Estimates Debate — Environment Sector

Members, we come now to the votes in the environment sector, B.5, Volume 3. The question is that Vote Conservation, Vote Environment, and Vote Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment stand part of the Schedules.

Oh, thank you, Madam Chair. I must say this is the first time I’ve had an opportunity to stand and speak as chair of this committee and it’s a real pleasure. It’s an excellent committee that’s doing fantastic work. These Estimates, of course, are an important part of that work and I report now on behalf of the committee.

Turning first to conservation, it’s very clear that a large funding boost was needed. I note that $105 million in extra funding has been appropriated for conservation, and it’s interesting to see where that will go. Obviously, protecting threatened species is an important part of the work that’s done. And I want to say that I’m reporting for the committee but was not lucky enough to be at these hearings. But there’s important work being done. It’s always hard, I understand the Minister reported—always hard to have targets in respect of protection of threatened species, because of things that may happen. The kākāpō and the fungal infection that actually caused considerable damage there is a good example of that, which was reported to the committee.

I do want to also touch on a couple of other things. One is the predator control, Predator Free 2050, and the important work being done there and the real need to use 1080, which the Minister explained. I say that for a couple of reasons: first, because of the progress that is being made as a result of that work, including the very careful use of that which the Minister outlined. I’m saying at one point that a teaspoon is used across several acres, rather than the kind of much wider use of it previously.

The other thing I wanted to talk about, though, was the unfortunate use of Crown funds which have been appropriated to protecting DOC staff from people who feel very strongly about the use of 1080, and the fact is that there’s some $4 million for a security team that’s been appropriated, $5 million for health safety systems and staffing levels, and $1.6 million spent on physical security. Now, that’s unfortunate and it’s unfortunate that there are people out there who hold political views, which they’re entitled to, but they choose to express them in a way that places others at risk. I note there that the whitebaiting community has also been guilty of that, as the Minister reported. Improving education about 1080 is another thing that the Minister spoke about, and that’s important work as well.

Turning briefly to environment, as well—and I must say, this is a very important piece of the vote and the work that is being done, and essentially a lot of the appropriations are looking forward to the prevention of denigration of fresh water. The fact is that the Minister spoke about the significant work being done on that, including $15.5 million to the Freshwater Improvement Fund, including work, for example, on the Waikato River clean-up. But he did note that it’s far better to address river pollution at source rather than trying to clean up a river, because a river ultimately will clean itself up if the pollution at source is stopped. So it’s good to see the Minister using funds for that.

Also prefaced was the significant Resource Management Act reforms that are contemplated, and it’s noted that this will come in two parts and we are likely to see soon a bill to make technical changes, including changes to assist with freshwater protection and also some aspects of urban development, including work on planning standards. It was observed that there were significant inconsistencies across the country in terms of planning standards, and new planning standards will address this without imposing any additional costs.

It was also noted, of course, the Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Bill and the work being done on that—

Chlöe Swarbrick: A great piece of legislation.

A great piece of legislation that James Shaw is the Minister in charge of, which is currently working its way through the select committee. The committee is working very hard on that, I must say. And there was some discussion around the targets adopted, noting that there is a 1.5 degree target, as opposed to the 2 degrees that some have suggested, and it was observed that if it were 2 degrees, then we would lose neighbours such as Tuvalu and Kiribati and we would likely lose 90 percent of our coral reefs in the Pacific.

We also heard from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, who’s doing good work. I look forward to the work he mentioned coming up on estuaries, because that’s obviously an important part of our environment. An excellent report from the committee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is a pleasure to lead off this side of the Chamber with respect to the 2019/2020 Estimates for Vote Conservation, and a pleasure to follow on from our new chairperson, Dr Duncan Webb. I’m pleased that he started with conservation. As the spokesperson for conservation on this side of the Chamber, I certainly want to focus my contribution on that vote.

I will start off being gracious. I think that the Minister does need to be congratulated for securing an extra $100 million for annual permanent and multi-year funding in this vote. I would say, however, that it is on the back of the Hon Maggie Barry, from this side of the Chamber, who secured an extra $76 million in her time as the Minister of Conservation as part of a wider tourism infrastructure fund for the Department of Conservation (DOC). That was part of a wider fund of $178 million. This is despite, obviously, coming through a global financial crisis and the Christchurch earthquake.

