Delahunty Catherine: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Delahunty Catherine: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 11 May 2011. Volume:672;Page:18582. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CATHERINE DELAHUNTY (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. I am very pleased to speak on the legislation. The Green position has been managed by David Clendon our Environmental Protection Authority expert but as he is not here today I am taking an opportunity to speak on something I have been involved in for a very long time.  
For many years environmental activists in this country wanted an environmental protection authority. We were looking at the American model and that was what we wanted but it was not what we got so we will be voting against this legislation. However I might go into a bit of background to describe to members the long struggle to see an independent environmental protection authority set up.  
We wanted one to address the extremely substantial environmental problems that face this country. After many years we finally got an independent authority called the Environmental Risk Management Authority which was set up to be independent and has been to put it mildly somewhat disappointing. Although it is independent from Government the lack of resources and ability to address issues in a way that is both modern and precautionary has been a problem so we have been interested in the Government’s proposal under the Environmental Protection Authority Bill to create the Environmental Protection Authority.  
But we would not call it that. Having read the functions of the bill and been involved in the functions of the bill we feel that this bill should be called the “Environmental Undermining Authority Bill. The functions are clearly about facilitating development at the expense of the environment while masquerading as a new form of appropriate monitoring. It will not meet the goals for which the environment movement has fought for so many years. Nor will it even meet the achievement standards of the Environmental Risk Management Authority which struggled with a wide range of issues from genetic engineering to 1080 poison.  
Although conservative and often frustrating in terms of its ability to respond to the community that authority was not the Government. It was separate from the Crown and it maintained a degree of separation that was valuable for people trying to protect the environment. It did achieve some progress on important issues such as the reassessment of the toxic chemical endosulfan which is banned in many many countries. Finally through the authority we managed to achieve after persistent lobbying—particularly by people such as Sue Kedgley and many other environmental activists—progress on some issues.  
The Environmental Risk Management Authority was always a struggle. It was always a struggle for tangata whenua to be heard despite the existence of a Maori advisory committee and it was always a struggle for communities to be heard. For kaitiaki Maori and environmental activists it was often a disappointment but nothing like the disappointment we experienced when we saw this bill and the functions of the new Environmental Protection Authority.  
We believe that this bill has been set up to provide a lot of control by the Government over the Environmental Protection Authority and we do not see any strong advocacy for the environment. If we look at the US Environmental Protection Agency and other bodies around the world that are set up as protection agencies we see that protection of the environment is a core goal. If we look at this bill we will not find protection of the environment. We will find words associated with development facilitation and balance so that we can do such things as increase the use of water for irrigation for example and increase the facilitation of development that the community needs to be able to stand up to and oppose on a case by case basis.  
Everybody has been frustrated with aspects of the Resource Management Act and we were frustrated because so often big businesses had more power and more lawyers. Now we have a situation where the Environmental Protection Authority will have the weight of decision-making power and the control of the Government behind it preventing the kind of deliberative facilitative community engagement that the Environmental Risk Management Authority at least tried to do even though it often failed.  
We will have situations like the one I have been dealing with in the last few days where a chemical is highly toxic and can result in considerable harm to the community can possibly cause a death in another country and can be part of our food chain but to reassess it will be a huge fight. It was a huge fight with the Environmental Risk Management Authority but it is quite possible looking at the functions of this bill that it will be a huge fight under the Environmental Protection Authority. It will not be in the interests of the most powerful people in this country to reassess the use of these chemicals. That is what will be difficult about having to deal with the Environmental Protection Authority.  
There is not a lot of substance in this bill and that is very very disappointing. It should be the most substantial change in a generation in terms of the idea of setting up an independent authority with the capacity to meet modern precautionary risk assessment standards. But it will not do that. It does not even know what that is about and it is not driven by that ethos. All over the world we have changed from being an absolutely ruthless exploiter of the environment to understanding that protection of the environment is the economy. The environment is the economy. But this authority is not set up to achieve those goals; it is set up to facilitate the environment supposedly in balance with the economy but without the ability to control it.  
What we struggled with when the Environmental Risk Management Authority looked at risk assessment of environmental risk was the fact that it looked at very backward models of environmental risk assessment and it forgot about the precautionary approach. If the Green Party was writing this Environmental Protection Authority Bill we would be talking about the precautionary approach. For those who do not understand it it is about thinking before we act and recognising that as in the medical world the first rule of the planet is “First do no harm.” First do no harm to those things that sustain life. First do no harm to those things that give us any kind of economy and basic essentials such as clean water healthy food and an ability to manage our environment for future generations not to mention Te Tiriti o Waitangi which requires us to recognise the rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga of the tangata whenua and which—obviously from hearing previous speakers—was not dealt with in an appropriate and substantial way in the Local Government and Environment Committee and is not dealt with appropriately in this bill.  
The Green Party is very concerned about the Environmental Protection Authority and where it is going. We need the ability in this country to protect our citizens from hazardous chemicals to protect water for future generations and to have the power to say no to Project Aqua and other mad hare-brained schemes that should be able to stopped. Forty-thousand people said no to mining but with an Environmental Protection Authority that will facilitate development will those people still be able to say no to those things? It will depend on their ability again to go back to the Resource Management Act and try to defend these things.  
The whole point of the authority was to set some standards because the Ministry for the Environment with all due respect to it is weak on many of these issues. It is weak on risk assessment on international standards of environmental protection and on implementing the precautionary approach.  
Why on earth would we create the Environmental Protection Authority to be a weak arm of Government that has the job of assisting the Ministry of Economic Development? That is how this bill reads. It does not read: “Environmental Protection Authority: international modern best practice precautionary.” let alone: “respecter of indigenous wisdom on the environment.” It is an opportunity missed. We can use all the beautiful words in the world about how we are balancing this with that but it is a false balance and this is a bad bill. It misses out on one of the most crucial opportunities in a generation which was to set up a precautionary approach and to set up an environmental protection authority that recognised the changes in the understanding of the sensitivity of the environment on a huge range of issues.  
In the last 5 years organisations such as the European Union and the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States have changed their standards to lift them into line with what we know about this dying planet because of our greed and our commitment to trashing resources in the name of development. Instead of that we get something that facilitates more development while pretending not to by using the word “environment” in its title as if that meant anything.  
The Green Party is deeply disappointed with this bill. We stand for environmental protection. We have always stood for it and we are appalled that we will end up with more development while pretending to be providing environmental protection. Let us just be honest and say that this is a development bill. I would much rather it was called the “National Development (Fast Track Development) Bill”. Let us be honest about where we are coming from and make sure that we tell the truth in this House. All the Environmental Protection Authority will do is confuse the people of this country who think that environmental protection is a Government priority when clearly it is not.  
Kia ora tatou to all the people out there who fought for a good Environmental Protection Authority. The Green Party regrets deeply that we do not have one. People are being hoodwinked if they think that we have. The Green Party will be opposing this all the way through. Kia ora tatou.