Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill

Before I was interrupted in my last contribution on this bill, I was congratulating the member who has the bill in her name on the fortunate good luck she had received in terms of having the bill drawn from the ballot.

I do congratulate Meka Whaitiri on her good fortune, but I was also telling the House that after 9 long years of woeful neglect in terms of environmental matters from the last Labour Government, when it had its do-nothing approach, it was this National Government, led by John Key, that—actually, in its first year of Government—set up the Environmental Protection Authority. It came into effect in 2011, but we set the legislation up in our first year.

The Environmental Protection Authority was established to make the difficult decisions away from the arm’s length of Government—to make the decisions about our environment that need to be made in a purely independent way, away from the politics of the day—and that is why this Government will not be supporting this bill. Perversely, the bill would actually undermine the neutral and politically independent Environmental Protection Authority that is set in place to make those hard decisions.

The proposed amendment created by this bill would change the purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority beyond its original intent. This Government will not support this bill and we do not think it should proceed.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague Meka Whaitiri on having this bill drawn and to commend this bill as a very important piece of legislation.

In her contribution to the House, Meka Whaitiri described this bill as having seven very simple but very important words. Contrary to the contribution from the previous speaker, Scott Simpson, the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee, this bill will not fundamentally change the purpose of the exclusive economic zone legislation. Rather, what this legislation does is clarify what the purpose should be. It shows the difference in the political winds, perhaps, in terms of what two members can say. Actually, in his initial contribution on this bill, I thought that Mr Simpson was very respectful, very congratulatory, and that he understood the purpose of what Ms Whaitiri is trying to do. What Mr Simpson argued in his previous contribution, if I remember correctly, was that there were other pieces of legislation—largely the Resource Management Act and the Climate Change Response Act—that provided the “definitional functionality”, I think he put it, that was required under this bill.

What the bill that we have before us here today does is provide this clarity. It provides some certainty around the kinds of criteria with which this independent and politically neutral body—the Environmental Protection Authority—should be making its decisions about what the right decisions are. All that this bill seeks to do is to say that the environment should be front and centre of that decision making. It in no way undermines political neutrality; it in no way undermines independence. What it does is what this Parliament is meant to do: provide guidance to an agency around how to make its decisions. These are very clear criteria that do put the care of our environment front and centre.

In many ways this is symbolic legislation, to make sure we enshrine in our legislation the fact that the environment has to be something that the Environmental Protection Authority is making its decision on, but in the last few weeks we have seen the reason as to exactly why it is that we need legislation such as this. We have seen something as important as the marine protection areas, which have historically been under the guidance of the Department of Conservation, taken away from that body and that Minister and handed over to the Minister for the Environment, with absolutely no obligation to provide that those areas will not fall under the jurisdiction of the primary legislation that this member’s bill is seeking to amend with this amendment. Could it be that there is a particular Minister entrusted to shepherd through legislation of that kind of importance, or could it be that this is signalling a change from this Government in how it intends to view the very important marine protection areas that we simply need to get in place and that are going to be coming very soon?

The other objections that Mr Simpson put up in his initial speech were, I thought, very simple objections. I think it would do well for this Government to support this bill’s referral to select committee and for us to examine these measures and see what can be done. What we have seen throughout the history of not only the primary legislation that this bill is seeking to amend but three or four other pieces of amending legislation that have had to sit alongside the exclusive economic zone legislation is that it has been the select committees that have come in and actually saved the day on very poorly drafted legislation. This bill is an exception to exclusive economic zone amending legislation in that it is very well drafted and it is a very well-crafted piece of legislation, unlike other offerings we have seen from the Government.

I think I would say to Government members that this is a very simple piece of legislation, and all it does is seek to insert seven very simple but very important words that clarify exactly what it is that we want our Environmental Protection Authority to base its decisions on—that is, putting the environment first. Thank you.

I rise to take a call on this member’s bill, the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill, which has been introduced in the name of Meka Whaitiri.

This Government has a proud track record on protecting the environment in New Zealand. After years of inactivity, years of mismanagement, and years of apathy from a Labour Government propped up by an impotent Green support partner, where they achieved nothing in terms of protecting the New Zealand environment, I am proud to be part of a Government that has introduced, for the first time in New Zealand, a comprehensive environmental reporting regime, bringing us in line with the majority of OECD countries that have such a regime in place. I am also proud to be part of a Government that, by introducing the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, has brought into place a regime for managing our offshore resources and protecting our offshore environment.