So DOC has experienced increases in the vote, and I am pleased that this has been an extra increase again to secure projects such as Battle for our Birds. It is needed, and it is great to see that DOC is well resourced. However, therein lies the problem, and Mr Duncan Webb started to touch on it, in that the Minister of Conservation is certainly not prepared to start committing to targets. That is a problem with that side of the House. They’re prepared to throw money at certain matters or issues but are not prepared to put their money where their mouth is and actually have some tangible targets which need to be achieved as part of that revenue spend. Of course, it is New Zealanders’ money that is going into these initiatives, and it is New Zealanders that the Government needs to be accountable to.

So what we have seen is this increase in spending but very little results. Mr Duncan Webb talked about some of the 1080 drops that are planned, quite extensive 1080 drops planned for around the country on the conservation estate but yet no tangible targets for increases in native species. That brings us to, for example, the Kākāpō Recovery Programme, where we saw that our kākāpō numbers were actually decreasing because of the risk of fungal disease and yet the Department of Conservation was going out to the public for public funding despite there being quite a kitty in Vote Conservation. Now, it’s all very well to say that New Zealanders or overseas people would like to get in behind these projects, but, quite frankly, when you have this sort of funding, it needs to be prioritised appropriately, and perhaps that public funding could go elsewhere. So the Minister really does need to get behind these species recovery programmes, put her money where her mouth is, and start committing to some tangible targets moving forward.

I think the other thing that we’ve seen is that there’s a lot of promise with this Government as to things that are going to happen—or, should I say, promise from the Green Party and the Minister in the past but yet is now finding it very difficult now that she is part of a minor party in a three-headed monster of a coalition, and finding it very hard to get some wins across the line. Some of the things that I talked about and questioned the Minister on was cameras on commercial fishing vessels to start monitoring bycatch, and, of course, there has been some cameras put on commercial fishing vessels, but it’s less than 5 percent of the fleet—so not an achievement at all, and that was certainly criticised by lobby groups such as Greenpeace.

The other thing that is concerning about this Government and this Minister is she certainly has a disregard for involving community in conservation, and we’ve seen that in a number of different initiatives that she has led where Minister knows best—“I’m going to lock up the land and set it aside and not involve the community in certain initiatives.”—such as the tahr culls, such as we’ve seen with the whitebaiting bill go through. So she’s not prepared to listen. She runs pseudo-consultation processes but has little regard for what people are saying on the ground.

For us, we are a very polar opposed party. We support recreation; we support conservation initiatives with community involved.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s an absolute pleasure to speak on this bill, because I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s taking some of these long-term issues seriously, and I think, within the environment space, two of the most important ones are our approach to freshwater quality and also our approach to climate change. The Government’s making significant investments in Budget 2019 in both of these areas.

I think, for me, based in Invercargill, the best way to think about the previous Government’s hands-off approach to freshwater quality was thinking about what’s happened to our New River Estuary, because what’s happened over the last decade or so is we’ve had years and years of sediment and nutrient washing downstream from our local farms, but we’ve also had issues with storm water contaminated with sewage that’s been leaking into our local estuary because we haven’t upgraded the pipe work. We’ve also had stuff leaking from one of our local rubbish dumps into the estuary. So what we’ve got is we’ve got an estuary that’s completely silted up. You go out there and you’re up to your knees in thick, sticky, oozy mud, and in some places even the nuisance algae is struggling to survive.

So I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s taking this issue seriously. What we’re doing in Budget 2019 is investing $229 million in a sustainable land use package, and what that will do is it’s going to invest in projects to restore at-risk waterways. It’s also going to provide support to farmers and growers to use their land more sustainably. So what it will mean for farmers and growers around the country is it’ll be providing them with the tools to understand some of the impacts that they’re having on the environment and to make some informed decisions about things like nutrient use. What we’re doing is investing in improving decision support tools like OVERSEER. So what farmers and their advisers can do is have a look at and optimise their nutrient budgets on farm.

But also what that package does is it’s going to be investing in projects to improve water quality in at-risk catchments, and so one of our first investments is in the Kaipara harbour, where we’re going to be benefiting from that fund. I think it’s also more important to, if we can, stop those catchments deteriorating before the harm starts to happen, but I think for many, like the New River Estuary, that early intervention is actually—the moment has passed.

