Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnvironmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9353. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment BillSecond ReadingMEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): I move That the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. It is my pleasure to speak on the report back of the bill after it has been considered by the Local Government and Environment Committee. Clearly Labour is supporting this bill in the House at its second reading. May I first and foremost acknowledge the support of New Zealand First the Greens the Māori Party and United Future in supporting this bill to the select committee. Can I also while I am on my feet acknowledge the many submitters who came from a wide-ranging field of expertise from many of our national non-Government agencies in the environmental space and Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu and Ngāti Kahungunu iwi who felt it was important to make a submission on my bill.This bill amends the Environmental Protection Authority Act 2011 by adding an additional objective: that the organisation must aim to protect maintain and enhance New Zealand’s environment. When the Act was passed the stated objective of the Environmental Protection Authority contained an important oversight in that it did not actually require the protection of the environment as part of the authority’s role. This bill aims to correct that. What the bill does is place protection of New Zealand’s precious natural environment right at the heart of the law governing the Environmental Protection Authority. The bill does this by cementing in legislation the Environmental Protection Authority’s role in protecting the environment by amending section 12(1) by inserting the following paragraph: “(c) protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.”We had close to 200 submissions on this bill in select committee. Actually there were 206 submissions that we received—198 supported the bill and eight opposed the bill—and in the time I have got I would like to address the eight opposition views and what the officials fromboth the Ministry for the Environment and the Environmental Protection Authority said. Essentially the opponents of this bill made their position clear the bill was unnecessary amending the principal Act would create uncertainty and confusion the bill would impose delays and impose costs the amendment would prioritise the environmental protection over economic growth and sustainable management goals the bill would alter the scope of the Environmental Protection Authority and the amendment would create conflict with the Resource Management Act.Turning to the feedback from both the Ministry for the Environment and the Environmental Protection Authority there are comments there—from the Environmental Protection Authority particularly—saying that by adding this particular paragraph we are creating a new test in the account that potentially conflicts with the purpose principles and other considerations that the Environment Act may bring. That is the point. For a lot of the submitters who came to the select committee this amended bill actually clarifies the role of the Environmental Protection Authority. It makes it really clear by adding that objective that it is there to protect the environment. There is no ambiguity with those sets of words. They are very very clear and so I again challenge the findings of the Environmental Protection Authority when it alluded to the fact that this is only going to create another test and lead to further confusion.By way of example in its report to the select committee it referenced the unnecessary aspect of this particular amendment by saying it would lead to a particular conflict: managing the resources in a way that provides for people’s economic well-being may conflict with the requirements to protect and maintain and enhance the environment. But again that goes to the whole point of this bill because it makes it really clear that in addition to managing our environment it actually protects the environment. So I challenge that point in the feedback from officials.The other comment is the fact that the additional objective of the Environmental Protection Authority Act would likely have a negative effect on exploration companies and it is no surprise that the eight opposing submitters to my bill were actually exploration and petroleum companies. The point that they made was that by putting this in here it will cause uncertainty for those companies seeking exploration permits. They said it will be unclear it will be costly and the process will be extended and therefore they had complete difficulty with this amendment. But again I would say to the House that having the protection as a clear objective for the authority would make it very clear to oil exploration companies or mineral exploring companies that when they put in a proposal they need to make sure that it is not impacting on the environment.I turn to those submitters and I do want to quote from some of the submitters because they probably said it best as to why we need to support this amendment. I will talk specifically around the duplicated effort view that was proffered by the majority members of the select committee to basically say that this was an unnecessary bill. We had a submission from Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu who made it really clear that this enabled the authority to apply another lens on consideration of permits. I think that it not only applied another lens but also ensured that the obligations entered into by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu through its Treaty settlement upheld the principles and guaranteed them under their particular settlement. [Interruption] I thought that was your bell Mr Assistant Speaker.Scott Simpson: Somebody else’s bell.MEKA WHAITIRI: Someone else’s bell. But in asking for the support of the members who first got this passed off to the select committee I say it is important to note that those who submitted be it Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu the Sustainable Council of New Zealand or the Fish and Game Council—the support was overwhelming from the 198 submissions in that it made clear sense it was unambiguous it was first and foremost about protecting the environment and sending a very very clear signal that our economic development should not come at the expense of our environment. In fact our view on this side of the House was that when the officials advised the committee that it took an either/or approach one of the suggestions that we made during our select committee deliberation was that we look forward to officials giving advice where we look for and/ands—and there were plenty of examples in the submissions that we got that gave both protection for the environment as well as enabling development down the end.So from our side of the House this is an important piece of legislation and I hope parties across the House will give due consideration to supporting it. It is about our environment it is about our opportunity and it is about our image and who we are in this global world that makes us unique as Māori people and as New Zealanders. I commend this bill to the House.