So this piece of legislation, well-intentioned as it is by the member who has introduced it in her name—and I do have considerable respect for the honourable member Meka Whaitiri, and I am sure this is well-intentioned—is unnecessary. It is not going to achieve its objective of actually enhancing the New Zealand environment, and that is why I will be speaking against this piece of legislation in this debate.

Over the past few months I have taken the opportunity to go out and see what is actually being done by New Zealand companies to make sure that their activities, whilst creating jobs and generating valuable export earnings, do not detract from those environmental values that we hold so dear in New Zealand. Just recently I took the opportunity to visit the King Salmon farms, which is a New Zealand - Malaysian joint venture that creates hundreds of jobs within the Nelson-Marlborough region, and it also gives us opportunities to generate valuable export earnings with a high-quality proprietary product that is exported to markets such as the United States to be used in the food service industry. King Salmon takes the utmost care with its management of its fisheries, from a fish health and disease management point of view to carefully monitoring fish excrement that goes into waterways to make sure that it is not having a detrimental effect on the beautiful Marlborough Sounds, which I think we can all agree is a national asset and taonga for our country that should be protected.

When we look at some recent decisions that have come out of the Environmental Protection Authority, and even court decisions such as the Supreme Court decision on King Salmon’s fishery—I for one was particularly disappointed with that, given it was by far the clear intention of lawmakers in this place, and of the executive, that the different environmental and economic criteria that are laid out in the Coastal Policy Statement were not presented hierarchically, and that was not the way that the court chose to interpret that particular document. So I think we have some disappointments around the current interpretations that have been given, but by and large we have a regime that is heavily tilted towards protecting the environment in New Zealand.

We have had recent decisions where Trans-Tasman Resources, which was investigating ironsand extraction from off the coast of Taranaki, was declined a permit under the current exclusive economic zone regime. We have had a situation where the Environmental Protection Authority has also declined Chatham Rock Phosphate the ability to extract phosphate nodules from around the Chatham Islands, which I know the honourable member Annette King takes considerable interest in as the local member for the area—

💬 Hon Maggie Barry: Not as much as Chris Finlayson.

—but not as much as the Attorney-General, Christopher Finlayson, who is a very, very frequent visitor and takes a very close interest. In fact, he is a very good, warm friend of the Chathams.

But, in any case, this Government has done a huge amount to protect the environment. We have done a lot more than the previous Labour Government ever achieved, so when we see a bill like this, as well-intentioned as I am sure the member Meka Whaitiri is, I personally believe it is not necessary. It is a political act—I will not call it a stunt, but it is a political act—to try to perhaps resolve the issue. They have a few guilty consciences over on the other side for their 9 years of woeful inactivity.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take a call on the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill. It is interesting that the previous speaker, Paul Foster-Bell, said this bill is a political act. Well, actually, I thought we were involved in politics in this place.

The Green Party is very pleased to support the bill, because it was the absence of a purpose of protecting the environment that was controversial at the time the principal Act was passed, and this bill in Meka Whaitiri’s name seeks to rectify that. Certainly, the establishment of the Environmental Protection Authority was supposed to be a milestone for environmental management in New Zealand. At the time, back in June 2010, the Minister called it a strong independent regulatory agency to ensure the protection of the environment at a national level. It has got a very broad role and quite wide functions that regulate the use of hazardous substances and new organisms. It administers the New Zealand emissions trading scheme, it manages the effects of extractive activities in the exclusive economic zone, and it makes decisions on nationally significant proposals that are called in under the Resource Management Act.

So it is quite a small agency, but it has got a very wide-ranging statutory mandate. And it is a really challenging role for the Environmental Protection Authority because it cannot readily anticipate the scale of the work, because that is largely driven by the applications that come to it. This agency has got about 180 employees. It gets about $21 million annually from the Crown, and then gets another about $11 million from the recovery costs when it charges applicants for considering and deciding on applications.