But across the country and also in our community there are a lot of people that are willing to put up their hands to make that difference in terms of freshwater quality. I think I’m just thinking about the catchment groups that have sprung up—20 or so of them—around Southland, these farmer-led catchment groups that are doing all they can to improve water quality in their regions. Over the last couple of years, I’ve had the privilege of attending many of their Fieldays. They’re sharing best practice in terms of winter grazing, looking at some of the other opportunities in terms of sustainability—so things like solar-powered dairy sheds and on-farm effluent management systems—but are thinking about that ability to disseminate best practice across our region and around the country.

The other thing, though, is it’s really important that we do have quite strong rules, and so enforcement and implementation are also crucially important. That’s why the package is also investing in support so that we can improve some of that consistency between councils to look at compliance and enforcement and looking at how we improve the scientific knowledge that’s going into some of those plans in terms of on-farm use. I think a lot of this is crucially important because with consumers around the world becoming increasingly environmentally aware, our economic bottom line in our region is going to depend on us being able to produce high-quality foods in an environmentally sustainable manner.

I think that comes on to the second part of what I want to talk about in terms of sustainability, and that’s actually our zero carbon bill, because this is something that we’re looking at as a select committee at the moment. What it aims to do is make sure that New Zealand can make our contribution to ensuring that our temperatures don’t rise more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. So what the bill does is it sets emission reduction targets right out to 2050, but it also creates an independent Climate Change Commission to advise the Government on achieving those targets.

So these are some really great investments that are going on in Budget 2019 to ensure that New Zealand does our share in terms of reducing global warming. I’m proud to be part of a Government that’s taking a proactive approach in both of these areas. Thank you.

It’s really interesting listening to the speaker who has just resumed her seat, Dr Liz Craig, as she prepares for her electoral migratory transformation north to Dunedin South for opportunities to nest there in her new habitat. I’m sure that it won’t be long before she takes flight from her current habitat and decides that the attraction and lure of Dunedin South is far too compelling, and her migratory flight will be complete in a few months’ time.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s very interesting, but could you come to the Estimates.

The Estimates debate is very important. What we’ve found actually is that this was a Government that came into Government on such high promise and such high hope, and then what’s happened is that we heard at the Estimates hearings actually so little has been delivered—so little. So much of the promise, so much of the hype, so much of the expectation hasn’t been delivered. For a party or an accumulation of parties that like to ban it, tax it, or make things compulsory, actually they’ve done very little. Their urge and their natural instinct is to do that, but they haven’t really done it, and so we heard about plans for further tinkering with the Resource Management Act. Actually what it amounts to is the Minister conceding that really all they’ve done is set up another working group—

💬 Dan Bidois: Another one.

—literally another working group—and just literally kicked the can down the road for another couple of years.

We heard that they hadn’t been able to deliver on their promise, on their much-vaunted campaign promise and then the commitment that was made in the Speech from the Throne. The Minister came to the select committee and told us that they had made no progress on their commitment to put a royalty or tax on the export of bottled water—that that had proved too hard for them; that the slogan, that the campaign placards actually were too hard for them to deliver on. And then guess what? Now suddenly it’s not a priority for them. Just changed priority because that’s an area they’re not delivering on.

We heard about the lack of progress in terms of planning standards: no delivery, no progress, no policy formulation, no delivery at all. And then we heard about their lack of performance and their lack of focus on our much-degraded urban waterways. And it’s well known across the country that our most degraded waterways are, in fact, our urban waterways. What progress has been made? Zero—almost none, almost none. And here we are into their—well, they’re running towards the end of their term. They’re running out of legislative runway, they’re running out of regulatory runway, and they’re running out of time, and so there won’t be anything there for them to do.

The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary is another area—absolute non delivery. There’s a bill that’s been sitting on the Order Paper for years now and no progress made. They came in and they said they were going to fix it. They said that there was an opportunity to fix it. Nothing has occurred.

We talked about at select committee the lack of progress on coming to terms with the new science and technology of biotechnology. Nothing being done. The Government is seeking advice on whether the law caters appropriately for any new technologies. That’s about all: seeking advice. And so what we found in select committee when we were hearing from the Minister—and it was interesting that none of the Associate Ministers fronted and were ready to answer questions—

💬 Hon Member: Again, again.

—for a second year in a row, no Associate Ministers prepared to come and answer questions of the select committee.