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): As chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee which considered the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill I rise—with some regret actually—to report back to the House that by majority the committee decided that this bill should not proceed. The reason for my regret is that I think the motivation of the member who has introduced this bill to the House Meka Whaitiri is probably well-intentioned but the process and the result that she seeks to achieve actually will not bring about the desired result that she is seeking.So when we went to the select committee we heard from a good number of submitters many of whom made their points eloquently and thoroughly but many of whom I think were under the impression that the principal Act the Environmental Protection Authority Act stands alone in itself as an island and a beacon for environmental protection in New Zealand. The reality is of course that this is part of a suite of environmental legislation that works together to ensure that our environmental objectives are achieved and that our environmental nature is preserved and enhanced and maintained. When an analysis of the bill is done and bit of a restatement of the history of its genesis is done it becomes very clear very quickly that the purpose that is being sought by the member introducing this bill does not really achieve the objectives that she seeks. So when Meka Whaitiri says that no ambiguity would exist well the reality is that if this was to take place the ambiguity would certainly exist.The Environmental Protection Authority has a role to play as a regulator of our environmental legislation and it has to balance a range of social economic and other objectives as well in order to protect our environment. The proposed amendment to this bill would in fact adversely affect the Environmental Protection Authority’s ability to properly balance all those objectives for which it has been tasked. Section 12 of the Environmental Protection Authority Act 2011 clearly states and spells out that the authority should carry out its functions. Section 12(2) for instance says that it has to observe the environmental purposes and objectives in the other Acts it partly or fully administers. It is those other Acts that it partly or fully administers that are actually at the core of our environmental protection. Just because our Environmental Protection Authority has that name it does not automatically mean that for instance our Environmental Protection Authority is the same as the Environmental Protection Agency similarly named in other jurisdictions. There is actually a difference. We do not have to have exactly the same legislation.I want to take a few minutes to go through some of I think the points that were incredibly well made by our advisers from the Ministry for the Environment in their departmental report because they went to some considerable trouble to point out to members of the committee exactly what the issues and problems were if this bill was to pass. I guess the most significant and important point that they made was that the content of the principal Act is focused on the administrative provisions rather than the specific environmental management functions of our legislative framework.These specific functions are provided for under a range—that suite—of separate legislation known as the environmental Acts. They are defined in the interpretation section of the Environmental Protection Authority Act and there are in fact six environmental Acts that are involved. They include the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 otherwise known as the “HaSNO Act”; the Climate Change Response Act 2002; the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012 otherwise known as the “EEZ Act”; of course our resource management legislation the Resource Management Act; the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Act 1988; and the Ozone Layer Protection Act 1996. So those are the fundamental working machinery pieces of legislation that actually protect our environmental resources.When the Environmental Protection Authority carries out functions under those environmental Acts it is required to act in a way that furthers the objectives or purposes of that Act as well as undertaking its functions in a way that meets the objectives specified in section 12. For this reason alone the objective for the Environmental Protection Authority Act was deliberately worded—deliberately worded—to avoid conflict between objectives while still guiding the overall operation of the Environmental Protection Authority. It is this subtle difference I think that was missed by the sponsor of this bill because I think that when you delve down into the rationale the fundamental structure of this legislative framework it becomes clear that our environment is very well protected and it is unnecessary to add this extra potentially confusing wording which will conflict with those other pieces of legislation. It was not deemed necessary at the time and still is not in my view to include the proposal that the member is seeking to achieve.The departmental report went on to cite some very good examples. It went through the submissions submission by submission and provided answers to the issues that were raised by the various submitters. One for instance was that the assertion that the lack of a specific protection objective was in some way an omission—something that was forgotten from the principal Act or that it was an oversight. Clearly that was not the case. That is an incorrect assertion. Issues of environmental protection are of course absolutely considered by the Environmental Protection Authority but always within the context of that environmental suite of other pieces of legislation. That was a common theme of submitters—that