New Zealand Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill

I move, That the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

Ten years ago, Patrick Gower, the former Newshub political editor, pilloried my maiden speech as a call for human rights for snails, because in that speech I had pointed out that, in my lifetime, fully half of all of the planet’s wildlife has been extinguished. This is ecocide: the destruction not just of species but of the habitats and the ecosystems that they need to survive. My proposition then was that legal personhood be extended to the natural world around us. If corporations have legal personhood, why not actual living things?

Te Urewera, Te Awa Tupua, and, as of yesterday, Te Pire Whakatupua mō Te Kāhui Tupua settlements do exactly that for Te Urewera, Whanganui River, and Taranaki maunga. I had hoped that we might be able to build on those remarkable settlements for a more universal law, a law protecting nature’s general right not to be polluted, the right not to be degraded, the right to exist—inherent, fundamental, and inalienable—just like us.

E tangi ana ngā reanga o uta, e mahara ana ngā reanga a taima ta aha rā e whakamahana taku ora kia tina. When the creatures of the land, river, and sea are in distress, then I have nothing to be proud of. In the decade since I gave that speech, I fear that we have made little to no progress in protecting the natural world from our predations at home or abroad. If anything, we seem to be going backwards. If you witness the current drive to repeal, unwind, and override nearly 40 years of environmental legislation, regulation, and jurisprudence, it appears to me that, in the current moment, there is actually less political consensus on even the most basic environmental protections than there has been for most of my lifetime.

This bill explicitly frames the state of the environment as a human rights issue, for which, I would hope, there would be more social licence and political consensus, because we are in the midst of a planetary crisis: of climate change; wilderness, wildlife, and biodiversity loss; and pollution. It is simply a statement of fact that each and every one of us depends on clean air, fresh water, healthy soils, and a stable climate for our very survival. You take any one of those away and our own human rights become untenable. The right to peaceful assembly, the right to freedom of expression or freedom of movement, all become less and less possible without a safe environment within which those rights may be exercised.

This bill creates a new provision in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act: section 18A. This will provide that “Everyone has the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.” All the other features of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act will remain unchanged. This means that the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment will be subject to the same test of justified limitation as other protected rights. Now, some will argue, no doubt, that creating this new right will enable the courts to interfere with parliamentary sovereignty. It does no such thing, any more than the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act does today.

It would mean, under section 6, that existing legislation would be interpreted consistently with the new right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. And, under section 7, new legislation would be vetted for compliance with that right. The bill will have other considerations as well. For example, it will assist the courts in interpreting ambiguous environmental legislation. It will also become an element of administrative decision-making, which means that Government bodies would be required to consider the implications of their decisions on the right of New Zealanders to live in a sustainable environment.

Including the right to a sustainable environment as an express right within the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is important for a number of reasons. First, it would require lawmakers to consider and to squarely confront the impacts of new legislation on our climate commitments, on our environment, and on future generations. Second, it requires Parliament to be honest and transparent with the public about the climate and environmental implications of new legislation. If the Government introduces legislation that is inconsistent with the Paris Agreement commitments, or legislation that is actively going to cause environmental harm, this right will simply require the Government to be honest about that.

💬 Hon Marama Davidson: This is great, James.

Third, a standalone—I know; tell me, right? A standalone right recognises the implicit value of the environment rather than having its value depend on the sphere of already existing human rights. It equalises human interests with those of the environment, making clear that when we protect the environment, we protect people and communities now and into the future. It reminds us that we humans are not superior to or separate from the natural world. We do not exist independently of other life on Earth. We depend on it.

Finally, in this way, this right is consistent with tikanga Māori concepts around the connection between ngā tāngata and te taiao. And, on this last point, I do need to point out that the bill is written in a way to be consistent with the existing language and style of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And, as such, the operative part of the bill does not explicitly acknowledge the Māori world view, in which humans whakapapa, ultimately, back to Papatūānuku. So, in the general policy statement, there is a clause that refers to the tikanga Māori concepts of the connection between ngā tāngata and te taiao. Whakapapa, kaitiakitanga, mana, ki uta ki tai, taonga tuku iho, te ao tūroa, mauri, ritenga, wairua, wairuatanga—these concepts carry so much meaning and would add so much to our understanding of what the right to a sustainable environment looks like to us here in Aotearoa. And, if this bill is referred, I would hope that the select committee further develops the general policy statement in order to assist the courts in their interpretation of the right.