But the real problem for this Government is actually—we as an Opposition, of course, had very low expectations of this Government delivering on any of their environmental promises. And, sadly, I have to report that our low expectations have been met. In fact, our low expectations of their delivery have been exceeded. But the people who are feeling most let down about the lack of delivery from this Government, particularly in environmental areas and particularly from the Green members of the coalition, are their own supporters. Those are the people who had the highest expectations. Those are the people who had an expectation that the promises that were made, the commitments that were made, would be kept. Actually, no delivery, and it’s their own supporters who have been most frustrated, who are most angry, and are feeling most let down by a Government who has been utterly unable to deliver on even some of the most basic of their environmental commitments and promises. And as an environmentalist, as a conservationist, it comes as a great shame.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I felt compelled following that diatribe from the Hon Scott Simpson to respond in relation to this year’s Appropriation Bill in relation to the environment. There is a reason why it’s difficult to get through the programme of government that we’ve got, and that is because we inherited a Public Service that had been atrophied under the previous National Government to the point where it actually was extremely constrained in what it was able to do.

So what we have done over the course of the last couple of years—and is happening again as a result of this Appropriation Bill—is to rebuild the Public Service, in particular in the environmental area, in order to be able to deliver on all of the priorities that went neglected under the previous National Government. I would like to list them: so that the last National Government—they basically had one environmental priority, and that was to clean up our rivers, and they got it wrong.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): We are actually discussing the Government of which you are a part—the Estimates. So let’s focus on the Estimates—sort of looking forward.

It’s a fair point—it’s a fair point. My point being that the reason why the Estimates bill is in the shape that it is is because the Ministry for the Environment was resourced for one environmental priority under the previous Government, and we have had to scale it up to be able to deliver on five environmental priorities. They didn’t even get the environmental priority that they had right. One of the reasons why they lost the election is because they couldn’t deliver on clean water. We’re having to deliver on water, on climate change, on biodiversity, resource management reform, and on waste management—all things which got neglected under the previous Government, and that’s why we’re investing in them in this Budget and through this Appropriation Bill.

When it comes to some of the reforms around biotech that the former Minister referred to, I would encourage him to listen to Fonterra. In their submission on the zero carbon bill, when somebody said “Do you think that gene editing is the way out of this?”, they said “You would be crazy to try and despoil our ‘clean, green’ brand with something that consumers overseas would devalue.” The science is a science—right?—but there is an argument to be had about whether or not you want to introduce a technology that would instantly devalue the value of our products and services. So that is why we will only step into that very cautiously.

I want to refer to some of the funding around waste. I have to say, I think China actually did New Zealand a great service by cutting off our exports to China of our waste, where we had been sending so much of it, because it has forced us to take responsibility for our own waste. We’ve now got product stewardship schemes coming in for the first time since the waste minimisation bill was passed by my former colleague Nandor Tanczos 10 years ago. We’re actually bringing in the first-ever product stewardship schemes, covering areas such as battery disposal, because, obviously, in the new low-emissions economy, we’re going to have to work out how to deal with, in particular, car batteries and things like that—bottles and container deposit schemes, tyres, and all of these kind of things that are crying out for attention and haven’t had attention for many, many years.

Because it was raised by Sarah Dowie, the point around Department of Conservation spending—you know, you’ve got to remember that the Department of Conservation has to look after all of our marine conservation inside our exclusive economic zone—which is enormous: the size of Europe—plus one-third of New Zealand’s entire landmass, on less than 1 percent of our entire Government Budget, right? It’s got to look after a third of our land on less than 1 percent of our Budget, and they do an extraordinary job under those conditions.

So the funding that we put in—we put in roughly $180 million over four years in Budget 2018, and then we doubled that in Budget 2019 through the international visitor levy. That side of the House said that the economy would collapse and that no one would come to New Zealand if people had to pay a $35 levy on their travel to get here. As it happens, tourism numbers continue to grow to come into New Zealand. I went and presented to a regional mayors’ conference a couple of months ago and they clapped when we said that we had got that over the line, because they could see the value of it.

So we are delivering in this Budget. We’re delivering through this Appropriation Bill. We’re looking at waste, we’re looking at water, climate, resource management, biodiversity—many things have been neglected for many, many years.

I call—Erica Stanford.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): It’s not a good night.

