing that, walking the walk, then we can actually devalue our global brand to the point where we are not getting the premium on our products that we should be getting. This bill is the sort of thing that goes along that way of devaluing the brand, because it is seen by outsiders as not being independent. This is seen as driving a Government agenda, as opposed to providing a really objective report on the state of our environment. I suspect that there will be some parts of the environment that will come up with fantastic reports, but, as we know, there will be other parts of the environment that will be a damning indictment of how we have allowed things to drop away over the years and of how we need to fix them. So this really does cut into what it means to be New Zealand and what that brand means, and it is a missed opportunity. That is the thing that is so disappointing about this.

Another title, perhaps, could have been the “Government Agenda (Environmental Mismanagement) Bill”. As a number of my colleagues have spoken about, this bill is about the Government’s agenda, as opposed to what is the right thing to do for New Zealand. And we could have got that across the line if only we had worked together in the way that the people of New Zealand expect us to. This is how legislation is supposed to work in this House: we go into a select committee and work together to come up with a bill that meets the requirements of everyone. Labour put a compromise, an alternative, on the table, and it was rejected. I just do not think that is a great way to work together for something as important as the environment in a country like New Zealand.

Another potential title is the “Government Knows Best (Bugger the Rest) Bill”. Again, the reason I say that is that I do not think this title, the Environmental Reporting Bill, does this piece of legislation credit. As mentioned, this is the Government’s agenda. This is what the Ministers want to see; it does not necessarily reflect what the wider New Zealand wants to see or needs to see—and that is the important thing. If this is not seen as being objective, then it loses a lot of its power and it loses a lot of its credibility, and this is where we are going to get into trouble.

Another name that this bill could have been called is the “What Could Have Been But Is Now Unseen Environmental Bill”. Again, it comes down to the whole notion of independence. I was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee, even though I would like to have been for this bill because it sounds like it was a fantastic process and there was a fascinating list of submitters that came in. I have looked at some of the submitters, and these are experts in their field. This is the thing about MPs: we can never be experts in absolutely everything, so we rely on those outside of Parliament to give us advice.

I think the title for the bill could certainly be the “Opportunity Lost Bill”, when you have all the other parties in the House supporting a Supplementary Order Paper that will make some constructive changes and the Government rejects it. But I think another potential title is the “Environmental Reporting (Maintaining the Clean, Green Myth) Bill”, because of the provisions in clause 18 for regulation-making powers. The only reason these regulation-making powers exist in the bill is to enable Ministers to set the topics for environmental reporting. When you have a Government that is promoting agricultural intensification and more irrigation, that means that it will be interested in ensuring that our brand, the “100% Pure” brand, is maintained overseas. The reality of what a lot of the expansion in agriculture and the expansion in irrigation is doing to our waterways in terms of declining water quality, real stress on native species that depend on our braided rivers, loss of riparian wetlands, and loss of tussock grasslands and shrub lands in the Mackenzie as those areas are converted to pasture—the Government will not want that reality to be made known. So that is why the substantial flaw in this bill, in clause 18 with the loss of independence, I think would justify the title of the “Environmental Reporting (Maintaining the Clean, Green Myth) Bill”.

Another of the reasons for that title is in clause 18(2). The thresholds that the Ministers have to consider before establishing topics are very high, and they will potentially constrain the topics that can be reported on. Just looking at clause 18(2) it says that “the Ministers must be satisfied that any—(a) pressure topic or impact topic affects significant areas, resources, or numbers of people:”. So it has got to be established that the topic actually has that impact on significant areas. That means that if there is an issue that might affect only a rare species that is found in only a small part of New Zealand, then that aspect of biodiversity cannot be reported on.

These thresholds also mean that issues that might potentially affect a large area cannot be reported on. That is a major flaw in the bill, because we need comprehensive and robust state of the environment reporting so that we understand the health of the whole of our environment, so that we can identify the causes of environmental problems, and so that we can look at whether the policies that are being put in place are actually working. This quite strong constraint around the topics and the fact that it is a political decision, rather than an independent decision by senior public servants, will, I think, constrain the environmental reporting, and will mean that it is dominated by work to actually ensure that New Zealanders have an impression that we are a clean, green country when the reality is very different, particularly in terms of the declining water quality with agricultural intensification. We have already seen that with the limited reporting that is done at the moment—things like the monitoring of recreational swimming sites and the fact that two-thirds of monitored sites are unfit for safe swimming.

