Chauvel Charles: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
Chauvel Charles: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18442] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I begin by making a couple of preliminary observations about Part 1 of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill. The first observation relates to the way in which the legislation is structured and this reflects comments made by Labour in our minority report after the select committee process. The difficulty with what has emerged from what the Minister for the Environment put in front of the House is that rather than a comprehensive strong independent environmental regulator that is able to provide sectoral leadership which is so badly needed in this country we have a piecemeal reform. 
The Minister promised early on that for example regulation of the marine and coastal environment and the activities being conducted in the exclusive economic zone would be within the purview of the Environmental Protection Authority. Well we do not have reference to those responsibilities in the bill. Although the Minister said last year that those powers would be covered in this bill we have a promise from the Minister that there will be further legislation at some point to confer those powers. That is not good enough. It should have been done with this legislation particularly given the massive increase in prospecting and exploration activity that we are seeing off the coast of New Zealand at the moment. There needs to be proper strong central oversight of that activity. There needs to be a body that is responsible for consulting communities and iwi about that activity. 
The Minister makes much of the work that the establishment Environmental Protection Authority has done already in terms of getting big projects going. What is needed is central strong oversight; careful environmental management; and careful monitoring of all that offshore exploratory activity. Before that what is obviously needed is strong consultation with affected communities. One of the reasons we are seeing so much disquiet and objection to existing drilling activity is that there has not been consultation. Affected communities particularly iwi do not feel that they have any sort of stake in the exploration activity that is going on at the moment. I want to hear from the Minister for the Environment if he is able to address the question on why such consultation requirements have not been put into the purposes and objectives of the bill. 
The Environmental Protection Authority should be responsible for consultation. When people hear that we have an Environmental Protection Authority they assume that consultation is one of the core functions the body ought to be undertaking. I know that the Minister tried to get that function into the bill but he has not managed to get that set of activities taken into the work of the authority yet. At least that is the assumption I have made. If there has not yet been a strong attempt to get that set of activities into the work of the authority we should know why and if it is to go in we really need to know when. If we do not have some sort of certainty about this issue the risk as the Minister knows is that we will have a central environmental agency that is weak. We have seen the dangers that result as far as policy making and enforcement are concerned from having a weak central environmental agency. 
We all wish the Environmental Protection Authority well. We want to see a strong independent successful voice that will work as an advocate for the environment. We want to see expertise deployed in the centre that will allow for New Zealand’s incredible environmental potential to be realised. The worry here has to be that because of the odd piecemeal conferral of functions on the Environmental Protection Authority we will not see that potential realised. In particular there will be major worries about public confidence in the entity if all this offshore activity is to go on for a period of time until the Minister can get the central oversight function conferred upon the Environmental Protection Authority and if it is to occur in the current regulatory vacuum. 
We have heard already this week from the Acting Minister of Energy and Resources that the only effective oversight body for offshore exploration at the moment is Maritime New Zealand. Well that is not good enough. It is not good enough because we know that many many entities are interested in ensuring that they can engage in offshore exploration. There should be central oversight and there is not. 
There are two other matters that I want to advert to in this initial contribution and they relate to first of all the general structure of the bill. I have already said that the bill does not give the authority responsibility for oversight of offshore exploration and exclusive economic zone activity and that it should. I hope we will hear from the Minister as to whether and when the authority will be given responsibility for those activities because he has given some undertakings on the issue that have not yet been fulfilled. 
The other odd thing about the way the body is set up is that it takes functions under the bill from different entities. The Environmental Protection Authority will take on the hazardous substances and new organisms functions from the Environmental Risk Management Authority climate registry functions and certain other functions. In order to understand the powers of the Environmental Protection Authority in any particular case one has to read the relevant empowering legislation alongside the particular other Act in question be it the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act the Resource Management Act or the Climate Change Response Act. It is a clumsy way to require people to understand New Zealand’s environmental law. It is not a good way to promote accessibility of the law. It is not a good way to allow the layperson to be able to understand immediately the environmental statutory requirements in any particular case. 
It would be much better if we were presented with omnibus comprehensive environmental legislation that sets out not only the Environmental Protection Authority’s functions in a comprehensive sense but also an environmental code that the authority is responsible for administering rather than having to go to all these different statutes and statutory instruments. That is the other aspect of the bill that is of concern. One has to go to a lot of delegated legislation and tertiary legislation to understand the requirements of the law in any case. Environmental law ought to be simpler and more accessible than that. 
The final point I want to make relates to the Treaty obligations that are in the bill or rather that are not in the bill; that is the problem. The different environmental statutes that will affect the work of the Environmental Protection Authority all have Treaty clauses in them but they are different Treaty clauses. The Resource Management Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act have requirements to take into account the principles of the Treaty but they also refer to Te Tiriti so by implication one has to look at the English and Maori versions of the text. However the Conservation Act and the Climate Change Response Act require only giving effect to the principles of the Treaty; there is no reference to Te Tiriti. 
I have tabled an amendment that would remedy that concern. The amendment would expressly require the Environmental Protection Authority to take into account the principles of the Treaty in carrying out its work. I think that would be a much preferable way to proceed rather than to give the authority this four-headed mandate whereby it has to work out on any particular occasion whether it is to give effect to or take into account the principles of the Treaty. 
I am aware that my parliamentary colleague Rahui Katene has also tabled an amendment on this matter. I have indicated to her that we would be supportive of the approach in her amendment. I would have preferred that it had been before the select committee so that people could have made submissions on it. It is unsatisfactory that this sort of thing has to come up this late in the debate. I am a bit sad that the Maori Party was not able to influence National its coalition partner on the question of the Treaty obligations in the bill. But either way whether we go with the Maori Party’s amendment or the one I have tabled I urge the Minister to consider favourably the question of giving the Environmental Protection Authority right from the start an express and clear Treaty obligation given that all other environmental legislation currently on the books in New Zealand does so. 
That point in particular is one that it would be useful to hear a response from the Minister on. Clearly on the other issue I raised—the piecemeal nature of this legislation—it is too late at this stage to fix it but for the Treaty question it would be helpful to hear a response.