It’s all right. It’s been a long day. It’s fantastic to have the Ministers in front of select committee to ask them detailed questions about their spending, their plans, so that we can work out what their priorities are, because despite this being the most open and transparent Government of all time, in their year of delivery their actual plans and priorities are very difficult to decipher. During these Estimates hearings, it actually did become quite clear to us, because despite being the self-appointed greenest Government ever, in their year of delivery their priority is not the environment. They might like talking about the environment a great deal, but actually doing anything about it is not their priority, and the evidence of this is the past 12 months. Let’s not forget that this Government have, supposedly, passed more legislation in the last six months than any other Government in the history of time, according to one learned political historian on Twitter the other day.

But let’s take a look at what we spoke about in the Environment Committee about what they’ve actually done, and let’s take the last 12 months, to be even fairer to them. Three environmental bills we spoke about in select committee that were passed: the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Amendment Bill—that was a small drafting error we fixed—there was the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill, a National Party bill; and the last one was the immigration tourism levy bill, which was a tax. That’s all we’ve had in 12 months, those three bills: a tax, a National bill, and a small amendment fix-up bill because of a drafting error. The only bill that we’ve had in the last 12 months that we spoke about in select committee was the litter bill, from by learned colleague here, Mr Scott Simpson, and they voted it down. They voted it down. So four pieces of legislation, one of which was good, and they voted it down.

Well, I’d like to talk about Minister Sage. She, for the second year running, did not turn up to our select committee to partake in these questions we had for her, and it was really unfortunate because, actually, she’s the Minister with the delegation for waste. We are in a situation where we have stockpiles of plastic around the country that we don’t have markets for any more that we are now sending to landfill because it’s been so long—thousands of tonnes of plastic that I’m seeing being sent to landfill. It can’t be recycled here. We’ve got breaching landfills and we’ve got contaminated sites, and she doesn’t show up to answer questions.

So Minister Parker was there, answering questions on her behalf, and, really, the only thing that he could point to was the plastic bag ban, the only thing this Minister’s achieved in her portfolio in the last 12 months, and when I say “achieved”, I’m saying that in the following context: by the time the ban came in, we were 75 percent of the way there anyway because of the voluntary measures that the supermarkets had put in place. So that’s what she’s achieved in the last 12 months.

I spend a lot of time with my colleague Scott Simpson. We travel the country looking at the waste sector, and a month or so ago, I was actually in Invercargill with Sarah Dowie. We were looking at the Southland disAbility Enterprises, a fantastic recycling business. There, they showed me a massive pile of plastic waste that we cannot recycle here and that we cannot ship overseas, and he said to me, “The Minister, in banning plastic bags, got her priorities wrong. This is the stuff that we need to be doing something with.” There’s a market for plastic bags. It’s great she’s banned it—it’s no problem—but why was that a priority? Those are some of the questions that we asked in select committee.

Minister Parker talked about how the Minister was thinking about waste, thinking about product stewardship schemes, and doing a lot of nasal gazing—navel gazing and thinking about things. That was a great spoonerism, wasn’t it? I’ll remember that one. But the fact is we’re 22 months into this greenest Government ever, in their year of delivery, and we’ve had almost nothing.

Then, of course, we spoke about the Fox landfill disaster, the biggest environmental disaster since the Rena. The Minister dragged her feet on this. She sat on her hands, did nothing for months and months and giving a small, nominal amount to the council down there, and then complained when they spent it all quite quickly and she cast aspersions on the way that they spent it. It wasn’t until my colleague Scott Simpson and others—and, actually, to be fair, the New Zealand First MP Jenny Marcroft—went down there and put pressure on her until she had to do something about it. This is a Green Party Minister sitting on her hands, doing nothing about one of New Zealand’s biggest environmental disasters.

Let’s not forget their broken promises. Cameras on fishing boats—no. Royalties on bottled water—no. Urban water standards—no. Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary—nothing.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We’re having a lot of fun, over this side of the Chamber, tonight. Look, I’m delighted—absolutely delighted—to stand and speak in the Estimates debate on climate change, Vote Conservation, and the environment. It’s an absolute pleasure to be on this side of the House. It’s a hard-working Government. We have been doing a lot of work, and I’m really, really, really proud to be under the leadership of our Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, who is not only incredibly hard-working; she’s a tremendous leader for our country but also for the world in this space.

Look, we stand on the brink of a catastrophic environmental disaster, and I for one am tremendously pleased that we on this side of the House are tackling the long-term issues facing New Zealand. We’re tackling them.