This bill is not a radical or even a new idea. While it is in my name, I do not consider it my bill, so to speak. I may be shepherding it through the House, but it was originally proposed by Lawyers for Climate Action NZ back in 2019 and supported by 59 then Queens Counsel in an open letter. We’re hearing about the respect that the members of the Government have for the courts and for the judicial system, and they’re heckling. It was proposed on an explicitly non-partisan basis, and that was out of a concern that the right to an environment that is capable of sustaining human life is so fundamental to our society that it should be explicitly recognised as a standalone right within the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Now, New Zealand is in a shrinking minority of countries that do not legally recognise the right to a clean and healthy and sustainable environment. In fact, about 80 percent of countries around the world already recognise this right in their domestic legal systems. That means that New Zealand is amongst the 20 percent of nations that do not. But it is a right that we have recognised internationally, because in 2022 it was the subject of a historic UN resolution, and New Zealand voted in favour of that resolution. We know that the window of opportunity to preserve or restore what little is left of our wildernesses and our native wildlife, the forests, and rivers and oceans and air that we depend on for our very survival, is closing fast. All human rights ultimately depend on a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The consequences if we fail are serious. This bill represents a simple legislative change, but an important one, and it is time for New Zealand to join the rest of the world and recognise the right to a sustainable environment. Whatu ngarongaro te tangata, toitū te whenua. When the humans have left the world, the land will remain.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. As the Minister for the Environment, I rise to address the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill, brought forth by Green MP the Hon James Shaw. I would firstly like to extend, seriously, my best wishes to the member for his upcoming retirement from politics—10 years is indeed a noble effort and co-leader since 2015, so my very best wishes. I had not heard that your maiden speech was being characterised as “human rights for snails”, but it increases the anticipation I have for your valedictory speech.

While we all share—and we do all share—an absolute common objective of safeguarding a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment for present and future generations, it’s imperative that we thoroughly deliberate the implications of this proposed legislation. Let me underscore that the Government remains steadfast in its commitment to environment sustainability. However, we must approach this endeavour with a blend of pragmatism as well as caution. Our belief lies—

💬 Scott Willis: And fossil fuels.

Well, fossil fuels—it might be needed to be pointed out that the additional coal from Indonesia came in through the last Government. However, let me underscore that the Government remains steadfast in its commitment. We want to approach this with pragmatism and with caution, because our beliefs lie in attaining environmental objectives through intelligent and efficient measures that use the best science and the best technology to nurture economic growth rather than impede it.

The introduction of section 18A into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990, though commendable in its intent, carries the risk of it inadvertently erecting barriers to economic development and investments. It is crucial to recognise that rigid interpretations of this bill—as the member himself discussed—might impose cumbersome regulatory obligations, potentially hindering growth and job creation. And this is just something that we simply cannot afford at this time in our country’s history.

What we truly need are sensible and pragmatic environmental regulations that so much of industry across the country is crying out for that will yield tangible results. The existing regulatory framework has grown excessively convoluted, complex, and expensive to implement, failing to deliver the outcomes that New Zealanders rightfully expect. We believe that cutting wasteful compliance, rather than adding to it, is the key to unlocking the full potential of our nation, both environmentally and economically.

Furthermore, we harbour reservations about the potential watering-down of existing environmental protection laws and the ambiguity that could come from interpretation of this amendment—how it might be introduced. We cannot afford to stifle innovation or constrain the evolution of future environmental policies in response to emerging challenges and scientific advancements. We know that in so many sectors, and particularly in the agricultural sector, we lead that innovation and advancement.

I note the environmental interests are recognised already in several statutes in law, including the Environmental Act 1986, the Resource Management Act, the Climate Change Response Act 2002, and the Local Government Act 2002. We understand that fostering a conducive environment for investment is fundamentally essential to unleashing the economic growth that will drive our nation—New Zealand—forward. We seek not to add burdensome red tape but to strip it away, clearing the path so that we do get innovation and we do get prosperity.

It is paramount, too, that our opposition to this bill does not diminish our dedication to sound environmental stewardship. We acknowledge the necessity for a balanced approach where economic prosperity and environmental sustainability can coexist harmoniously. We’ve seen many examples of where rather than legislation pushing down, actions on the ground pushing up have created environmental improvements—and we can see that across the country with the work that catchment groups do, and farmers are leading that work.

We must grow our economy not as an end in itself, but a means to an end; an end where we can invest in renewable energy in the form of wind and solar farms, infrastructure like a nationwide EV-charging network—and heaven knows in our very large Southland region, we need a much more comprehensive network—and provide investment into our research and our university sector to help them develop cutting-edge emissions reduction technology which will, in turn, generate more money to be invested back into the sustainable economy, forging a path towards a more sustainable future.

Some people say it’s very hard to be green when you’re in the red. I like to take a more positive approach: it’s easier to be green if you’re in the black. So there are some key things that we need to ensure that we have a better environment and also a stronger economy by cutting wasteful compliance, not adding to it. The greatest barrier to achieving a low-emissions, high-productivity, environmentally responsible economy is regulation.

So, in conclusion, this Government is of the belief that legislation passed serves the best interest of our economy and our environment if we work together to craft solutions that promote sustainability, without stifling growth as we believe this bill would. We need to ensure a legacy of both prosperity and protection for our country and for our grandchildren.