It was interesting, in doing some research around this bill, that there was a directive from Cabinet that the Ministry for the Environment review the Environmental Protection Authority’s performance. That review focused on an evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of the authority, including its governance, and a review of the fiscal sustainability of the authority and an evaluation of its cost efficiency. There was nothing in that review, which was done in 2014, about how and whether the authority was actually contributing to an improvement in environmental management in New Zealand, or to an improvement in the state of our environment, and that highlights precisely the defect that this bill is intended to remedy by putting the protection, maintenance, and enhancement of New Zealand’s environment at the heart of the principal Act as part of the purpose of the authority.

The 2014 review focused on the quite mechanistic objective that the Environmental Protection Authority currently has, which is—in section 12 of the principal Act—to contribute “to the efficient, effective, and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment and natural and physical resources; and [to enable] New Zealand to meet its international obligations.” So it is quite troubling that we do not have a purpose of protecting and enhancing and maintaining the environment. That is why the Green Party is supporting this bill, because it recognises that that is crucial and that protecting the environment is at the heart of a healthy society and a healthy economy.

Mr Foster-Bell’s comments about the work of the Environmental Protection Authority and some of its decisions, and his sense of disappointment, were quite troubling, because in this review document it made the comment that the Environmental Protection Authority “risks becoming a bureaucratic process-driven regulator which is precautionary in delivery of its regulation because it isn’t accessing the best expertise, ensuring the excellence in its operational processes, nor does it have the right structural arrangement in its legislation.” That is troubling, because it suggests that the Government—in the light of the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision around the Chatham Rock Phosphate application, around the decision for seabed mining off the Taranaki coast, and around the board of inquiry’s decision on the nutrient limits in the Tukituki board of inquiry decision—may potentially be looking to amend the legislation to restrict the Environmental Protection Authority, to prevent it being an obstacle to the Government’s “extractivism” agenda: drill it, mine it, frack it, irrigate it.

So the fact that the Environmental Protection Authority has been implementing a precautionary approach on applications like that of Trans-Tasman Resources is because the exclusive economic zone legislation includes that. That is why this bill is important—because it is embedding a commitment to environmental protection at the heart of the principal Act—and the Green Party is pleased to support it.

I rise to take a short call on the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill in the name of Meka Whaitiri. I do not really understand why this bill actually came here, because at the end of the day the basis of the role of the Environmental Protection Authority is as a regulating body. It does protect and maintain and enhance the New Zealand environment from a number of perspectives. The previous speaker, Eugenie Sage, talked about what the Environmental Protection Authority actually did as a regulator. I am not going to repeat that, because it is pretty much clear: it is the overarching regulatory role that the authority actually carries out.

It works with a number of other enforcement agencies, because to protect and maintain and do all the things that this bill is purporting to say is actually a shared responsibility. The Environmental Protection Authority is the group that actually looks after and makes sure and monitors that all of these things are actually happening. So the other enforcement agencies that the authority works with are the Ministry for Primary Industries, WorkSafe New Zealand, the Ministry of Health, the Civil Aviation Authority, the New Zealand Customs Service, Maritime New Zealand, the New Zealand Police, the New Zealand Transport Agency, regional councils, and territorial authorities. This is all the responsibility of all of these agencies working together with the Environmental Protection Authority. To make it even more robust in the work that it does, it is overseen by the Ministry for the Environment.

The Environmental Protection Authority Act, as my colleague Scott Simpson said, came into force in 2011. The authority is an organisation that is at arm’s length to the Government. It is an organisation that provides a number of oversight reports that many of us in the Local Government and Environment Committee have already received to do with water and to do with air. Those are the things that this organisation does. To change that, to put this amendment in and to support this amendment, would change the actual role and the function of the Environmental Protection Authority. It would actually change it and make it very different and confusing for everybody who has been working with this authority to do with its objectives. This is not necessary. It is not necessary.

I want to just talk a little bit about a project that I was involved in just recently. It was a Business and Parliament Trust placement. I went to an organisation called the 3R Group Ltd. Its prime role, beside waste minimisation, is key to the protection of the environment. I can tell you that the work that it does in upholding—and this is what I am saying. It is about everyone’s responsibility. Reducing the amount of waste into landfills, into the waste—Resene Paints, etc.—is actually an example of how we can sit above there at the apex of looking after the environment. And that is why, with the Environmental Protection Authority doing its role in making sure that everything is being regulated and everybody is contributing, there is no need for Meka Whaitiri’s bill.