The environment suffered at the hands of that last Government. We know it. Everyone knows it—in fact, we’ve been spending hours and hours, under the zero carbon bill, hearing that—and we’re playing catch up, right? We’re playing catch up. There are lots of areas that need to be fixed and, let’s face it, it’s going to take more than one term to do this. But we’re here and we’re going to be doing it.

So we sit on the right side of history, with our plan to transition to a clean, green, carbon-neutral New Zealand. The mess that they have left us with is—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): It would be nice if the member could actually speak about the Estimates and—

Sure.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): —the select committee work.

Absolutely. I was just coming on to that.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Good.

So we’re overhauling the resource management system, which has been underperforming, and our Opposition members had left it for a very long time. Kiwis tell us that they want to be able to swim in our lakes and in our rivers, and we’ve put $229 million into that. We’re not talking about wadeable rivers here; we’re talking about swimmable rivers. We want to be able to put our heads under the water, people, and just remember that—everyone wants to be able to do that. We’re helping the farmers and the growers to improve their waterways and the land use, and, in fact, the Kaipara Harbour, which my colleague spoke about, is the first cab off the rank for that.

Our goal as this Government is to improve the wellbeing and the living standards of all New Zealanders through productive, sustainable, inclusive growth within the environment and within environmental limits. So we’re currently progressing the zero carbon bill and, absolutely, Madam Chair, you will know that this is a big issue for the entire country. In fact, we’ve had thousands and thousands of submissions on this matter—absolutely thousands of submissions—and—

💬 Chris Bishop: I’d vote for you.

You’d vote for me? That’s wonderful—I have a vote. In fact, we’ve reached a historic consensus to bring farmers into the emissions trading scheme (ETS)—a historic consensus to bring farmers into the ETS—by 2025. It’s one of those amazing things. The Opposition will tell us that we have not done that, but, actually, we have.

Finally, the science is clear: we have to change our emissions footprint. New Zealand has a 46 percent emissions profile from agriculture—46 percent—and so we’re working within those limits. We ended new offshore oil and gas permits; we’ve got more choice, with electric cars; we’re investing in R & D—millions of dollars in R & D—to realise our renewable futures; and, of course, we’ve all heard about the massive spend in conservation, including for the safety of our workers in that sector.

I’m absolutely delighted. I had this huge list of things that we are doing and I’ve run out of time, but I’m absolutely delighted to stand on this side of the Chamber, in Government, on behalf of the environment. Thank you.

Tēnā koe, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak to the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill, talking to the environment. You can literally hear the environment breathing a sigh of relief that this Government is focused on the environment, because there is no Planet B.

We are committed to transitioning to a clean, green, and carbon-neutral New Zealand. We are overhauling the resource management system because it’s underperforming. We are ensuring the wellbeing of society is about improving our waterways, and we are starting with a body of water close to my heart as an Albertlander. Now, Albertlanders arrived in New Zealand in 1863, my family on board the Matilda Wattenbach. The Mayor of Kaipara also, his whānau arrived 1860-odds on the Hanover, and Mayor Smith was also very impressed with the recent announcement as the Government went up to the Kaipara and met with farmers who have started some incredible work. Like many other farmers around the country, they are planting up their waterways. They are ensuring that their swales are planted and protected, because the water that flows, mostly through the northern region down into the Kaipara, which is one of our biggest bodies of water, is actually our snapper hatchery. So, predominantly, the snapper on the west coast begin their days in the Kaipara. So it is really important that the $12 million from Budget 2019 is the beginning of this work, working with council and working with families to ensure these bodies of water, these estuaries, are getting rid of that sedimentation, which has been clogging them up. The scallops you can no longer gather. We need to ensure that this waterway particular area will have clean, clear water, which will actually be reflecting the wellbeing of society as a result.

Also, something else that has been really important to us, and in particular to New Zealand First: we need to stop banging up brick and tiles on our elite soils. We cannot keep putting housing on our food basket. It just does not make sense. So it’s great to see that we will be protecting our most fertile soils in the Pukekohe area—this versatile land. We must continue to grow food for New Zealanders and for our export markets as well. So taking care that on this most highly productive land, we ensure that we can keep growing.

Plastics—fantastics. Ensuring that we get rid of plastic bags was a signal to society that we are taking care of what we’re doing with plastics. That’s a wee small step. It’s a big indication. Society was moving there anyway, so we said, “Yes, we will embrace this as well, as an indication.” China banning low-quality recycled plastics also has given us a fantastic opportunity to take a better look at what we’re doing in respect of our waste systems. So it is great to see that waste is on the agenda—particularly tyres.