I do not commend this New Zealand Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill to the House. I apologise that we are unable to do this for the member as he leaves Parliament, but again I reiterate that we do wish him all the very best as he leaves this House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want to start, of course, by acknowledging the member who—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Speak for the fish.

—is bringing this bill, and that is the Hon James Shaw, who has done such a magnificent job in this place, speaking for the fish and the snails, and I’m sure he’s had something to say about Freddy the frog as well, and a little about climate emissions in there, too. He did say, when announcing that he was stepping down from the Greens’ leadership, that he wanted to progress this bill before he left Parliament. So that is, of course, why Labour is voting for it, because I know I, at least, want him to stay here and see this bill all the way through the select committee process. So I am disappointed about the National Party position, but, hopefully, those other parties on the other side of the House will see the sense of sending this bill to select committee.

As the member knows, I’m not a huge fan of rights and rights legislation—that sounds terrible, doesn’t it? I do like the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but there are some in my party and on this side of the House that are more about rights than I am. We have the great—one of my colleagues in my 2020 class was, of course, Vanushi Walters, who’s very much all about rights and doing better with our rights legislation in New Zealand. I was trained at Otago Law School—I think it’s something about what law school you go to, and I’m in a slightly different camp in that regard.

You know, I have real questions about the flood gates opening with any extension to our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Do we include housing?

Chlöe Swarbrick: Yes.

Housing seems like a sensible thing to include—I knew I’d get that response. But, then, do we include property rights? And I say, “Absolutely not” to property rights. Maybe housing and, of course, we’ve got this environmental question in front us today. So it would be very good for the Environment Committee or the Justice Committee to consider this bill and to really flesh out those arguments. Is this the right place for such a right to be—in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—should it be in its own separate piece of legislation? Those are the questions that it would be right for a select committee to interrogate. So we are supporting this bill, and other speakers will speak to some of those points.

But I really want to speak to why I really want to support this bill, and it goes to what the member said in his speech, and I agree with all of that. We are in a dire, dire environmental place at the moment. We know we have a biodiversity crisis as well as our climate crisis. The last Government did work really hard to address some of these issues with the very broken Resource Management Act. Everybody in the House agrees that the Resource Management Act was broken. It was both not doing what it needed to do for the environment and also not doing what it needed to do for an efficient economy.

So we had the Natural and Built Environment Act with some very clear limits and targets and bottom lines. What happened to that? Oh, it got repealed in December. What else has happened? Well, today in question time, we heard that farm plans might be paused and that they need to be flexible and robust. That makes no sense. We don’t know what that means, despite a whole lot of patsy questions.

Today, 130 people at the Department of Conservation might be losing their jobs. We see that in the media. How many jobs at the Department of Conservation are backroom? That department is all about the front line: pest eradication, looking after a third of our country.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister suggested that genetic modification was going to somehow sort out decarbonisation. That is head-in-the-sand thinking. It is not addressing the problem that we have in front of us. Of course, genetic modification—it may have a role to play. I’m not saying that it doesn’t, but it is not the silver bullet. It is not the be-all and end-all. It is not a reason to stop doing every single piece of work that was being done to decarbonise, like the electric vehicle discount, like public transport subsidisation—all that stuff, out the window.

Then, we have the full-on assault on the environment with that fast-track bill. We hear over and over again from Shane Jones that he is not interested in saving Freddy the frog, he is OK with extinction. That is not OK. We need everything that we can possibly do, every tool in the tool box, to remind people I how important our environment is to us, to the economy, and to future generations. Well done, Minister Shaw.

The ACT Party won’t be supporting this bill. I thought I’d ask: what is environmental sustainability, James Shaw? I mean, it could be defined as the ability to maintain an ecological balance in our planet’s natural environment and conserve natural resources to support the wellbeing of current and future generations. Well, that sounds really nice in a sound bite, doesn’t it? But this bill is actually an attempt to legislate for that same 1970s socks-and-sandal vision of a Green world that has failed. It’s failed when it’s been tried in New Zealand.

In the 1960s, 1970s, greenies like James Shaw believed that civilisation would end because we’d run out of water, we’d run out of food, and we’d run out of energy; it turns out we didn’t. Not only were those greenies wrong then but, since then, billions and billions of people have been lifted out of poverty by making one simple decision as nations, the Governments that led them—that they were going to get access to the mineral resources, they were going to use their water, they were going to do things more efficiently, like the people in Singapore who had very scarce resources. They were going to get these oil and gas resources out of the ground, and they were going to lift billions of people in the developing world out of poverty. Well, James Shaw is saying, “Oh, no, we shouldn’t do that—we shouldn’t do that.”, that the environment somehow should have a human right, or humans should have an environmental right. It’s the most confusing, incoherent approach to environmental management and actually delivering for people. It’s totally incoherent.

