Edmonds BarbaraBARBARA EDMONDS (Labour—Mana): Thank you Mr Speaker. First of all like most people in this House I congratulate the member for his bill being drawn. Again it is the luck of the draw but as a first-term MP I acknowledge that and that's probably where I'm going to stop my acknowledgments.Now I'm not going to stand here as a previous tax lawyer and proclaim to be a farming expert. I'm not going to proclaim to be a grazing expert or an expert on the Resource Management Act (RMA). That's not my style as some would yell out across from the hall. But the thing is though probably an area which I have some sort of grasp of is children. My children hail from Northland not far from where the member is domiciled and resident I understand for about 30 years. It is the winterless north; I absolutely agree with that claim. But one of my children's favourite activities to do is in an area a valley called Kāretu Valley. It's about 15 minutes away from Kawakawa; it is right next to Waikare. From the Russell Forest there the water flows into Kāretu River. It is one of my children's absolute favourite pastimes to be able to go up in the summer and to be able to be where their family is from their tangata whenua and to be able to swim in that river. The problem has been though that children across the country can't do that in their local rivers. We look at Kaitoke Regional Park which is not far from here in Wellington. You've got to be able to check every time before you go for a swim there what the levels are and that's why there's been a lot of investment in monitoring of our local waterways.As a Government we're already working to ensure New Zealand's resource management system is fit for the future and performing properly for our natural and urban environments. This is not just about farming; this is about all our environment right across the country. As part of that in our first term we undertook a review by Justice Randerson and that report recommended that the RMA be replaced and be replaced by two particular bills. I just want to quote something from that report because it's incredibly important and because that review took through a number of submissions. So that was quite early on that was in our first term. In that report it quoted: New Zealand's natural environment is under significant pressure: the way we use land and water has proved to be unsustainable for the natural environment. The quality of our freshwater coastal and marine environments is in serious decline and biodiversity is under significant threat."Now the Minister earlier today talked about how since the 1990s waterways—Mark Cameron: When are you going to address the bill?BARBARA EDMONDS: —were much more cleaner. But now we've got to a position of 30 years later and the majority of the places we monitor are no longer swimmable. And to address the member's question: have I actually read the bill? Yes I have read the bill and my problem with the bill as it sits on the Table is that it's piecemeal. The fundamental issues that you are trying to resolve with it are not done with this bill which is why this Government committed to a review of the RMA. That's why this side of the House committed to an exposure draft that has sought thousands of submissions. I acknowledge the comments by my colleague Tangi Utikere the member for Palmerston North who said they've had hundreds of submissions at the Environment Committee for it. So again I go back to the bill being piecemeal. If you fundamentally want to be able to give regional councils greater authority to be able to make those decisions around the standards—Mark Cameron: You centrally plan and take it away from them. That's right.BARBARA EDMONDS: Well first of all have you read the RMA? Because actually the RMA allows all that currently. Section 44 means that the Minister in order to recommend to the Governor-General to make these national environmental standards has to actually have an evaluation report around those standards. What does that include? That includes advice—advice from regional councils advice from local councils advice from the community but it also includes advice from iwi. So I have read the RMA. I have read that particular section which your proposed bill tries to change. And again it's piecemeal. It makes it totally inconsistent with the current framework that we have which is why this side of the House has gone for a much more significant fundamental change of changing the RMA and that's why we've gone through the exposure draft process.So I want to go back to my initial comments: I want my children to be able to go back up to Northland to swim. We might even come by your farm if you can show us what exactly you are talking about around this riparian planting etc. but as a Government we're already working to ensure that New Zealand's resource management system is fit for the future. This bill is piecemeal. It's inconsistent and that's why we're making bigger reforms."