So there is a major opportunity lost in the bill, and my concern is that it is a bill that just encourages complacency in terms of environmental reporting. It does not actually get to the nub of where the harm is occurring, and that is particularly in terms of water quality and our biodiversity crisis. We have a large number of threatened species—over 2,000—and I am not confident with the Ministers setting the topics that we will get a comprehensive suite of indicators. That is partly because of the stop-start nature of the work by the Ministry for the Environment in developing environmental performance indicators, and we do not have good performance indicators for the state of biodiversity in our country.

This bill would have been a good opportunity to get cross-party support. The Government has rejected that, and there are major flaws in the bill. Thank you.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā and thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on clauses 1 and 2 in this debate on this very important piece of legislation, the Environmental Reporting Bill. This is a very aptly and appropriately named piece of legislation. In the style of the National Government, it is named simply, clearly, and efficiently, and it does what it says on the box. If we were less gracious, as some of the members of the Opposition are, we could give it a less suitable title. We might call it the “Correcting 9 Long Years of Labour Woeful Mismanagement Bill”. We might call it “A Bill to Fix Up 9 Years of an Impotent Green Party Propping Up a Labour Party that Did Nothing for the Environment in this Country”, but luckily, we are not a petty and small-minded Government. We are a Government that is focused on the issues that are important to New Zealand, unlike the members opposite. The commencement clause, clause 2, tells us that this bill comes into effect in 9 months’ time—not 9 long years. For 9 long years New Zealand sat in that very small minority of countries that did not have an effective environmental reporting bill in place, but we are bringing this in in only 9 months, and I think that is a very, very positive thing.

Some of the contributions from the members opposite show how little they actually care about the environment. The Hon Ruth Dyson just wants to have a go at me for not being a scientist—and I freely concede I am not a scientist. I have been educated at the very fine institution of the University of Otago, in the noble art of archaeology. So although I may not know about nitrous oxide levels or other scientific matters, I am well versed in the excavation of old fossils, and that is why I understand the members opposite.

I will wrap up by saying that this is an appropriately named piece of legislation. It will make a big difference to our environment in New Zealand. It will report on matters to do with the atmosphere, the water, the ground, and environmental ecosystems in this country. It will bring us into line with the rest of the OECD, and it is another very good piece of legislation from this excellent Government. I commend it to the House.

It is always a pleasure to go after Paul Foster-Bell. I am sure the technicians are very thankful to him for saving them some time in doing their annual check on the speaker system here in Parliament.

There have been a number of alternative titles put up for this bill, and I would like to, again, go for a simple alternative. We should change the name of this bill to the “Environmental Responsibility Reporting Bill.” I am a big fan of acronyms for bills, and that would change this bill to the “ERR Bill”—or err, as in mistake—because that is exactly what this piece of legislation is.

This Government has erred in this piece of legislation. It has taken away a large degree of independence in the reporting that needs to go on here in New Zealand. We need to make sure that the current state of affairs with the monitoring of our environment is independent and that we are looking at the things that need to get looked at. This Government has erred in that, because in this piece of legislation it is giving some of that responsibility to the Minister, and that leaves that process open to political interference whereby things that should be looked at might not get looked at. In my opinion, and in the opinion of this party and the Opposition, the Government has erred with the “ERR Bill”, as I would like to see it called. There needs to be independence when we are dealing with the reporting and the monitoring of the environment.

Another instance where this piece of legislation has erred is in the fact that the Government did not take up the opportunity to support Supplementary Order Paper 92, which was in the name of my colleague Su’a William Sio. That would have inserted a clause to include consideration for New Zealand’s economic and environmental activities and how they impact of the Pacific region’s climate, ecosystems, and its people. That is a huge error.

I do not see anything hugely controversial about that, because we do not live in isolation at the bottom of the Pacific. What we do here in New Zealand and what the Australians do in Australia affects all those small nations in the Pacific. The likes of Tokelau—which my parents came from—with only 1,500 people living on three atolls, very much relies on the activities of other nations for its future. The highest point above sea level there is something like 50 to 75 centimetres. So I think we do have a responsibility to those Pacific nations to make sure that we include them in the monitoring of how what we do that affects them. I think, especially with regard to some of those that we do have an official relationship with, that we should be doing more to make sure that we are monitoring what is happening to us as well as what is happening to them. That is an error, or an “ERR”, on behalf of this piece of legislation.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.