Now, Australians are much wealthier than New Zealanders because they’ve chosen to utilise their natural and physical resources. You know what? You can only dig the iron ore up once, but then you can sell it to somebody else for money and you can use that money to build better hospitals, better schools, and better roads, James Shaw.

Food production has increased so much over the past 30 or 40 years, it’s likely—now, I’m just reckoning, but no more reckoning than this bill is that might work—there’s probably more obese people in the world now than there are starving, because we produce so much food. That might be radical, but it’s probably true.

If all of these nations had to decide “Do we raise our people out of poverty now or do we lock up our resources and stay poor and unhealthy?”, James Shaw would choose the latter. That’s what his bill is driving for. Now, instead, could we use our resources to generate wealth, to treat water, to deliver energy so that we can heat our homes, healthier homes? Could we build landfills, instead of dumping waste in estuaries in the sea? These are all trade-offs that James Shaw’s bill would make impossible.

Adding another law which imposes costs on communities and individuals without any understanding of the benefits—that’s the trademark of lefties and greenies like James Shaw, the Green Party, and the Labour Party. No idea of the costs or the benefits from a former Minister of Climate Change who was part of the Government that banned oil and gas generation and then, just shortly after, millions of tons of coal started arriving from Indonesia; and set up a climate commission to provide sterling advice like banning natural gas connections from new homes for hot water and cooking!

Now, we just have to look back at this honourable member’s track record. The Labour-Green 2017 agreement shows you what they mean by “sustainability”. I just clipped a few things from that agreement: reduce congestion and carbon dioxide emissions by cancelling the East-West Motorway Link—that’s a piece of roading that’s supposed to get heavy trucks off local roads so that urban development can occur. That’s what he means by sustainable development: keep those heavy trucks on local roads. And what about “begin work on Auckland light rail”? Well, cancelling transport projects to get heavy trucks off roads and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on colourful drawings won’t get us to where we want to get to, even when it comes to human wellbeing or environmental improvement.

We’ve tried James Shaw’s method. It’s called the Resource Management Act. It’s failed us for 33 years. This approach is totally unsuited to resolving inherent conflicts between people, the wellbeing we seek, and our desire to protect the environment and those special places. The result of New Zealand’s socks-and-sandals sustainability experiment is that every year New Zealanders spend $1.3 billion trying to consent infrastructure so we can build more affordable homes and build transport—even infrastructure that’s desperately needed, like water treatment plants, held up. Every generation’s going to have to work hard to grow their health and their wealth so we can feed our children first. That’s the legacy we want to leave to our children and grandchildren, not this nonsense.

I feel honoured to stand on behalf of New Zealand First to do this call on the Hon Shane Jones—beg your pardon, beg your pardon! How did I get that mixed up? On the Hon James Shaw—

Chlöe Swarbrick: Now vote for it!

What was that?

Chlöe Swarbrick: Vote for it!

Yay!

💬 Hon Member: Brothers from another mother.

Brother from another mother, that’s right. But look, I firstly wanted to acknowledge you and your contributions, and to wish you all of the best, on behalf of our party, for your future.

💬 Hon James Shaw: Kia ora.

Thank you. So the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill—now, this aims to introduce a new section, section 18A, into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Now, this section would ensure the right to a sustainable environment into law, affirming that every individual has the right to live in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Now, New Zealand First recognises the importance of environmental stewardship and believes in achieving a balance between environmental protection and the responsible use of natural resources. The party advocates for evidence-based approaches to environmental issues and supports cooperation between Government and industry to achieve better environmental outcomes.

New Zealand First also emphasises the importance of conservation, productive policies, and engagement with local communities to protect New Zealand and, of course, our unique ecosystem for our future generations. We have a fundamental principle and that is that all environmental policies are to be proactive with a view to creating employment and sustainable wealth, whilst improving one of our few competitive advantages.

So New Zealand First will not support this bill. Now, while we acknowledge the importance of environmental sustainability, the party is cautious about enshrining specific rights in legislation without considering the broader implications. New Zealand First believes that any right must be balanced with corresponding responsibilities and that the proposed amendment may not adequately address the complexities of environmental policy and decision making.

Now, another reason that we do not support this bill is because of its potential impact on economic development. We prioritise sound economic policy alongside environmental stewardship. The party is concerned that the inclusion of a right to a sustainable environment in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act may inadvertently restrict economic development—any opportunities—or even create a legal uncertainty that could deter investment and growth. Also, New Zealand First is somewhat concerned with a lack of clarity on implementation and while the bill aims to recognise and protect the right to a sustainable environment, New Zealand First seeks clarity on how this might be done and how it can be implemented in practice. The party is concerned about potential conflicts with existing legislation and the practical implications for policy development and the decision-making processes in the future.