the exclusion of Meka Whaitiri’s suggested changes was somehow an accident or an omission. Nothing could be further from the truth.There were further concerns by submitters. One that was quite common was a sense that in some way the principal Act applied an overarching objective that could not be fulfilled by the exclusion of these extra words. Again clearly that is not accurate and was deliberately and intentionally not put in the principal legislation for the very reasons that I have already talked about. The departmental report went on at length submission by submission going through the various points and I thought it was a very good departmental report. But in the end the summary was that the Ministry for the Environment itself recommended that the bill not proceed.But it was not just the Ministry for the Environment officials who were advising us; it was the Environmental Protection Authority itself in its own submission that suggested and indeed pleaded with the committee that this bill not proceed. It said in its submission that the new objective would create a new test to be taken into account that could potentially conflict with the purposes principles and other considerations set out in the environmental Act in question. I think that is a pretty obvious and conclusive position from the Environmental Protection Authority itself. It went on to say that this would potentially provide difficult and time-consuming issues to resolve. There would be confusion on which objectives should prevail as there is nothing in the bill to suggest how a conflict should be addressed or resolved. This uncertainty is likely to lead to additional costs both to the Environmental Protection Authority and for applicants slow down decision-making processes and increase the risk of litigation around the Environmental Protection Authority’s decisions and its processes.I think that the bill as introduced by the member initially was probably well intended but it is often like things that happen in our lives: the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In this case the devil would be in the detail. This is absolutely a bill that would add confusion and a layer of unnecessary concern to an already good piece of legislation that supports a suite of legislation. I cannot support this bill in its second reading.DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I think that last speaker Scott Simpson protested a little too much about what is actually being proposed here. This is a very simple amendment to an Act but it is a simple amendment that has great importance to in fact clarifying what this Act is about. The bill is called the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill—that is the authority we are talking about—and yet there is nothing as I can see in section 12 of the Environmental Protection Authority Act “Objective of EPA” that actually addresses the title of that agency. When I look at section 12 and I will just very quickly go through section 12 as it is set out in the Act it says: “(1) The objective of the EPA is to undertake its functions in a way that—(a) contributes to the efficient effective and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment and natural and physical resources; and (b) enables New Zealand to meet its international obligations.” Well that is not exactly what you would call ambitious in terms of its protection of New Zealand’s natural resources.In subsection (2) it goes on to say: “When undertaking its particular functions under an environmental Act the EPA must also act in a way that furthers any objectives (or purposes) stated in respect of that Act.” What Meka Whaitiri is adding as part of this amendment to the Environmental Protection Authority Act is simply a new subsection which would be subsection (1)(c)—it would come after subsections (1)(a) and (1)(b)—and it would say: “(c) protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” There has been a lot of discussion about how this would be confusing and it would lead to further delays further problems and further expense. But when you look at that simple addition an addition that really is an omission from the original legislation I cannot believe that it is going to create that degree of dissent and it would on the other hand be able to lead to greater clarity about what the Environmental Protection Authority sets out to do.Nick Smith the environment Minister has ridiculed this and talked about it being meaningless that it was not able to add anything—the usual political mumbo-jumbo that Nick Smith goes on and on about. But the fact is that this is fundamental to the Act because it sits at the front of the Act and it guides the passage of this Act. It is not about mumbo-jumbo; it is actually about making sure that the Act sticks to what it is meant to be about which is looking after and protecting our environment. It is adding to and making more ambitious an Act that is inherently very unambitious in the objectives as they are set out today.There has also been a lot of talk about the fact that this would favour the environment over economic development and vice versa. I personally get rather tired of the way that that is split off. New Zealand’s reputation in its economic development is bound inherently to the way that we look after our environment. The clean green “100% Pure New Zealand” image if I remember rightly is about the 22nd most recognised brand in the world. It comes in behind Dell or one of the other big computing companies. It is therefore highly recognisable. It sets us apart from many other countries. It sets our products apart from products from many other countries. Therefore the protection of our environment is inherently about our economic development. I think that what we do and what we tend to do is to say that one should happen and the other should suffer as a result rather than looking at it as two parts effectively of the same coin.I would like to see in clause 4 with the addition of this extra section the recognition that has been omitted up until now that the Environmental Protection Authority is actually all about protecting our environment. That would enable the enhancement of not only our environment but also our economy. Today in question time Nick Smith gave us chapter and verse for why for example—and this is a classic example—our rivers cannot be swimmable. It is shocking to most New Zealanders that somehow we will get sick if we swim in our rivers and that these rivers instead will be brought up only to the level of wadeable—I imagine in rubber waders