Foster-Bell PaulPAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): E Te Mana Whakawā Tuarua tēnā koe. In making my brief contribution on this bill the Public Finance (Sustainable Development Indicators) Amendment Bill I want to first begin by congratulating the member James Shaw on bringing this well-intentioned bill before the House. Although I might not necessarily agree with the mechanism the member uses to try to implement the changes that he is wanting to bring about I will none the less congratulate him on his noble intentions of improving and safeguarding and better reporting on the state of our environment. This is I think a positive intention. But a couple of the issues that I have around this bill—Hon David Cunliffe: Send it to select committee—send it to select committee.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Actually I would say to the former leader of the Labour Party Mr Cunliffe that it is not a select committee's job to formulate legislation. Its job he should know is to review it to amend it and to improve it. When we are starting from a position of legislation that actually has some rather difficult inconsistencies and some unnecessary duplication I do wonder whether it is beyond—in fact I would posit that it is certainly beyond the scope and responsibility and domain of a select committee and the New Zealand Parliament to so extensively rewrite the legislation as to make it workable.The inconsistencies that I want to refer to are around the roles of Ministers in departments. This bill envisages that the Minister of Finance is responsible for tabling indicators that are prepared by departments other than those for which he or she has responsibility—specifically Statistics New Zealand and the Ministry for the Environment. This would be a rather strange departure from the usual pattern of ministerial accountability that is customary and normal in this House. But it would also require the Minister of Finance to explain how the principles of sustainable development have been incorporated into the economic and fiscal update even though it is actually Treasury rather than the Minister that is responsible for the content of those economic and fiscal updates. So I think that is definitely problematic.I think we have in this country a fine tradition of improving the fiscal responsibility and transparency of our public finances. This is something I am quite proud of as a Kiwi and a strong supporter of Transparency International—as a member of our local branch of Transparency International. It is one of the things that allows us to achieve our status—as we have done—as the least corrupt country certainly in terms of perception of Public Service corruption.Hon Damien O'Connor: Well we were.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: No we are the No. 1 least corrupt country in the world in the latest Transparency International review of these things. I think the member is at least a year out of date in his facts across the aisle there.But the issue is that this bill does cut across the environmental reporting measures that this Government has already brought in and put into place. In 2015 we did pass the Environmental Reporting Act which does back up our reputation—our clean green" brand—with authoritative and independent information on the state of our environment in New Zealand. This requires the Government Statistician to provide statistics that meet a very high quality of standards and this independence is further strengthened by the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.So I think that the measures the member is proposing although well-intentioned are unnecessary because they cut across that environmental reporting that we have already put into place. So although I support the concept of greater clarity and transparency around our environmental reporting in New Zealand I think the bill is inconsistent in the way it proposes that Ministers would undertake their roles and it is also unnecessary in light of the legislation that this Government has put forward.This Government is deeply concerned about the state of our environment and is making many positive steps towards improving the state of the environment. Let us just reflect briefly on the goal to be predator-free by 2050 the creation of many new reserves and all of these sorts of positive steps. I think this bill is unnecessary and for these reasons I will oppose it and not commend it to the House."