Kedgley Sue: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18445] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I will speak on clause 3 “Purpose” in Part 1 of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. I will address the purpose clause and the purpose of the new authority. The purpose clause is one of the briefest purpose clauses I have seen. It just states: “The purpose of this Act is to establish an Environmental Protection Authority and to provide for its functions and operation.” I suggest there are actually three real purposes to the Environmental Protection Authority none of which are spelt out in Part 1 of the bill. 
The first is to set up something that sounds great. It is great public relations. National will be able to go into the election and say it has set up a wonderful new great-sounding authority the Environmental Protection Authority. Not many people will actually read the fine print or realise when they look at the functions of the new authority that there is no objective to protect the environment. It sounds great but it actually has no objective whatsoever to protect the environment—quite to the contrary. 
If we read the objective clause we see it is all about the efficient and effective management of New Zealand’s environment which of course is code for setting up an agency that will enable us to undermine the environment. It will do that by enabling the Government through the authority to fast track major projects in New Zealand so that it can circumvent the Resource Management Act. It will enable the Government to ram through the roads of national significance and other things by circumventing the Resource Management Act. That is its major purpose. 
In the last week I have discovered yet another hidden purpose to the Environmental Protection Authority. I realised this only when I read Rodney Hide’s latest paper on smart government or something like that—his latest paper on local government. It says basically that once the Environmental Protection Authority is in place it will be able to take over the regulatory functions of regional councils thus enabling the Government to roll out its agenda for local government one centrepiece of which is to get rid of regional councils. So once we have set up the Environmental Protection Authority we will then say there is no need for regional councils to have those regulatory functions because they will all be taken over by the Environmental Protection Authority. Then we will be able to say that actually there is no need for regional councils at all. That is clearly spelt out in Rodney Hide’s latest local government paper. 
It is no wonder Don Brash changed his mind and decided to keep Rodney Hide in the local government portfolio. If he had read Rodney Hide’s local government paper which he probably did late one of these recent nights he would have been rubbing his hands with glee because the paper is all about implementing ACT’s agenda for shrinking local government and getting rid of as many layers of local government and democracy as possible. It turns out that the Environmental Protection Authority is all part of that agenda because once it is established it will take over the regulatory functions currently done by regional councils. 
I just wanted to spell out the real purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority. I wish it had the objective of protecting the environment; sadly it does no such thing. It is providing a mechanism for the Government to undermine our environment by fast tracking projects that would normally under the present situation attract huge opposition. Major projects such as roads and motorways being bulldozed throughout New Zealand would ordinarily attract huge opposition because they will undermine the environment in so many ways. We have set up this authority to enable the Government to get around the Resource Management Act.