or gumboots or something. But we certainly would not allow our kids to swim in those rivers. He went on to talk about how birds put droppings in the rivers and asked therefore would we shoot the birds? I mean seriously this person needs to be taken out and given a good talking to. He has lost the plot. He certainly lost the plot in question time today if anybody happened to be looking at that.We must always aspire to having clean rivers. We want our kids to be able to swim in rivers without getting sick and yet this Government seems to be setting the bar so appallingly low and saying that most of the rivers are going to be only wadeable. It is protecting those very industries such as those in the farming sector that are actually responsible for a good deal of our economic prosperity yet its own branding depends on the fact that our environment needs to be as clean and as pure as possible.I come back to the bill. What this bill does is it sets out what we would like to see—that we set the bar high for our environment but at the same time ensure that the economic development the economic progress that comes from our environment is able to be protected. There were 206 submissions that came to the Local Government and Environment Committee as a result of this bill. I understand that the select committee consideration was handled very well. It was a good robust procedure and Scott Simpson deserves praise for his chairing of the committee. Overwhelmingly the submissions were in support of the bill. There were half a dozen submitters I think who spoke against it—once again talking about the possibility that this might bring up ambiguity in the Act. Twenty-two people came before the select committee and spoke on the Environmental Protection Authority amendment. Again most of those were in support.In terms of being able to clarify an Act that up to now lacked—it is fundamental really. The fundamental section that Meka Whaitiri has put into this amendment is to protect maintain and enhance New Zealand’s environment. I struggle to see how any New Zealander listening to this debate would say that that should not go into an Act that purports to protect our environment and the Environmental Protection Authority. If you are looking at this now how could you possibly disagree with “protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.”? I would have thought that was pretty basic to an Act and to an agency that is called the Environmental Protection Authority. This certainly and simply just means that the authority is able to do its job properly and it does its job properly over six different environmental Acts: the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act the Climate Change Response Act—although there has not really been a climate change response from this Government; that Act has been somewhat redundant for a very long time—the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act the Resource Management Act the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Act and the Ozone Layer Protection Act. Those are the six Acts that the Environmental Protection Authority has its authority over.I come back to the key point of what we are trying to do here. We are trying to make sure that our environment is well protected and well looked after. Since the current Act has been in place and it has been only 5 years there has been a degree of testing of the Act in terms of what it can cover. That Act went through without any difficulty and I cannot see why in any way adding a third section that sets out to protect maintain and enhance New Zealand’s environment could confuse or create more ambiguity than what is there currently.In conclusion I believe that this bill has been a long time coming. I refute what the Government is saying which is that this is going to create problems. Instead the Act will now do what we want it to do which is to enhance New Zealand’s environment.PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua. Tēnā koutou katoa e ngā mema o Te Whare. In speaking on this second reading debate on the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill I would like to follow on from some of the comments that were made by the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee that considered this bill—the honourable member for Coromandel Scott Simpson. He referred to the departmental report in his outlining of the reasons why on this side of the House we are not inclined to support this bill further to subsequent readings.We heard from a range of submitters and there were some who made a particular impression upon me. The area of concern around whether this bill is necessary or not—and I accept that the member has positive motivations in bringing this bill to the House. I am sure she is a hard-working and very honourable member of this House and she has the best motivations in bringing the bill. But there were a number of concerns highlighted by submitters that do deserve our consideration given the implications if this bill is passed into law. There was a question around whether this bill is necessary.We had a number of submitters and five of them in particular I want to name: Agcarm which for those who are not aware represents 30 different manufacturers of animal and crop health products; Federated Farmers and they need no introduction for this House; the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand; Straterra which represents the mining and extractive industries sector; and Todd Energy. I just want to put on note perhaps something of a conflict of interest with Todd Energy in that I had the pleasure of spending time on a placement through the Business Parliament Trust with Todd Energy including visiting its facilities in the Taranaki region last year. I saw what a safe and clean and environmentally minded corporation actually Todd Energy was which returns so much to the community and provides so many jobs and valuable employment both in that region and here in Wellington. Anyway the concerns expressed by those five submitters representing many thousands of people in those industries—in fact probably tens if not hundreds of thousands of jobs within those industries—was that this bill is unnecessary.Todd Energy in particular noted that the Environmental Protection Authority does not currently have an overriding environmental protection mandate and that this was Parliament’s intent when the Act was initially passed. The Environmental Protection Authority exercises its functions under other legislation that already provides considerable protection needs alongside