So, in summary, while New Zealand First shares the goal of environmental sustainability, the party does believe that the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill may not be the most effective or appropriate way to achieve this objective. Hence, as mentioned, New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill any further.

Tēnā rā koe e te Pīka, otirā tēnā rā tātou e te Whare. Tuatahi ake ka nui taku reo whakamiha ki a koe, e James otirā tō koutou tira kua kōkiri i tēnei kaupapa, otirā tēnei pire e whakamana ana i tō tātou nei taiao.

[Firstly, I’d sincerely like to show my appreciation to you, James, and your group who are leading this matter, this bill, to enhance our environment.]

I rise on behalf of Te Pāti Māori in full support of this bill, the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Right to Sustainable Environment) Amendment Bill. The human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, with tikanga Māori concepts of connection between te ira tangata me te taiao [the human element and the environment.] For the majority of us on this side, this is the whole reason why we are here. That is why I’m going to fully use my five minutes as much as I can.

Everyone has their connection to the land and water, which grounds us to our ancestral way of life. However, my personal connection will be our awa. As a Hauraki-Waikato kaitiaki, as a mokopuna of Waikato, our awa is our biggest asset on a spiritual level. We have been stripped of our right of connection to our awa due to the overwhelming capitalism that continues to take from our pepeha. The climate is constantly evolving—that is its sole purpose. It’s been changing since the beginning of time; however, it is the human change that needs to seriously be addressed. Without our kāinga of Rāhui Pōkeka next to our tūpuna awa, the detrimental harm that our tūpuna goes through—for context, our awa gets hammered left, right, and centre, from big corporations like AFFCO, Fonterra, Tegel, Genesis Energy, and the old coal mining industry.

Now, I come from a third generation freezing works whānau, and as an iwi and hapū we have a long relationship with Genesis Energy. I have many whānau that work within these industries because they need to provide kai on the table for their whānau. They heavily over-contribute to the 98 percent of our country’s economy in the meat and dairy industry. They are providing kai for many people on an international scale; however, they can’t even afford the bread and butter in the supermarkets, and we are left to continuously hurt our awa without even realising how much harm we are causing due to needing to put bread and butter on the table.

The reason I bring this up is because this is the whole overall contributing system that most rural communities face for tangata whenua in real time. This is our everyday reality that we face. In a study by the Environmental Protection Authority, Māori are more likely to live in areas with poor environment quality, with 51 percent of Māori living in areas with high air pollution, compared with 36 percent of non-Māori. In a Ministry for the Environment study, Māori are more likely to be exposed to contaminated drinking water, with 24 percent of Māori drinking from sources that do not meet water standards, compared to 16 percent of non-Māori.

I want to specifically touch on the tikanga Māori concepts of connection between māuiui whenua, māuiui tangata. [sickly environment begets sickly people.] I consistently talk about our mātauranga Māori and connection to the rongoā of our taiao, and parties opposite like New Zealand First consistently, continuously mock me in the media and even in public for my understandings of mātauranga Māori, maramataka Māori, māra kai cultivation, Matariki practices, or even when I noted that our marama had a kurahaupō which would see extreme weather events, after which followed Cyclone Gabrielle. Now, I’m not surprised by that, because we are the living, breathing reverses of the Tohunga Suppression Act. So they just simply don’t understand. They just simply don’t understand our mātauranga Māori and its connection and its rongoā to our taiao. Mātauranga Māori, tikanga Māori, indigenous customs and practices are a rongoā for our taiao.

Otirā ngā mihi nui ki a koe James me tō tira e kōkiri nei i tō tātou nei taiao ki angitu, tēnā rā tātou katoa.

[And so, huge salutations to you James and your group leading this matter to ensure the best for our environment. Thank you, everyone.]

Can I begin by thanking all parties of the House for cooperating at the Business Committee to allow this to have a first reading before James Shaw leaves. In this increasingly polarised, fractured world, it is fantastic to see our Parliament cooperating around a process step like this so that an important issue like this can be heard, even though the bill’s going to go down, it appears. So I just think that we can congratulate ourselves for maintaining some sort of civility in this place in order to govern our country. So can I thank the Government members for their support of that.

There is no doubt that the world has serious environmental problems. This graph comes from The Guardian today: it shows that for the last 10 months, consecutively, we have the highest temperatures ever recorded—ever—beyond the projections. Now, it may well come right because of the end of El Niño, and we might come back to some projections that aren’t quite so scary, but by the end of the year we will know whether we are off the chart for ever. So we have serious climate problems.

We know that in New Zealand we have declining water quality in our rivers and lakes. And we know that despite that, the current Government is going backwards on climate. You know, we need to decarbonise transport and industrial heat. In order to do that, we need to build a lot more electricity, renewable electricity. In order for that to be affordable, we need to be able to allow those investors to hedge against intermittency. And yet the Government cancelled even finishing the cost-benefit analysis on project Onslow that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment had already said stacked up as a good idea.

