Clendon David: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
Clendon David: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18449] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 I am pleased to take an initial call in the Committee stage on the purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. Of all the bills that have and indeed might come into this House a bill that seeks or purports to establish an Environmental Protection Authority would be a bill that the Greens would support over all others. Indeed we supported the bill to the first reading in the hope—a forlorn hope as it has proven—we could get sufficient movement on the provisions of the bill at the Local Government and Environment Committee so that it might be something we could continue to support. Regrettably that has not happened. The bill in its somewhat amended form is still far short of anything that we could put our name to willingly. 
Over all other things a Green Party that in part grew as the parliamentary wing of the broader environmental movement would seek—indeed it has long been our policy to see—the establishment of an Environmental Protection Authority as ecological wisdom is one of our core principles. Indeed some would have us stick to environmental issues and not engage in other social or economic issues. Of course that is nonsense given that we know that protection of the environment is also protection of our communities and of our people. 
Of all the countries in the world New Zealand is economically reliant on the quality of our environment. If we do not have a clean green environment we have a very very vulnerable economy. Those links are very well made. For that reason it is essential that we establish some sort of well-resourced strongly autonomous authority that has real authority to make decisions and to make determinations in the event that applications are made for developments projects or whatever it might be with an environmental effect—in particular an adverse environmental effect. 
There is a great deal of potential support for an authority and the Minister must be pleased by the quality of the submissions on the bill that came from groups like the Environmental Defence Society the umbrella group Environment and Conservation Organisations of New Zealand the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society and numerous smaller but very credible and articulate groups who had opinions about the bill. For so many of them the recurring theme was to question the authority the power and the autonomy of the organisation. 
The purpose of the bill is to establish an Environmental Protection Authority. The challenge we put back is to ask where the authority is in the agency given that the status of the agency will be such that it is liable to ministerial direction. The authority is obliged to accept ministerial direction. Of the three levels under the Crown Entities Act this type of organisation is the weakest form of Crown entity that one can have. That is unfortunate. The authority should have some genuine autonomy and be able to stand up to a Minister—be it this or any other Minister who might be seen to be swayed or persuaded for whatever reasons that a particular development is desirable. The agency must genuinely have the authority to say no. We need an organisation that can say no. 
It is our clear belief that the purpose of the authority as the bill is modelled is to be an authority that is empowered to say yes more quickly. We have heard much talk about streamlining efficiency and simplification specifically of the Resource Management Act and those are good things. I do not believe that public processes be they environmental or any other should be deliberately complex convoluted or lead to significant delays for developers or those opposing or supporting development. In this instance however I think the rhetoric about balance between the economy and the environment is purely rhetoric. The framing of the argument that we must achieve balance simply denies the reality that we cannot balance environmental degradation—which tends to be at least long term if not permanent—against some perceived or hoped for short-term economic gain. 
In terms of the purpose of the bill we have decided we will no longer support the bill because there is simply nothing in it that gives us any satisfaction that the authority will be a genuine protection agency.