the proposals for use and the development of resources. The purpose is to achieve a balance between development of resources and protection of the environment. I think that Todd Energy made a useful and valuable point there.Both the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association and Straterra said that the current wording of section 12(1) of the Act is deliberately general to avoid interference with section 12(2) whereby the Environmental Protection Authority must further the objectives of other environmental Acts. I think these are useful points that were made by those companies and representative industry groups. The ministry when it did its analysis of the evidence provided submitted to us that it was actually in agreement with that assessment and that is a view that I also happen to share. Turning to another issue which has also been given I think some discussion particularly by Mr Simpson and that is around the uncertainty that this legislation may well introduce.Denis O’Rourke: Or may not.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Considering the uncertainty that could be introduced—and there were additional submitters who said that there would in fact Mr O’Rourke be uncertainty introduced. There were not only Agcarm Federated Farmers the Petroleum Exploration and Production AssociationStraterra and Todd Energy but also Business New Zealand representing 90 percent of the private enterprise in this country Mr O’Rourke—hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk when we are talking about uncertainty being introduced into legislation. That uncertainty could have very real ramifications I think for some of the decisions that have been taken by the Environmental Protection Authority in the last year or two.I personally do not agree with each and every decision that the agency has been taking. I did not necessarily agree with the Chatham Rock Phosphate decision. On a personal basis I might not have agreed with the decision around ironsand extraction in Taranaki and I certainly did not agree with decisions around the Basin Reserve roading improvements that have been stymied holding our capital city back. Although I personally did not agree with them it is important that certainty is present in those decisions.There was one interesting decision that I agreed with very much last year and that was the Environmental Protection Authority’s groundbreaking decision to approve the use of a retrovirus for human liver cancer treatment trials. This is a third-phase clinical trial of a hepatocellular carcinoma retrovirus. It is the first genetically modified organism capable of self-reproducing within humans and this has the potential to save over 300 lives a year in New Zealand particularly among the Māori community because let us remember that Māori and Pacific populations have a higher than average rate of liver cancer.So if we are not to allow such valuable medical trials if we are to introduce uncertainty into the underpinning legislation—because let us not forget the Environmental Protection Authority does not just approve major environmental projects such as the extraction of resources or mining or farming or roading; it also does have a role in our hazardous substances and new organisms enforcement in this country. If we are to introduce uncertainty into the approval of such valuable and important medical research we are potentially putting at risk the lives of many many future patients who suffer from liver cancers at the very least. That is one of many many genetic medicines that I am sure will be trialled as we go forward.In addition to the uncertainty the cost issues were very real and they were raised again by some of those submitters that I have already mentioned. Andrew Stewart in particular for instance said that the amendment would impose a burden of proof cost on applicants making consent applications ever-more expensive. I would take seriously the evidence provided by those submitters because they are people who actually have experience of submitting applications. They represent industries and in fact companies that have experienced delays under the current system and they certainly would not want to see that exacerbated any further by the additional uncertainty and the additional cost implications that this well-intentioned but in my view erroneous legislation brings in.The main impact of this bill that I am concerned about is to increase the complexity in the decision making of the Environmental Protection Authority. As it is decisions are considered very carefully and can take a period of time—in fact so much so that in the last couple of years we have actually had to pass an amendment dealing particularly with the extractive petrochemical industries to make sure that our supply of gas in this country keeps on coming. The last thing this House should be planning to do is putting at risk our ability to power our homes to undertake valuable medical research and to have hundreds of thousands of jobs in these valuable industries that I have referred to. For these reasons this is not a bill that should be advanced further and I oppose it.EUGENIE SAGE (Green):E Te Māngai o Te Whare tēnā koe; tuarua ki ngā mema o tō tātou Whare tēnā koutou katoa.[Acknowledgments to you Mr Assistant Speaker; secondly to you all the members of our House greetings.]I am pleased to take a short call on the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill. You would think the world is going to come to an end given the National Party members’ opposition to this bill—Mr Foster-Bell talking about power for our homes being lost valuable medical research being imperilled by this bill’s passing. All it is doing is inserting “the protection of the environment” as one of the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority so that the agency actually lives up to its name. So I have been astonished by some of the comments of the Government members and their huge opposition to this bill. I think that just shows that National does not like its lacklustre record on the environment being shown up. It does not like anything that could cut across its “extractivism” agenda in its economic policy—dig it drill it mine it irrigate it. Those members are failing to recognise that we need a healthy environment for both a healthy economy and a healthy society.When you have an organisation like the Environmental Protection Authority which is functionally a Crown entity that is a significant decision maker under our environmental laws then it needs to have protection as an