Natural Environment Bill

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a very important part of the bill because it goes to enforcement, and we know with any regulatory regime that it doesn’t work if there’s no enforcement. That’s what Part 6 is about. Yeah, I don’t believe there are any schedules related to Part 6, so it’s just Part 6.

Now, on the big Amendment Paper that we have—Amendment Paper 710—there is a lot of crossing out about the role of the EPA. The EPA is the Environmental Protection Authority. There’s lots and lots crossed out. My question is a very simple one: it is for the member in the chair, the Hon Simon Court, to explain what has happened. Is it that the crossed out parts are all put back in later on at clause 273A, and, in fact there’s no policy change, or is there a policy change? If so, can the member take us through what that is?

Whilst we’re waiting for the member, then, I’ll keep talking. I’ll keep talking if I can, if I’ve got any voice left. Let’s go through to declarations. Now, declarations have always been an important part of the resource management system because, of course, you can apply to the Environment Court for a declaration. I guess the question here is to be clear that it is only the Environment Court that can make a declaration rather than the newly formed planning tribunal. That is because the planning tribunal is there to work with more nuts and bolts issues, but a bigger issue such as a declaration needs to be from the court. We heard in another part of another related bill that there can be 10 Environment Court judges, so that is the place for the declaration.

I guess another question on declarations would be whether or not the member anticipates the need for more declarations with this new legislation and if he thinks that declarations would apply and, indeed, if they could be a useful tool. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to pick up on a very substantive part of Part 6, and that is around natural resource levies. That is clauses 313 onwards, on pages 244. This was an area that, when it was first introduced, held a lot of promise, and it held a lot of promise because there is so much amazing work that is going on, particularly at the catchment scale, where groups of farmers and landowners are able to come together, often with the wider community, with iwi and hapū, and actually make progress in the areas where they live, particularly in terms of figuring out ways to improve the environment.

Now, what is really disappointing, then, are the changes that were made by the Government to limit these clauses. When we know that this whole system is moving towards a much more permissive framework—that there will be the reliance particularly on freshwater farm plans, an area which we were unable to examine even though there have been substantive changes—those are the areas where the actual changes are meant to happen. Now, unfortunately, the Government has come in and amended the natural resource levies to limit the ability for councils to use this framework to actually support and fund the administration of catchment groups.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Is there a question?

My question is: when this was the entire intent—catchment groups being able to take much more control of the situation given the hugely permissive nature of this new legislation—why did it make sense to the Government to then limit that when it comes to catchment groups?

I know from being on the select committee that there was appetite from select committee members, particularly those of the Government in the farming sector, to enable this, and yet it was limited. Why was it limited? What is actually envisaged when we have things like the rates cap on councils to actually fund and enable catchment groups to work together?

I appreciate the member Lan Pham understands well the role of catchment groups and the benefits that they bring to communities. I’ve been and visited farms where catchment groups have delivered some fantastic improvements to the natural environment. They are some of our best people: farmers and growers who get together voluntarily, using their own resources and time, to restore the natural environment, in a complementary way to primary production activities. It’s a wonderful example of how pioneering New Zealanders can organise themselves to achieve both economic and environmental objectives.

To the member’s question—“Why have the levy arrangements been changed?”—well, the changes respond to concerns that levies could be used to fund wider resource management costs than what was originally intended, and we don’t want to charge resource users to pay someone to tell them how to do their job.

To the question around why levies can’t fund catchment groups, well, catchment groups are not a defined term under the Natural Environment Bill, so enabling levies to fund catchment groups could allow a wide and potentially poorly controlled use of funds. Levies must be to fund specific functions or objectives set out in legislation and subsequent instruments. Catchment groups are not restricted to functions or objectives set out in legislation, and we have no wish to define what a catchment group is or can or can’t do; that would potentially impact on their grassroots nature and the good work they do. We are being very careful to make sure that this is a narrow levy to fund specific costs, rather than a tax.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This will be a brief question about the enforcement functions of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) that begins at new clause 273A. It’s just a lift and shift situation that’s going on here in the Minister’s Amendment Paper. I just want to ask specifically about the thing that I care most about, which is the new power for the EPA to take enforcement action against regional councils itself. Has that remained from that deletion and the reinsertion here?

I understand at an intimate level the problem that the member describes. Before I was a member of Parliament I worked as a civil environmental engineer cleaning up some of New Zealand’s most hazardous sites, some of which were orphan sites where the person who polluted could not be held liable. So it’s important that we do have a regime for that. The purpose of the contaminated land framework as set out in clause 323A and clause 323B is that it provides for obligations when land is contaminated and used for hazardous activity, and clause 323C provides that the polluter may be liable for cost recovery.

Last night in the debate on procedural principles I think it might have been the member the Hon Rachel Brooking who proposed that a “polluter pays” principle be added to the procedural principles. The reason that we haven’t elected to do that and the reason it sits specifically here under “contaminated land” is because there are many other matters covered in the Natural Environment Bill. The member mentioned one—indigenous biodiversity. Clearing vegetation is not pollution and so it would be unhelpful to have a “polluter pays” principle throughout the Act that needed to be applied to many other different circumstances. We’re really focusing on discharges to land and making sure that those who are responsible for those discharges are responsible for managing them.