Warren-Clark AngieANGIE WARREN-CLARK (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a real pleasure to take a call today. I'd just like to acknowledge Mark Cameron for having his bill pulled from the ballot and as a first-term MP it must feel very good. That's probably all the compliments I can say in relation to this bill but congratulations to you.We have just spent 14 days or approximately 68 hours looking at the Natural and Built Environments Act. The Randerson report which was written last year has in fact outlined a whole series of needs and improvements that we can make. Essentially what we're looking at here is a system that recognises and acknowledges that our environment needs to be taken care of.Now I looked at this legislation and I have to be quite honest: I was quite shocked when I read the wording of the section. So I'm just going to read it out for those who are listening at home in regards to what the bill actually says because actually I don't believe that New Zealanders want what is in this bill. I think that we as citizens of this country all hold very dear the right to swim in our rivers and our lakes and I think that all of us think that that's really important. So as a consequence I'd just like to read out what this bill actually says or is asking for. So it's section 43 of the Resource Management Act that it's seeking to amend and it says (2A) Despite subsections (1) and (2) regulations made under this section must not prescribe"—must not prescribe—"technical standards methods or requirements in respect of the following matters: (a) excluding stock"—so you must not exclude stock—"from water bodies estuaries coastal lakes and lagoons and the margins of those water bodies estuaries coastal lakes and lagoons". So to all of that riparian planting that all of our farmers have been doing—all of that good work—this says "No don't do it." The next thing is "(b) managing the environmental effects of intensive winter grazing". So it talks about these things and that they need to be regionalised and that's the effects of winter grazing. The next is "(c) the application of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser to pastoral land" and "(d) sediment control measures." And it also just talks about the intensive winter grazing and the definition of that means "grazing livestock on an annual forage crop during winter."I guess the reality is that fundamentally we believe in protecting the environment and I want to really acknowledge our Minister for the Environment the Hon David Parker who today spoke very passionately and very clearly about—and I think articulated really well—the history of the Resource Management Act and the failure; that we as a country have managed basically to degrade our waterways and create an horrific response. I remember as many of us here as a child swimming in rivers drinking from those rivers and not getting sick. However that has changed very much now and it is really unfortunate that we have this wholesale degradation of our environment. I think it is so important that we continue to support the environment and I think it is incredibly important that we continue to go on this path with many many experts and hundreds and hundreds of submitters talking to us in regards to the legislation and saying that actually we as a collective need to manage the environment in a better way. Thank you Mr Speaker."