objective. I thought it was very interesting in Mr Foster-Bell’s speech the way he referred to those submitters—and there were only eight of all 206 submissions on the bill—that opposed the bill. Those submitters that opposed it of course were companies like Todd Coal. They were Federated Farmers they were Straterra and the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand—all organisations that are interested in extracting resources; none of them interested in protection. So of course they are going to oppose the bill. Mr Foster-Bell talked about how they had experience of the Environmental Protection Authority processes.Well a lot of those who made submissions had experience of the processes not as applicants for development and use but as submitters and they were quite strong in their views that this additional objective was needed so that the Environmental Protection Authority had an unambiguous purpose and a much stronger focus on protecting the environment.As another speaker Meka Whaitiri has noted in her bill Ngāi Tahu said that this objective would put an extra lens on the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision making. Ngāi Tahu makes quite detailed submissions on legislation usually informed by people with legal understanding. They were quite clear in their submission that this new objective was quite consistent with the six pieces of legislation that the Environmental Protection Authority administers such as the Resource Management Act the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Certainly all of those pieces of legislation contain quite specific purpose statements about how the Environmental Protection Authority should operate under each of those Acts but we need to guide the overall workings of the Environmental Protection Authority.If I can refer to the Environmental Protection Authority’s own statement of intent for 2014 to 2018 it said that its mission was “to protect people and the environment”. So what on earth is the problem with having a specific protection objective? One of the issues raised by submitters was that at the moment the objective of the Environmental Protection Authority in section 12 of the Environmental Protection Authority Act 2011 was “contributes to the efficient effective and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment and natural and physical resources;”. But what is the purpose of that management? It has got to be “efficient effective and transparent”. Those words “efficient” and “effective” are often used in business parlance. Efficiency in the workplace means the time it takes to do something. It is associated with completing tasks in the least amount of time possible with the least amount of resources and I think this is where the Minister’s preoccupation with fast tracking decision making under the Resource Management Act and under the exclusive economic zone legislation and putting in place very strict statutory deadlines comes from.If you have an organisation that is focused on efficiency and effectiveness that is not the same as safeguarding the quality of the natural environment. It is not the same as ensuring that decisions whether they are about marine consents or resource consents actually enhance the quality of the environment and safeguard the basis for our economy. If we are going to have responsible resource management that requires that we protect maintain and enhance the environment then this bill with its new objective for the Environmental Protection Authority’s work would help achieve that.The objective is even more important because of what the Government is proposing to do to the Resource Management Act with its Resource Legislation Amendment Bill. That bill will result in a politicisation of the decision making of the Environmental Protection Authority under the exclusive economic zone Act because that bill provides for the Minister rather than the Environmental Protection Authority to appoint the hearing panels that will decide marine consent applications to go oil drilling to go seabed mining and for other development in the exclusive economic zone and our oceans. So that politicisation where the Minister personally will choose who sits on the Environmental Protection Authority’s decision-making committees means that we are reducing the independence of the Environmental Protection Authority.To me—and I think to a lot of New Zealanders—we want to have an Environmental Protection Authority that is independent where we can trust that these major applications for oil drilling will be evaluated by independent objective experts not by cheerleaders for the oil and gas industry who are working under the Minister’s thumb. So that whole change in the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill underlines in my view the need for this bill to proceed and for the protection objective to be inserted in the principal Act. That sort of change is typical of what this National Government is doing with the environment.We saw the contortions that the Minister for the Environment Dr Nick Smith went through in question time today to try to justify why his Government has a very weak national bottom line in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management of having rivers that are only wadeable suitable for contact recreation like wading and boating not suitable for swimming. He claimed that that was due to the fact that we have got some streams in geothermal areas and some rivers that get sediment in them after floods. Those were the contortions he was going through to try to justify why we cannot have a national aspiration of swimmable rivers.Again that reflects the objections to this bill of members on the Government benches to this bill. They do not want environmental protection to be at the heart of our economy to be at the heart of our legislation. It is part of this Government’s agenda to weaken the checks and balances on ministerial powers to push much more “extractivism”—dig it drill it mine it irrigate it—and to undermine the ability of the Environmental Protection Authority to actually be concerned about the sustainability of our environment and managing our natural areas so that we look to future generations and having a sustainable basis for the economy.There were a lot of submissions in support of this bill. Sea Shepherd for example talked about how it was really important because it would help uphold our international reputation of having a clean green environment. Because if you have got the Environmental Protection Authority having this key responsibility for regulatory