Burns Brendon: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
Burns Brendon: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18460] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I am pleased to follow on from the sophistry of the Minister for the Environment in respect of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. The Minister pretends that this bill will deliver for the environment. This is a doughnut piece of legislation for a doughnut agency. There is a thin perimeter of staffing and cash and a great big hole in the middle. The bill should be called the “Environmental Projection Authority Bill” because it does not deliver. It might hold some hope but it is certainly not delivering for the environment. 
The Minister has suggested that the exclusive economic zone legislation cannot be protected by the Environmental Protection Authority but that differs from what he told the Local Government and Environment Committee back in June of last year. The comment I will read is as reported in  
Select Committee News. 
 He said that a report on the issue of the exclusive economic zone would be ready in August and his preference was “to have that EEZ legislation and the EPA legislation as one package because it is our view that the EPA will be the proper place for regulating environmental activities.” 
So we come back to this doughnut bill and this doughnut agency with a great big gaping hole in the middle of it and that is the exclusive economic zone Antarctica and a whole range of other environmental activities that should be the subject of scrutiny and involvement by this agency but are missing in action. That is because the Minister could not deliver and that is because his Cabinet colleagues want growth. They want to see the seabed mined and they do not want any agency to stand in their way. The growth agenda will take precedence no matter what. The Minister might have thought he might be able to turn them round but this bill is testimony to the fact that he has failed miserably in that task. It does not hold to even the promises that he projected he would be delivering on. The bill is an abject failure in his responsibilities as the steward for the environment on behalf of the Government. He has failed to deliver on it and it is there in black and white in the difference between what he was telling the select committee the very select committee that considered this bill and what has come through in this bill. 
It is a nonsense to talk about how we should not spell out the functions and objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority. I go back to the model that he cited himself in the past the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States which was set up in the 1970s. It had six goals and they were protecting and improving air quality so that we can breathe safely; reducing greenhouse gas intensity; ensuring drinking water is safe; restoring and maintaining oceans— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: In the 1970s— 
BRENDON BURNS 
:  That is right and it is as valid and more valid today as it was in the 1970s. Issues like climate change were barely perceptible in the 1970s and now they are critical issues that have to be faced and the Minister is not delivering the flagship for his environmental stewardship that this agency was supposed to be. In fact the Minister has delivered a dinghy not a flagship. It is just a tiny little vessel floating on an ocean that it has no responsibility for. It has no responsibility for the oceans which was to be a core component of what the Minister was going to do to improve our environmental record. 
We are considering Part 2. The objectives and functions of the Environmental Protection Authority are so limited as to be breathtaking in their audacity. There is absolutely no reference to environmental outcomes no reference to objectives no goal setting and no vision. There is nothing in this bill that says this is an agency we can put confidence and faith in. If we had concerns in the past about our record as a nation in terms of our environmental stewardship the Environmental Protection Authority was to be the agency we could trust to deliver and it is just not there; there is not even a reference in the bill. There is no capacity for anybody to stand up and say to this Minister: “You set out these goals and objectives.” He did that with his Bluegreen agenda 4 or 5 years ago. It was the great big bright hope for the environment. All I can say in that respect is that blue-green is the most toxic cyanobacteria that we could find in New Zealand’s waterways today. It is a very fitting analogy because that Bluegreen agenda which was to deliver a functioning Environmental Protection Authority with high environmental outcomes is not delivered. A ministry of sustainable development has not been delivered. This Environmental Protection Authority will be toothless it will be powerless and it will be budget-less. The bill simply transfers the functions and duties of the Environmental Risk Management Authority and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and about 10 other staff most of whom will be involved in fast tracking motorway projects and the like. Where are the people to deliver the environmental objectives that the Minister spelt out so boldly 4 or 5 years ago?