We already had fast track to address the issues that Simon Court addressed, to speed up the process, because it does take too long and cost too much, and we had fixed that. But the current Government allows them to override the protections in the Conservation Act and the Wildlife Act and in the Resource Management Act, and we already know that in respect of the water space. We heard today that the Government is not only delaying the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management to be required to be implemented; they’re actually talking about stopping regional councils implementing it even if they want to, which is a terrible thing. We also know that they’re going to downgrade farm plans, which are a replacement for regulation, but they’re going to be softer plans without certification and order. So we need stricter rules in New Zealand environmentally, to make it less easy to do that sort of thing.

That said, if this goes to select committee, we have to look at whether it should sit in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or not, because the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act really protects personal freedoms: the right not to be tortured—I’ll read out a list of them in Part 2 of the Act, where they’re listed—the right not to be deprived of life or subjected to torture or cruel treatment, to be subjected to medical or scientific experimentation; the right to refuse medical treatment, electoral rights, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, manifestation of religion and belief, freedom of peaceful assembly, freedom of association and freedom of movement. Those are the core rights that are protected by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and they are individual freedoms and liberties that we are protecting. We have to be very careful to decide whether this sort of thing should sit in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—which I’m a bit doubtful about myself, even though we’re supporting it to select committee—or whether it should sit in separate legislation.

If we invite the courts into this space, we are at risk of undermining the clarity which should apply to the freedoms that are protected by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, by bringing in things that are more contentious as to resource allocation, as to what is the appropriate remedy within the purview of the senior courts to make declarations of inconsistency—which could bring the court system into conflict with this place, Parliament, and I’m not sure that’s the right way to go.

So the Labour Party will be supporting this to select committee, and we hope other parties will too. But the issue as to whether this sort of provision should sit in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or some higher environmental legislation is a very proper issue to discuss as a country. Because those rights that I referred to, those basic human rights, including the right to freedom from discrimination, they are of a different nature to some of the things that you need to do to protect the environment and I’m not personally convinced that either they or social rights should sit in this legislation, particularly given that we have created this obligation for the Parliament through the amendment that we made to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in the last Parliament, to respond to declarations of inconsistency. I congratulate the member for bringing this bill to the House.

Tēnei te mihi ki a koutou katoa. Ki a koe te rangatira, tēnā koe. What a complex world we live in. The way I look at this is that I empathise with the sentiment of what’s trying to be achieved here and I think that around the House with many of the debates that we have, we have common goals, but we have different roles and different paths of being able to get there. It’s the simplest way I can describe it, the difference between that side of the Hose and this side of the House, but I do empathise with having a world that has the best environment that we can get.

The other side of that conversation to me is endearing—to have a pragmatic outcome for our country, in New Zealand, but indeed the world. Because as we know, the environment has no boundaries in itself. We are a country that factually feeds more than 40 million people around the world, and we could say that we don’t want to do that anymore and we’re sacrificing our own environment here as a result of that. But this is the economy that provides us the lifestyles in the New Zealand that we enjoy today.

I wanted to acknowledge the former speaker, the Hon David Parker, with what he said about the fact that this diversity that we see across the House should be celebrated. That’s what MMP actually produces, diversity of ideas. I feel that this House is stronger because of it, because it’s the stretching of each other’s ideas and each other’s mindsets that actually provides the best possible decisions. I’ve seen that myself personally in governance roles with boards, and you don’t want a groupthink mentality around tables like that, you want diversity of views. So it’s great to see different views, even though it frustrates some views of many of us, but it’s something that we should actually celebrate indeed.

So, you know, as mentioned, you’re shepherding this bill through the House—sorry, not you Madam Speaker, but the Hon James Shaw, and I’m on this side of the House here and I’m not in a position to be able to support the bill. But I do want to talk about the environment, because a comment was made that I want to talk to you about. And the comment was that the environment today is worse than 10 years ago when you actually began in the House. My challenge to that is my experience of over 22 years in the Taranaki region as its chair of the regional council, which is I can point factually to some scientific evidence where we are making progress. It is a trend in the right direction, and we’ve got a long way to go, but we are getting better, and we should actually pat people on the back more than actually lambaste them, because I’m a believer in actually more of the carrot approach rather than the stick approach. And we do see a lot of lambasting of individuals rather than supporting success and growing that success in itself. I think there’s a great thing that comes out of that.

In Taranaki, for instance, and I know it’s only a small part of Aotearoa New Zealand itself, but Taranaki—you know, I was proud to have my Taranaki whānau here yesterday and you talked about the fact that Taranaki maunga is going to have the rights of an individual, of a person itself, and I support that. I think it’s a great outcome and it’s a long time coming. It’s been a long journey in itself, and I believe the environment is going to be better for it as well.

