Doocey Matt: Environmental Reporting Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDoocey Matt: Environmental Reporting Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3373. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is an honour to rise to support this very important bill the Environmental Reporting Bill on its second reading. Can I first acknowledge the work of our environment Minister the Hon Dr Nick Smith for his work in the space of protecting our environment in New Zealand. Also I acknowledge our Local Government and Environment Committee chair Scott Simpson for the dispensing of a very busy select committee and also the previous select committee chair the Hon Maggie Barry.I was not on the select committee at the time of the submissions but reading them through overall it is time for this environmental reporting system to be implemented. This bill creates a national-level environmental reporting system to ensure that reporting on our environment occurs on a regular basis. This is important so it can be trusted—so the public can trust it as independent fair and accurate information. Why is that important? Because there are people parties and organisations that through political or financial motives want to bring down our clean and green image of New Zealand.A good example of this was a few years ago when the British Green Party decided it would come up with an approach that our lamb production—growing our lamb in New Zealand and exporting it overseas to the UK—had a bigger carbon footprint than locally produced lamb. As you would expect in the consumer-driven market in the UK it led to a drop in New Zealand lamb sales in the UK and drove up locally produced lamb production in the UK until some bright sparks at Lincoln University got together and used evidence—they used research and science—and reported that in fact even with the lamb production in New Zealand and the carbon footprint of sending our lamb by plane to the UK we still had a smaller carbon footprint than British-produced meat. That was because of the intensification of their farming. This is a good example of why we need this environmental reporting system in order to provide independent fair and accurate information to the public so that it will inform and enable informed discussion and debate.This Government has a great record of environmental management and of balancing our environmental responsibilities plus our economic opportunities to preserve and protect our natural environment. It is amazing that we are the only OECD country that currently does not have an environmental reporting system of this standard. So once again it takes a National Government to bring in this first for this country very much like it has brought in the Environmental Protection Authority to protect the environment in the petroleum exploration space as well as our freshwater standards to ensure that our rivers come up to a national standard and that any rivers that are below that standard are focused on to ensure we have a national standard of freshwater quality and management. Quite simply you cannot manage what you do not measure.I suppose that if I reflect on my career in health care before I got into politics we used the Hawthorne effect which basically says that when you start measuring something you focus on it and the performance will naturally increase and improve behind that—the Hawthorne effect. It is quite right that we cannot manage this unless we measure it. It is right that we start measuring it through this environmental reporting system. A key part of reporting data analysis and interpretation is we have to move past the data quality debate. What happens is that every time we have a report people who just want to attack it for whatever reason will resort to asking: “Is the data quality correct?” and “Is the data valid?”. Having this environmental reporting framework will ensure that.A good example is found by going to the Salvation Army’s state of the nation report this year. Its state of the nation report demonstrated that child poverty was tracking downwards. It stated that it had handed out fewer food parcels than previous years. Was the first question that was asked: how do we support that continual decline in poverty and food parcels being handed out? No; it was: how can you ensure there is correct data quality? It is right that because we will have this environmental reporting framework we will move the discussion and the debate past the data quality stage to look at analysis interpretation and supporting initiatives because ultimately we are all working for the well-being of this country. So it is good information on the state of the environment that will allow us to fully understand both natural occurrence and the impact human activities are having.When we dig a bit deeper and look at the detail of this reporting framework it is great to see the different domains that will be reported on. There will be five of them. There will be air atmosphere and climate land freshwater and marine. So each of those domains will be reported on every 6 months and every 3 years there will be an integrated report that will inform public and political discussion and debate.It is great to see the insertion of clauses 6(1A) and 9(2) which will require Ministers to present reports jointly to the House so that political accountability is encouraged. I suppose that a key tenet of this National Government is around accountability. That is our blue-green movement. We have seen today the Greens not supporting this bill which would probably represent their red-green movement but for us it is blue-green. I know that for an electorate like mine it is very important that we think in this way. “Waimak” is the third fastest-growing electorate by population growth but in its history it is still very much a proud area of primary production. We know that “Waimak” is like the rest of New Zealand: when farming is doing well the whole country does well. “Waimak” is no different: when farming is doing well the whole region benefits. With that primary production there are risks for the environment and it will be good that this environmental reporting framework will look to ascertain the current data and the findings around that—the risks of nitrate leaching and the risks of water management.What we need to do is use reporting like this and use research and innovation to develop and come up with the right solutions to those issues. If we come up with the right solutions not only will it make our land more productive which means we will export more which means the well-being of this country will continue to grow but it means we will actually have come up with solutions that many other countries are currently wrestling with or will wrestle with in the future and that is great for economic development.I think that for an asthmatic like me one of the significant domains that this reporting framework will focus on is around air. Two weeks ago was World Asthma Day. We know that New Zealand has the second-highest rate of asthma in the world: 550000 schooldays every year are lost because of asthma 69 deaths in 2011 were attributed to asthma and 7000 admissions every year in our public hospitals are to do with asthma. So it is great to see a reporting framework like this. We will be able to tangibly ascertain the pollution in our airways. I suppose growing up in Christchurch which was synonymous with smog you would go out for a run in the late evening or in the early evening and you would wonder whether you were actually doing more damage in going for the run. But through that we have been able to ascertain by particles in the air that it was things around log burners that we have been able to address and to drive through the new technology of ultra-low emission burners.In conclusion just to recap you cannot manage what you do not measure. That is exactly right and this is why we are implementing this legislation. It is great to see that we will have this legislation and I commend it to the House. Thank you.