management of the environment then it needs to be clear what the purpose of that management is what its core objective is. And so as Sea Shepherd said it makes sense—not just good environmental and conservation sense but also good business sense—to have this bill pass. The Government is using a lot of exaggeration to oppose the bill. The new objective was debated at the time the legislation was passed; it should have been put in then so that the agency actually lives up to its name of being an Environmental Protection Authority rather than one that just contributes to efficient effective and transparent management. It would ensure that we are looking at the three aspects of sustainable management.This Government likes to look at the use and development aspects but both under the Resource Management Act and under the exclusive economic zone it neglects the protection aspect. That is a core part of sustainable management and this bill which the Green Party is very pleased to support would actually help emphasise that protection aspect. If we want to ensure that natural resources can be utilised for future generations and that they maintain their intrinsic values then we have got to put greater weight on protection and this bill will go a little way to doing that. Thank you.JOANNE HAYES (National): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill’s second reading. Last time I stood in this House in the first reading I did reiterate that it seemed to be a wasted exercise to do this. After listening to some of the contributions tonight and especially the one from the Green member just previous Eugenie Sage I take offence to some of the things around the farming community. The waterways and protection of our waterways and fresh water—I come from a farming background and I can tell you now that we have the most stringent protection of our waterways more so than whatever happened when the previous Government was in power.I am proud to stand here to say that I am a Bluegreen. I am a Bluegreen. We are here to give good advice to the Minister for the Environment through the rest of our party members who sit outside of Parliament. And through the Bluegreens we have worked with the Minister on a number of policies especially around the Environmental Protection Authority. It was this Government in 2011 that set up the authority; we must remember that. We must remember that when we came into power there was no environmental protection anywhere in this country. It was this Government that actually put it in and started to shape it up to protect the waterways—and it was all about protection. That is what the second word in the Environmental Protection Authority is; it is “protection”. It is about protection and maintenance; that is what it does. It is in its vision it is in its policies and it is in its goals. Why try to add it again and again when we all know that it is already there? The advisers to the Local Government and Environment Committee actually said it over and over again. They said that it would be a wasted exercise and that what it would do is take away the core function of what the Environmental Protection Authority was set up to do in the first place. It is working at arm’s length to this Government—Hon Member: Oh!JOANNE HAYES: —yes it is working at arm’s length.Let us have a look at some of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s reports to the Local Government and Environment Committee. They have been challenging to our committee because that is what the commissioner’s job is. Her job is to write reports that challenge our committee and that is what she is doing. You cannot say that she has been influenced by the Minister to write x y and z because she has not. She is an independent person and writes independent reports.Iain Lees-Galloway: Should have got here earlier Bish.JOANNE HAYES: And some of the things she writes—we might not like it. He has just come through an environmental rainfall. We might not like what the commissioner says but hey we respect what she says and it is all about protecting the environment.I hear things like “this National Party digs it and drills it”. When we came into Government on drilling it there was no consent process in place for drilling I can tell you that now. It was this Government that stuck in consent processes—licensing for companies to go and drill in our waters. Let us have a look at our marine reserves. Hey marine reserves—were there marine reserves when the previous Government was in? No there were not. This Government actually set up marine reserves. That is protecting our marine environment. I remember going to the conference in Kaikōura when we launched the Kaikōura marine reserve—that is a plus. That is history for this country and you have got to admit that. Did the Labour-Greens Government set up marine reserves? No it did not. Did it have marine reserves? Did it set up anything like that to protect us? Did the Opposition parties go out and drill merrily away and not even tell the New Zealand public about the 30-odd wells that were drilled out in the sea without telling anybody? At least this Government has put it on the table. We have put it on the table and we are very proud that we have done that.I just want to restate that this is not a lacklustre Government when it comes to green things. Many times I have heard that unless you are a Green—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am a bit reluctant to interrupt the member but I would like her now—we have had a good exposition across quite a range of subjects but it would be good to talk about the bill.JOANNE HAYES: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. So anyway the proposed objective is to change the authority’s mandate. So that potentially blurs the lines between the operational work and the work of other policy agencies such as the Ministry for the Environment. That is what it—Dr Megan Woods: Very blurred.JOANNE HAYES: It does. It also creates a lot of confusion out there with other Acts. These other Acts that I am talking about are the Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Act 1988 the Resource Management Act 1991 the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 the Ozone Layer Protection Act 1996 the Climate Change Response Act 2002 and the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act 2012—I guess National did that one as well. So this is what these seven simple little words are which I understand Megan Woods said in her previous contribution—seven simple little words that really throw the cat amongst the lions.The proposed objective adds also extra financial constraints on consent applicants. Is that what we want? Do we want to add more cost to consent processes? Well I can tell you now that we do not want to add any more cost to consent processes.Iain Lees-Galloway: What sorts of pigeons did they have where you grew up?JOANNE HAYES: A much greener space than what you grew up in I can tell you right now.