Taranaki maunga has had some great programmes on it recently, particularly the predator control programme that’s looking after our taonga species on that maunga. And we heard the member from the Māori Party speak to that yesterday, about the fact that it has been sacrificed by the fact that we had pests introduced to that environment and we’re in a recovery mode right now. But we’ve also done a great job around the ring plain of Taranaki; it just doesn’t stop on the National Park; it actually goes around the ring plain. And we’ve got farmers, we’ve got everybody that’s using the environment, the landscape, actually believing and making the environment better with regards to that.

I wanted to finish off—you know, I won’t get the opportunity, the Hon James Shaw, to thank you for your contribution to the country and to this House itself, and I want to acknowledge that. I’ve been looking from afar at politics for many, many years, and although I don’t know you particularly well, you do come across as a man who is very courteous, who has great honesty and high integrity. Those are values that everybody should actually strain for. So I appreciate that.

So, unfortunately, with my time running out, I’m not in the position to support this. It has complexity with legislation, but I wish you well in the future. Thank you, James.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take a call on this important bill. This is a bill that the National Party MPs have, in speech after speech, said that they generally agree with. They have spoken about how the member bringing this bill, the Hon James Shaw, has made an incredible contribution to not only this Parliament’s understanding of climate change but public life in New Zealand. The member who has brought this bill has advanced not only New Zealand’s public conversation about the environment and about our rights and interests in climate change and the things that we owe to Papatūānuku and our environmental commitments as people on this planet, but he has also moved the conversation along for the entire world.

It is a stain on the record of this Parliament that we are not sending it to select committee. All of the members of this House should be able to see that this is something worthy of debate, that this is something worthy of cross-partisan discussion, that this is something worthy of us coming together as a Parliament and putting aside our political interests for the rights and interests of generations to follow us. Whether or not you support a rights-based framework, whether or not you think the regulation is the way that we should deal with climate change issues and issues in the environmental regulatory space, whether you think that the free market will just sort it out and some dream of techno-futurism is going to fix it in a moon-shot kind of way, this is something that we should be having a discussion about. This is something the young people’s strike on Friday afternoon, School Strike 4 Climate, was about. This is something that teenagers, that young people at universities, that young people all over Aotearoa expect leadership from at a parliamentary level.

I’m proud to be able to speak in support of this bill, but I want to get into the detail of this at select committee. I wish the parliamentarians around the House were allowing that opportunity to occur. Yes, my colleague the Hon David Parker is right that it is good for this Parliament to be able to come together and to be able to debate this bill at this point. It is useful for us to be able to acknowledge that the kind of contribution that one member can make to advance this conversation is important—and that’s why we should have this debating time with him here in the Chamber.

But the kind of contribution that one member can make is vastly outstripped by a number of MPs getting their heads together in a select committee room and being able to have this conversation with not only the expert advice that is afforded to select committees but also available through the advice from the Ministry for the Environment and the useful work that has been done out there in the community on this issue. I wish we could have this conversation. I’m so disappointed in the parties that are not voting for it, and I urge them to change their minds.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s an honour to speak on this bill, and I acknowledge James Shaw for bringing this to the House. It is one of those things where sometimes when you are new to things and you look at it, you don’t understand what it’s about when you first read the title. I first thought that it might be that you were bringing the rights of Papatūānuku to have the rights of personhood. That’s what I first thought it was, which would have been very ambitious.

Chlöe Swarbrick: That’s next.

Is that the next one? OK, is that your one, ChlDr VANESSA WEENINKöe? Yeah, that’d be interesting.

Unfortunately, the National Party doesn’t support this bill, as you know, and it’s not because we don’t care about the environment. We absolutely are focused on having sustainable environmental objectives, as well as having economic development. We think that we can do both.

Now, Rachel Brooking spoke about the Resource Management Act (RMA) being unwieldy. In fact, there’s general agreement across the House about the problematic nature of the RMA. I think when it was first introduced, the RMA was fewer than about 400 pages, and now it is well over 800 pages, and all of those insertions of amendments and schedules and additional clarifications over time has led to this kind of legislative quagmire. So I think that we should keep it in mind when we’re considering this bill, because the National Party has assessed that this bill poses risks of increasing the potential for legal challenges and uncertainties surrounding the interpretation and the application of the bill. So the effect that that would have would be to hinder effective environmental management and decision-making. We think that we can actually have both a better environment and a stronger economy by cutting wasteful compliance, not by adding to it, and we believe that this bill would be adding to confusion and red tape.

My colleague David MacLeod mentioned that he’s seen environmental improvements over time without the need to add legislative requirements and to compel people, and I’ve also seen some examples of that in my own electorate. A great example of that is through the Banks Peninsula Conservation Trust and the work that they have done in covenanting areas of land to protect them in perpetuity. That is something that the landowners have done voluntarily. They formed this trust together and worked with the Hon Dr Nick Smith to have the right to grant covenants, and then, together, they have worked through that process and have been extremely successful, and over 16,000 hectares of land is now under covenant because of that process. So we can see very good examples of where environmental protections happen without the need to compel.

