Whaitiri Meka: Environmental Reporting Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Environmental Reporting Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 19 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:3375. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker o te rā. Tēnā tātou katoa. It is my honour to take a call on this very important piece of legislation the Environmental Reporting Bill 2014. The aim of the bill is to provide for environmental reports including the type of information and its quality and timeliness. When the then Minister for the Environment commented on the first reading of this bill she stated then that New Zealand was one of only a few OECD countries that did not require independent reporting on the state of the environment. The media release stated that the scope of the proposed reports will be comprehensive going beyond the current non-statutory programme of environmental indicator updates and would not just cover the state of the environment but also describe the pressures driving environmental trends and the impact of these trends. Comprehensive information will be provided on five key environmental domains: air climate and atmosphere freshwater marine and land with biodiversity as a theme across all the domains. One of the environmental domain reports will be released every 6 months and a comprehensive synthesis report covering all environmental domains will be released every 3 years. I needed to remind myself of the importance of such a bill.In this House when we debate legislation we tend to either support or oppose it. As I stand here there is almost a third position which is yes but not quite. It is fortunate on the Labour side that we stand opposed to this bill for the very reasons that my honourable colleagues Rino Tirikatene and Dr Megan Woods have raised. They were not raised just from our side but actually raised in the course of the select committee hearings where over 300 submissions made it very very clear that the issue of this particular legislation is that it does not provide the independence that submitters were seeking. So I cannot support this piece of legislation because it does not go far enough in ensuring that the Minister for the Environment is not involved in setting what those priority indicators are for both the Government Statistician and the Secretary for the Environment to report on.Like I said over 300 submitters submitted to the select committee process. In Dr Megan Woods’ contribution to this bill she highlighted two particular submitters and I would like to again emphasise what they said. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Dr Jan Wright made it clear that the independence issue was critical for this legislation to have the impact that we also desire which is independent environmental reporting on issues that make up an important component of our economy which is the environment. What did Dr Wright actually say? She made it really clear that she felt that the bill itself did not offer the level of independence that a piece of legislation should provide. She made it really clear that she did not think it was actually a satisfactory function for her to play that role given her statutory function within the piece of legislation. What she was seeking was a more independent voice that set the tone of these reports. So clearly the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in her own submission made it clear that more independence was needed to ensure that this piece of legislation was not interfered with politically.Another major group that submitted during the submission process was the Environmental Defence Society which said: “Allowing Ministers to select topics to be covered in synthesis reports and domain reports will politicise what should be an independent process as topic selection could be utilised to introduce bias into environmental reporting.” Like I said many submitted and I wanted to highlight those particular submitters because of the standing that they have in the environmental space to ensure that we are putting through legislation that can uphold the very purpose in which it is being presented to the House.I want to comment on the Government’s chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee who in his debate contribution made the statement that this side of the House was opposing a piece of legislation simply for the sake of opposing. Unfortunately that is the role of the Opposition—to ensure that all pieces of legislation that come through this House have gone through the proper process of a select committee and more important has factored in the submissions that were presented to the select committee. It is concerning that the chairperson of that select committee has made a statement in terms of our members who sit on that select committee who uphold the submitters who come to the select committee. Yes as you know in all select committees the Government members outnumber the Opposition members and it has clearly come through with this piece of legislation coming to the House for this second reading. What I contend is that unless we acknowledge the importance of the select committee process in designing robust legislation we are almost sending a signal to future submitters that whatever their concerns or submissions are—and in this case the majority have asked for independence—this Government is simply not listening. In terms of coming back to the bill Labour supports the need for independent environmental reporting but the bill falls well short of that requirement. It is fundamentally flawed. Labour is disappointed to oppose this bill as we believe it is a vital piece of legislation to protect our environment.Like earlier mentioned for too long New Zealand has lagged well behind international best practice. We are the only country in the OECD without an ongoing commitment in law to independently and regularly monitor the state of our environment so much so that our colleague—again Dr Megan Woods—in her contribution offered up Supplementary Order Paper 74 where she suggests that we remove the Ministers from making the decision and replace the Ministers with both the Chief Executive of the Ministry for the Environment and the Government Statistician thereby ensuring that there is no politicising and there is no political interference and the priorities we set for this legislation in terms of environmental impacts will be safeguarded. I really do wish that we had taken that Supplementary Order Paper to heart when this legislation was coming to the House but it was not to be. It again smacks of the hidden agendas of this Government which we are seeing time and time again—a bit of out of touch; a bit of promising with one hand and taking away with the other.Can I end by saying that our environment is an important part of who we are as New Zealanders. We are its guardians the kaitiaki. What legislation we bring into this House must guarantee that at the end of the passing of any legislation we protect our environment and that we leave it in a better state than what we have inherited particularly for the future generations. I oppose this bill. Kia ora tātou.