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will sit down and the member will not address me in that way especially when she is suggesting cat sacrifice. Thank you.JOANNE HAYES: I am sorry Mr Assistant Speaker.Paul Foster-Bell: Didn’t they have pigeons at King’s College?Iain Lees-Galloway: I grew up on a farm you idiot.JOANNE HAYES: So did I.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well I doubt whether either of the members really did the way they are going on at the moment.JOANNE HAYES: In closing I want to reiterate that the amendment would change the purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority well beyond what it was set up to do and it would make it difficult for it to make decisions as an operational agency. And the authority could be required should this amendment go through to have a whole new set of tests for it. It introduces a whole new set of tests a whole new set of duties and increased financial constraints on the authority itself. The Environmental Protection Authority does not have the resources to be able to implement the changes—[Interruption]; it does not—should they come into force because it does a really great job with what it has at the moment. As I said before the objective does blur the lines—Hon Member: It does blur the lines.JOANNE HAYES: It does blur the lines—it does. Amending the principal Act is going to achieve nothing other than confusion. It is going to create a whole lot of uncertainty and I do not support the bill moving forward into the third reading. Thank you.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call Denis O’Rourke—and I will—I am going to issue a warning to the House. There is one section of the departmental report that has now been read out four times. If anyone else reads that section out again their speech will be terminated for tedious repetition.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): We have heard some pretty irrational nonsense from National Party speakers tonight. First and foremost amongst those was the comedy speech just given by Jo Hayes which is almost as good as the science fiction fantasy speech given by Paul Foster-Bell—all irrational nonsense; absolute piffle from beginning to end.All this bill would actually do is to add a new paragraph to section 12(1) of the Environmental Protection Authority Act by adding the words: “(c) protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” That is all it does. Try to relate that to the speeches we have heard from the other side of the House tonight. I cannot but I would like someone to try to give me that relationship because it seems to me that the speeches given by the members on the other side of the House had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the words that I just read out. I would like to know why they gave those speeches because they seemed to me to be either irrelevant or irrational or incomprehensible or science fiction or a comedy show—one of those.Those words should certainly be in the Environmental Protection Authority Act. Another part of that Act says this—this is section 12(2): “When undertaking its particular functions under an environmental Act the Environmental Protection Authority must also act in a way that furthers any objectives (or purposes) stated in respect of that Act.” That is a purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority. Or you could say that it is the only objective that is stated in that legislation because there is nothing else. It refers to the words “an environmental Act” and that is defined in section 5 and there is a list of legislation in that section. We have heard that so I will not repeat it again. But it does include the Environment Act itself. You would have thought therefore that that Act would actually have environmental objectives and yet the Environment Act actually does not specify any environmental objectives at all. We have that strange situation then where the purposes of the Environmental Protection Authority Act are those in other pieces of environmental legislation including—and I would have thought especially—the Environment Act itself. Yet that Act actually does not have any stated environmental purposes whatsoever. Where does that leave the argument of those opposite? I think it leaves them in cloud-cuckoo-land because their argument simply does not make sense.Clearly the Environmental Protection Authority Act therefore has sloppy drafting when it comes to what its objectives are. In order to find that out you have to look at other legislation some of which does have environmental objectives in it and some of which does not. It is very difficult to find out therefore what the objective of the Environmental Protection Authority Act is. Furthermore where those other environmental Acts they are referring to do state an objective then they are completely consistent with what this bill would do in adding the words “protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” Just look at those other Acts—look at for example the Resource Management Act and its objectives which are stated particularly in section 5—they are completely consistent with what this bill would do. Again where does that leave the argument that is put forward by the National members opposite? It just does not make any sense whatsoever. So the point that I would make principally here is that there is in fact a problem to be fixed—one which members opposite do not acknowledge and will not do anything about. Of course the Environmental Protection Authority Act should have an objective. All important legislation of that kind should.In the last minute or so I want to begin with the main arguments in support of the environmental objective for the Act as set out in this bill. The first thing is that the authority’s primary purpose should be in protecting the environment otherwise why have an Environmental Protection Authority? Even the title itself “Environmental Protection” tells you something—it is about environmental protection so should its objective not actually state that its objective is the protection of the environment as set out in this bill?Debate interrupted.