Foster-Bell Paul: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5214. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): I rise to take a call on this member’s bill the Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill which has been introduced in the name of Meka Whaitiri.This Government has a proud track record on protecting the environment in New Zealand. After years of inactivity years of mismanagement and years of apathy from a Labour Government propped up by an impotent Green support partner where they achieved nothing in terms of protecting the New Zealand environment I am proud to be part of a Government that has introduced for the first time in New Zealand a comprehensive environmental reporting regime bringing us in line with the majority of OECD countries that have such a regime in place. I am also proud to be part of a Government that by introducing the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act has brought into place a regime for managing our offshore resources and protecting our offshore environment.So this piece of legislation well-intentioned as it is by the member who has introduced it in her name—and I do have considerable respect for the honourable member Meka Whaitiri and I am sure this is well-intentioned—is unnecessary. It is not going to achieve its objective of actually enhancing the New Zealand environment and that is why I will be speaking against this piece of legislation in this debate.Over the past few months I have taken the opportunity to go out and see what is actually being done by New Zealand companies to make sure that their activities whilst creating jobs and generating valuable export earnings do not detract from those environmental values that we hold so dear in New Zealand. Just recently I took the opportunity to visit the King Salmon farms which is a New Zealand - Malaysian joint venture that creates hundreds of jobs within the Nelson-Marlborough region and it also gives us opportunities to generate valuable export earnings with a high-quality proprietary product that is exported to markets such as the United States to be used in the food service industry. King Salmon takes the utmost care with its management of its fisheries from a fish health and disease management point of view to carefully monitoring fish excrement that goes into waterways to make sure that it is not having a detrimental effect on the beautiful Marlborough Sounds which I think we can all agree is a national asset and taonga for our country that should be protected.When we look at some recent decisions that have come out of the Environmental Protection Authority and even court decisions such as the Supreme Court decision on King Salmon’s fishery—I for one was particularly disappointed with that given it was by far the clear intention of lawmakers in this place and of the executive that the different environmental and economic criteria that are laid out in the Coastal Policy Statement were not presented hierarchically and that was not the way that the court chose to interpret that particular document. So I think we have some disappointments around the current interpretations that have been given but by and large we have a regime that is heavily tilted towards protecting the environment in New Zealand.We have had recent decisions where Trans-Tasman Resources which was investigating ironsand extraction from off the coast of Taranaki was declined a permit under the current exclusive economic zone regime. We have had a situation where the Environmental Protection Authority has also declined Chatham Rock Phosphate the ability to extract phosphate nodules from around the Chatham Islands which I know the honourable member Annette King takes considerable interest in as the local member for the area—Hon Maggie Barry: Not as much as Chris Finlayson.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: —but not as much as the Attorney-General Christopher Finlayson who is a very very frequent visitor and takes a very close interest. In fact he is a very good warm friend of the Chathams.But in any case this Government has done a huge amount to protect the environment. We have done a lot more than the previous Labour Government ever achieved so when we see a bill like this as well-intentioned as I am sure the member Meka Whaitiri is I personally believe it is not necessary. It is a political act—I will not call it a stunt but it is a political act—to try to perhaps resolve the issue. They have a few guilty consciences over on the other side for their 9 years of woeful inactivity.