As other members have mentioned, there is a risk of bringing social rights into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and there are the implications that that might have. The idea of the right to housing or the right to healthcare are other things that have been previously postulated as things that might be human rights, and they’re very difficult to then manage and to have oversight of.

In summary, we think that although there are great intentions and ideas behind this bill that we agree with on some level, the problems that can come from good intentions that aren’t implemented well should be something that the House is cautious of and that we guard against. So it’s useful for us to have considered this and to discuss it, I think, and, like the Hon David Parker mentioned, it shows a level of civility in this House that we are able to do that for you in this time, Mr Shaw. So I’m glad to have been able to discuss this matter, and although I like some of the ideas, I do not commend this bill to the House.

Yeah, thank you Madam Speaker. So I thank members around the House for their kind words, and I’ve been considering how to respond to some of the arguments made in that light. First of all, I would like to thank the Labour Party and Te Pāti Māori for their support for the bill. And I do want to recognise Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke for her speech, which I thought was probably, actually, the most evidence based, considered, and logical argument that I heard this afternoon, making those connections for exactly why the state of the environment does actually affect our human rights and therefore why it is important that we recognise that as such.

I just want to respond to a few of the other points before I move on—one of which is, you know, the argument that David Parker made around the, kind of, slippery slope argument: the idea that if you introduce this, you might have to introduce a number of other things—I think Rachel Brooking, actually, sorry, made this point—one of which is around property rights. I would just say, if you want to create a human right to property, you’d want to be very careful what you wish for, because you might have to hand back all the land that was stolen and swindled and confiscated. I want to say that this bill is a limited and a special gate—it will not open the flood gates to other rights being introduced into the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

There was the fantastic speech by Simon Court. Of course, he said, “Here’s a reckon”—and it’s probably true, hence outlining how this Government makes its decisions: pub talk translated into Government policy! Despite the fact that they’ve got this steadfast commitment to actual evidence in their coalition agreements—this idea of just, like “Oh, wait, here’s some reckons. They’re probably true. Let’s govern the country on that basis.”

I’d like to thank Lawyers for Climate Action, particularly Jenny Cooper KC and Dr James Every-Palmer KC, for proposing any drafting and promoting this amendment, and, more recently, their executive director, Jessica Pelairet, for her support as the bill made it to first reading.

I also want to thank the 59 King’s Counsels who supported the amendment—and if David Parker wants a debate about what the appropriate place is, I can find him 59 King’s Counsels to have that argument with—as well as organisations like World Wide Fund for Nature, who are supporting it.

Now, I was first introduced to the concept of ecocide, wild law and nature’s rights law by a UK barrister Polly Higgins. Those conversations with Polly inspired me to make the rights of nature part of my work here in Parliament, which I laid out in my maiden speech. Now, sadly, Polly died of lung cancer in 2019, which is the same year that Lawyers for Climate Action first proposed the bill. But I do want to thank Polly for her leadership, and I dedicate this first reading to her and all of those who are working for Earthjustice.

I want to thank Ngāi Tūhoe, Whanganui, and Taranaki iwi for having introduced nature’s rights law into our legal framework here in Aotearoa. The country owes you all a huge debt of gratitude.

I also want to acknowledge the Hon Christopher Finlayson for his leadership on the Crown side of that story as well. And a brief story, which was, I think, during the 2011 election campaign—I was covering for Russel Norman in the seat of Rongotai. So I was in a debate that Christopher Finlayson was in. The Whanganui River settlement had just gone through. I said to him, “How did you get that past Cabinet? You’ve just introduced nature’s rights into the New Zealand statute. How did you get that past your colleagues in Cabinet?” And he looked at me and he said, “Well, it’s a very interesting area of law.”, and then walked off. In other words, I suspect they had no idea what was in it.

So, look, I want to conclude with another comment from my maiden speech, which is that my first female ancestor in New Zealand, Annie Mathilda Baggett, was the granddaughter of a Jamaican plantation slave during a time when slavery was seen as a vital component of the global economy and the abolition of slavery was opposed as a threat to financial stability and economic development. People pollute the atmosphere. They destroy rivers and species and ecosystems for the very same reasons that they used slave labour or seized land that once belonged to a people that they considered to be inferior. There is always debate and controversy about the expansion of rights. Whenever the status quo is threatened, there are always doomsayers saying that civilisation will collapse, or vested interests that are predicting that the economy will be destroyed—and we heard some of those arguments today. But the changes that seemed so threatening never are, in hindsight, and the warnings that seem so serious to so many people always sound so absurd to subsequent generations. Thank you, Madam Speaker.