New Zealand First, in our coalition agreement with Labour—we have a tyre stewardship programme, and so we’re very pleased that that has recently been announced. These 4 million - odd tyres a year, which are recycled off vehicles—tractors, quite a few of them; cars as well. These stockpiles all around the country are leeching into the soils. They are fire hazards as well. But we will take care of our waste. We are ensuring that we are doing that.

Also too, just very quickly, very, very pleased about the $20.75 million in Budget 2019 going to kauri dieback research. Provincial Growth Fund for the Predator Free 2050—$19.5 million there. I recently had a catch up with Predator Free New Zealand. There’re some great initiatives about to be rolled out from that Provincial Growth Fund allotment, so I’m looking forward to that being laid out before us to see what great work, so we don’t have to use so much 1080. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand as one of the members of the Environment Committee. In my contribution tonight, I would like to speak to two of the hearings that we held, both that for Vote Conservation and that for Vote Environment. First, in referring to Vote Conservation, I want to clarify the record for those who may be listening at home or in the gallery and also for the sake of Hansard: it’s been said multiple times by members of the Opposition that the honourable member Eugenie Sage did not appear before select committee, and I want to make it clear that in her role as conservation Minister, she did. In her role as conservation Minister, she appeared before the select committee, talking to us about a number of things, but what I would like to refer to is two parts in particular which haven’t been canvassed, largely, by many of the members who have contributed so far in the debate.

The first thing is the international visitor levy. That is the $35 per visitor being charged to visitors to this country, which is expected to provide an extra $42 million a year to the creaking infrastructure, particularly in regional rural New Zealand, where, actually, we want our tourists to be going, to explore the great outdoors and many of the things that we in this country pride ourselves on. It was fascinating to me to hear members of the Opposition talking about how this would somehow result in this massive exodus or, rather, that international visitors simply would not be coming to New Zealand as a result of this imposition of this $35 per visitor. Frankly, it just doesn’t quite make sense. If somebody is spending hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to travel to this tiny, beautiful country at the bottom of the world, why would they not be comfortable to contribute to ensure that that beautiful country continues to be beautiful? As we have seen, it has allowed us to continue to maintain that beauty and that conservation infrastructure.

💬 Erica Stanford: Great policy making—another tax.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The other point that I want to make—it’s interesting to hear members of the Opposition talking about another tax, because I do wonder how they intend to pay for their conservation endeavours, or the endeavours that they talk about. It’s quite an interesting proposition for them to be saying that they are going to be doing all of these things but not how they are going to be raising the revenue. I’m really interested to hear more about this proverbial bonfire of regulation. It sounds a heck of a lot like a terrible, terrible pathway for Resource Management Act (RMA) reform.

But anyway, back to Vote Conservation, I’d like to speak to the issue of the harassment of Department of Conservation (DOC) staff. We spoke to the Minister of Conservation about this issue because it has been raised in the media multiple times, and it has come to the attention of the general public. There has been $10.7 million invested over the next four years to ensure the safety of staff. That is $4.1 million for a permanent security team, $5 million for improving health and safety systems and staffing levels, and $1.6 million for improving the physical security at DOC sites. Importantly, the reason that we were told by the Minister and the director-general of DOC is that most of the threats that DOC staff are receiving are from people who are opposed to the use of 1080 but also that they are starting to experience an increase in threats and abuse from people in the whitebaiting community. I say this not to attack people who hold those positions but to warn politicians who are presently engaged in fearmongering on these very issues, such as what we have started to hear from members of the Opposition.

I’m just spitballing and speeding as fast as I can in my final minute through all of the other amazing things that have occurred in Vote Environment. The first is on RMA reform I alluded to earlier. It would appear that the National Party would like to just chuck it in a bonfire. But we, however, on this side of the House are seeking to do it in two tranches: the first is in freshwater protection, and the second is a complete overhaul—

💬 Erica Stanford: Nine years in Opposition, haven’t done a thing.

CHLÖE SWARBRICK: —looking at a broader project of holistic assessment. I’m glad that members of the Opposition have raised nine years of inaction on their behalf in this area.

The next point that I would like to speak to is that of climate change. We are currently going through over a thousand submissions, oral submissions, from the public, showing the immense amount of interest in this issue.

The fourth is that of waste management. This is us moving away from a take-make-waste economy to designing waste out of the system.