I think that to allow us to stand and speak about this seems to be a bit of a waste of parliamentary time when we have a lot of other important bills that need to come to this House and go through. Although it might have taken her a little bit of time to put it together, and all the people across the other side of the House are all talking and jabbering back to me, I can tell you right now that the work that this Government has done for protecting the environment goes a long way—much more than the 9 years of a Labour-led Government that did absolutely nothing. So, in wrapping up, I am proud of the work that this Government has done to do with protecting the environment. The Environmental Protection Authority does a wonderful job. I do not support this bill. Thank you.

The objective of the Environmental Protection Authority in the Environmental Protection Authority Act is in section 12, which says: “(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; and (b) enables New Zealand to meet its international obligations.”

This bill would add a new subparagraph to section 12(1) by adding the words: “(c) protects, maintains, and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” But section 12(2) is also relevant. It says: “When undertaking its particular functions under an environmental Act, the EPA must also act in a way that furthers any objectives (or purposes) stated in respect of that Act.” So the Environmental Protection Authority must further the objectives under any environmental Act, or, to put it another way, the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority Act are the objectives stated in “an environmental Act”, so then you have to look at those Acts to see what the objectives are.

So the problem is there is no definition in the Environmental Protection Authority Act of the words “an environmental Act”. Does it mean the Environment Act itself? You would think it would, because it is the Environment Act, and yet that Act has no specifically stated objectives at all. Is that not strange? So we have this legislation, the Environmental Protection Authority Act, that tells us to refer to legislation like the Environment Act, and yet that Act has no stated environmental purposes or objectives.

Does it mean the Resource Management Act? You would expect that it would. If so, then, contrary to the Environment Act, it has very comprehensively stated objectives. Section 5 says: “(1) The purpose of this Act is to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. (2) In this Act, ‘sustainable management’ means managing the use, development, and protection of natural and physical resources in a way, or at a rate, which enables people and communities to provide for their social, economic, and cultural well-being and for their health and safety while—(a) sustaining the potential of natural and physical resources (excluding minerals) to meet the reasonably foreseeable needs of future generations; and (b) safeguarding the life-supporting capacity of air, water, soil, and ecosystems; and (c) avoiding, remedying, or mitigating any adverse effects of activities on the environment.”

So, contrary to the Environment Act, the Resource Management Act has a very comprehensive statement of purpose. So the purposes of the Environmental Protection Authority Act are those in other pieces of environmental legislation, only some of which, however, do have comprehensive statements of objectives. Some, like the Environment Act itself, have none at all. So that is a problem, I believe, with the Environmental Protection Authority Act.

In order to determine whether the Environmental Protection Authority Act has any adequately expressed objectives at all depends on whether the Environment Act has any adequately expressed environmental objectives. And it also depends, of course, on the interpretation of the words “an environmental Act” in section 12(2). There is no definition in the Act of those words. The most important Act thought to apply is, I believe, the Resource Management Act 1991. It has stated objectives, whereas the Environment Act itself has none.

So what we see, therefore, is that the Environmental Protection Authority Act has sloppy drafting when it comes to finding out what its objectives are. You have to refer to other legislation, some of which has environmental objective statements and some of which does not. For that reason alone, it is necessary this bill goes to a select committee to sort that out—to sort out how the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority Act should be properly expressed in that Act and not expressed by reference to other pieces of legislation.

So the point here is that there is an issue to be fixed, and I am surprised that the Government members opposite do not even seem to advert to any of this. It is time they did. New Zealand First will support the bill going to the select committee for that purpose alone.

I am rising to speak to the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill in its first reading. I will not be supporting this bill, but I would like to acknowledge Meka Whaitiri for her member’s bill being selected from the ballot. I know that for myself, having had a bill selected recently, it is a great excitement, and you look forward to it going through the legislative process. I must say how, unlike New Zealand First, I just discuss my member’s bill in my caucus. I do not need to raise it as a question in question time.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Environmental Protection Authority Act 2011 to add an additional objective around protecting, maintaining, and enhancing New Zealand’s environment. So, as I have said, I am not supporting this bill, but I must say, in support of protecting, maintaining, and enhancing New Zealand’s environment, that I think that objective is intrinsic to being a New Zealander and it is intrinsic to being a Kiwi. We must, through legislation, policy, and just how we work on the ground, always look to protect our environment. Some in the Green Party will say it is only they who protect the environment, but, in fact, it is intrinsic to every New Zealander. Looking to protect our environment is part of being a New Zealander. At the end of the day, our environment is something that is very valuable to us.

