Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): I would like to say that the director of the Department of Conservation said the other day: We believe our nature will thrive when all New Zealanders engage their hearts minds and hands to conserve the natural environment." And I think that it would be great if the Minister of Conservation actually took that advice because we have a spectacle at the moment of a Government that on the one hand says it is committed to conservation that it is committed to protecting the kiwi that it has a strategy in place—that it launched this morning—for our threatened species and at the same time wants to open up a portion of conservation land for coalmining.I have to say I am utterly flabbergasted because it is completely inconsistent to on the one hand say that you are committed to conservation—to be a Minister of Conservation and at the same time to even consider the notion of coalmining on conservation estate is utterly absurd. The Department of Conservation looks after a third of New Zealand's land mass on half a percent of the Government's Budget. I will just say that again: the Department of Conservation looks after a third of New Zealand's land mass on half a percent of its Budget. It is right up against the wall. In real terms its budget has been cut considerably over the course of the lifetime of this National-led Government. And now you have the spectacle of a Minister of Conservation attempting to defend the notion of coalmining on conservation land. There is no way that you can have a kiwi protection plan on the one hand and say that you are going to be coalmining in a kiwi habitat on the other. There is no way to say that you are going to have a threatened species strategy on one hand and to put a coalmine into a kiwi habitat on the other hand.Not only that the Department of Conservation itself—I am going to read this out from its website—says "Climate change poses a significant risk to New Zealand's native species and ecosystems."; in other words the very thing that the Department of Conservation is there to protect. Climate change represents a significant risk to that and what we know is that if the world burns its existing coal reserves—its existing coal reserves that it knows about—then there is simply no way that we are going to be able to keep global warming to under 2 degrees. In fact 82 percent of the existing coal reserves on this planet cannot be burnt if you are to have any hope of keeping global warming to under 2 degrees. So the idea of having a coalmine on conservation land digging up coal to be burned and at the same time saying that you have got any hope any hope at all of trying to keep New Zealand's greenhouse gas emissions down and keeping global warming to under 2 degrees is completely inconsistent.Now today the Associate Minister said that there was a $22 million compensation package from a coalmining company to the Department of Conservation. Well compensation for what? What is a compensation package for? It is compensating for damaging the environment which in this case is a kiwi habitat. So the very nature of this pay-off demonstrates that we know that the coalmine is damaging the local environment down there. What is it compensating for? It is compensating for degrading the local environment which is a kiwi habitat and that raises the question: how can you possibly as a Government on the one hand say that you are committed to protecting kiwi and on the other hand take 30 pieces of silver in return from a coalmining company that we know is going to damage the environment in which those kiwi live. It is an utterly absurd proposition.The idea that you can have a coalmine in a kiwi habitat and maintain any semblance of a commitment to the environment as a Government is completely absurd. I think that none of this conserves the New Zealand environment. If you are going to have a Government that is truly committed to protecting New Zealand's natural environment you need to change the Government. And change is coming."