There are two reasons for that, and they are especially very relevant to my electorate in Waimakariri. So it was disappointing when I read in this bill about protecting, maintaining, and enhancing New Zealand’s environment. I wanted to support it, but when I looked at the actual bill and at inserting those three words into the purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority Act I did not believe that that would actually achieve the outcome. It is important because in my electorate, if I use that as an example, the environment is important for tourism. We have great ecotourism and adventure-based tourism based on the mighty “Waimak” river, where many tourists come out from the cruise ships in Lyttelton and get taken through some breathtaking wilderness as they fly down the “Waimak” river on the Waimak Alpine Jet. We also use the environment for tourism on the “Waimak” for the great Waipara region of fantastic North Canterbury wines.

Also, there is a very big industry on the “Waimak” around primary industries and farming, and you will not find a person who knows that tension of protecting the environment and promoting the economy and productivity of their land better than a farmer. That is something that we struggle with on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis on the “Waimak”, around issues such as water management and nitrate leaching, but I must say that where that work gets done is on the ground between the stakeholders involved, such as in the zone committees that feed into Environment Canterbury. It is not in the legislation such as this. So I do not believe that by adding the words “protects, maintains, and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” the bill will do the job it says it does. It is in legislation like the Environmental Reporting Bill, which this Government recently discussed and passed in legislation, ensuring that we meet OECD standards around reporting about our environment, and that includes a range of domains. One domain I am specifically interested in as an asthmatic is around the domain of air. We must ensure that we have clean air and work through for clean energy to support clean air and reduce the asthma rates in New Zealand, which are very high.

In summing up, I would like to congratulate Meka Whaitiri on her bill. I believe in the aspiration of protecting, maintaining, and enhancing New Zealand’s environment, but I do not believe that this bill in its current form will do what it is expected to do, so I do not support this bill. Thank you.

They say that in this place what goes around comes around, and I believe that I may well have been, long ago, the person who was responsible for this piece of legislation finding its way to being written up. Meka Whaitiri took it on and had better luck than I do, in terms of the members’ ballot, and had the bill drawn. I think that it is fantastic for Meka and good for the House to be debating this legislation right now.

I just want to start by responding to Joanne Hayes’ comment that the introduction of the words “protects, maintains, and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” to the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority Act would be difficult and confusing. It is a little hard to believe that mentioning the importance of protecting, maintaining, and enhancing the environment would actually create enormous confusion among people working on something called the Environmental Protection Authority. That is a silly argument, and it is not actually what this is about whatsoever.

It is a very, very simple bill. It is a bill that tries to do something that I think the National Government always had a problem with when it came to the creation of this agency. When you read it, everything about the legislation is minimalist. It is as little as the Government can get away with in terms of protecting the environment. So when you look at section 12 of the Environmental Protection Authority Act, which is being amended substantively by this bill, the objective of the Environmental Protection Authority Act is to “undertake its functions in a way that—(a) contributes to the efficient, effective, and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment …”. That is not very ambitious. The party that was ambitious for New Zealand—the Bluegreens; Nick Smith’s little faction within the National Government—would have beavered away on the creation of the Environmental Protection Authority, and it celebrated its victory with the idea that the Environmental Protection Authority would contribute to the efficient, effective, and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment. The Act also goes on to say that it will enable New Zealand to meet its international obligations. Well, there are some interesting things that we could talk about there.

So the Act is minimalist. It is as little as the National Government could be seen to do to have some kind of agency whose job it was to–I do not know—protect, maintain, and enhance New Zealand’s environment. This is what the bill that Meka Whaitiri has brought before this House tries to do. It tries to lift the sights of the National Government. Pick up and say: “Nick Smith could have done better than just considering the effects on the environment; he could have a piece of legislation and an authority whose job it is actually to get out there and promote New Zealand’s environment—protect it, enhance it, and be ambitious for the place of the environment in our wider society.”, but no, the National Government is turning down that opportunity today because what it wants is an agency that does not have that ambition of protecting and enhancing the environment.

I think that is sad, because, as a rule, I believe that New Zealanders want that from their Government. If there is one thing that New Zealanders are proud of it is their attachment to their environment—be that in the broader sense of just being out in the environment tramping or being in the conservation estate, all the way through to how we stand up for ourselves in the world. Our clean, green image is the thing that drives so much of our economy. All of that is about the environment.

Fundamentally, New Zealanders want to be proud of their environment and want to see it protected, maintained, and enhanced, and the opportunity is here today for members in this House to insert a simple clause into the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority Act to help add to that whole picture of how New Zealanders see themselves and of how we can be proud of ourselves here in New Zealand and around the world. [Interruption]. Mr Assistant Speaker tells me that I have 1 minute to go, and in that minute I will speak about a court case. That will not give him much time to make me sit down over that, but I will do so within the rules.

Right now in the High Court, there is a consideration of the Environmental Protection Authority board of inquiry’s decision about the Basin Reserve flyover, and the very thing that the New Zealand Transport Agency is arguing today is that the environmental impact of that flyover should not be the primary consideration—that is the very thing that it is arguing today. This legislation would give certainty to the fact that the importance of protecting, maintaining, and enhancing the environment should be one of the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority. This bill should be supported.

The Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill exposes just how lazy Labour has been after 6 years in Opposition. This bill is the sum total of its contribution to improving New Zealand’s management of its environment. It is poor law and it is a vacant bill, and let me explain why. Somehow there is a view on Labour’s benches that adding the words “(Protection of the Environment)” will somehow save the planet. It is as shallow as saying: “Let’s just pass a bill that says: ‘Let’s Make Sure All the Children Don’t Go Hungry’. That’ll fix it. Let’s pass a law for workplace safety: ‘All Workplaces Will Be Safe’. Let’s pass a Health Act that says: ‘Nobody Will Get Sick’.” That is how pathetic this bill is in its contribution to improving the state of New Zealand’s environmental laws.

Let me share the legal advice from the Ministry for the Environment, because it too shows just what a pathetic bill this is. You see, the Environmental Protection Authority administers the Resource Management Act on a decision like the flyover. It administers the legislation on climate change. It administers the legislation on hazardous substances and new organisms. Each of those Acts has a very clear purpose about what it is about. What the Ministry for the Environment, rightly, says is that by somehow asking: “Is the purpose of the Resource Management Act sustainable management?”, that should make up the decision on a case like the flyover, or should it be this—can the member answer me?

💬 Grant Robertson: Sorry, what was that?

Does the purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority, when it makes a decision on the flyover—should it be the purpose of the Resource Management Act, which is a purpose clause that has been debated extensively in the House, or should this bill be it?

💬 Grant Robertson: No, the EPA has objectives, Nick, and that’s how they help make the decisions.

Oh, the member cannot give me a straight answer. He actually does not know the answer to that critical legal question. The point is that the Environmental Protection Authority makes its decisions under the climate change legislation, under the Resource Management Act, under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act, and under the purposes that are contained within those Acts, and it just creates legal confusion and a mess if you then superimpose the provisions that are in this bill. It is sort of like saying that if we want to protect the environment, all we need to do is to repeat those two words 10 times and it will be better environmental protection. Well, why not put them into the Act 20 times, or 30 times? Of course the words “environmental protection” are in the Environmental Protection Act. Of course the words—

💬 Grant Robertson: Where?

In the title. Of course the words “environmental protection” are a core part of the Environmental Protection Authority.

What sort of shallowness masquerades as good environmental policy by putting two extra words into the law? Is that the sum total of the intellectual rigour that Labour is prepared to give around the environmental challenges that our country has? Labour opposed the establishment of the Environmental Protection Authority, and if this bill is the sum total of Labour’s contribution to good environmental law in this country, it needs to spend another hundred years in Opposition to be able to make a contribution to better law in this area.

This is a pathetic bill. This bill will do absolutely zip for the protection of the environment. It is the sort of bill you have when you have no other ideas about how to make a contribution. This House should reject this bill, consistently with the sound advice that has come from the Ministry for the Environment. It does nought. It contributes nothing. It is the sort of policy you have when you have no policy.