Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeEnvironmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4540. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Environmental Reporting BillIn CommitteeDebate resumed from 16 June.Part 1 Preliminary provisions (continued)DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I wanted to speak aboutonly clause 3 of the bill which is of course the purpose clause—rather it is supposed to be the purpose clause of the bill. But in fact it now includes only part of paragraph (a) of the original version and simply states: “The purpose of this Act is to require regular reports on New Zealand’s environment.” If you compare that with the original clause 3 we see first of all that the words “as a whole:” have been deleted from paragraph (a).You could ask the question: why? In the commentary on the bill you simply read that this is done to simplify the bill. I thought it was pretty simple as it was already and that removing the words “as a whole” is a mistake. Those words are important. They would require in my view a more holistic approach to reporting under the bill. It is not good enough I think to do only some environmental reporting and leave out topics that the Government actually does not want to be reported on. It is also not good enough to report on topics in isolation from each other without a big-picture reporting mechanism—such as for example on the effects of climate change—as a result of some of the more specific reports.I also note that paragraphs (b) (c) (d) and (e) in the original clause 3 are not included either. Therefore not only is reporting on the environment as a whole removed but the subsidiary reporting on specific listed domains in paragraph (b) is not referred to as a purpose at all any longer. Paragraph (c) which talks of the requirement for independent fair and accurate reporting as a purpose is also removed. Yet these are some of the most important parts of the bill.The truncation of the purpose clause to just the words in paragraph (a) without the words “as a whole” renders the purpose statement in the bill virtually meaningless in my view. It adds no more actually than what you read in the title. So it is hardly worth having that as a purpose statement at all. But more important the clause now fails to state clearly that there are—or rather should be–dual purposes in the bill and not a single general one as appears there now. The first of those is reporting on the environment as a whole and secondly reporting on the named specific domain areas.The amendments to clause 3 are like having a car that stops due to some sort of defect and then instead of fixing the defect the engine the gearbox the drivetrain and so on are removed as a means of making the defect disappear but in the process of course it makes the whole vehicle useless. That is what has been done with clause 3. It was a useful clause and now it is virtually meaningless. I would like to see at least the first three paragraphs—(a) (b) and (c)—reinserted so that it is a more meaningful purpose statement.The real reason of course for these amendments is what is interesting. I think it is simply to hide the fact that later in the bill overall reporting on the environment is deliberately to be avoided by the Government because the Government actually knows that its record on reporting on the environment generally is poor. To remove independent reporting on specific domains and topics is also a very poor response to what the select committee considered. Because the Government intends to use executive powers and not report at all on some potentially embarrassing matters it has decided to go through the bill and remove all those parts that would cause it to have to report on some of the matters I have referred to. That means reporting holistically on all of the matters relating to environmental reporting as they relate to each other as well as reporting on specific domains and topics in the bill. That is the major defect with regard to clause 3 as I see it. So this pathetic amended clause 3 in my view is not a valid purpose statement at all.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I will comment just on Part 1 of the Environmental Reporting Bill. The whole Government objective for this bill as outlined in the departmental disclosure statement was “to have a legislative basis for independent environmental reporting in order to give the public certainty about the scope timing and quality of the information” that the public will receive. It is recognised that there is quite a range of reporting that is done at the moment by regional councils by territorial local authorities and by Crown research institutes such as the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research and it is certainly a good idea to have consistent consolidated and comprehensive state of the environment reporting. So we support the original objective of the legislation but it is fatally flawed because as other speakers have noted it does not provide for independent state of the environment reporting. The topics will be set by the Minister.Comments have been made about clause 3 which previously had quite a list of matters one of which actually was to “ensure that producers of environmental reports act independently and produce fair and accurate reports.” Of course that has been amended through the select committee process by the wishes of the majority of the committee. So the purpose statement in clause 3 is now much shorter. In my Supplementary Order Paper on this bill Supplementary Order Paper 87 I propose a small change to that clause to actually include that the report should be on “the state of” New Zealand’s environment because simply reducing the purpose of the bill to be requiring regular reports on New Zealand’s environment means that those reports do not actually have to be about the state of the environment.The Minister for the Environment has been mischievous in the extreme and is seeking to mislead as usual by suggesting that the Opposition members of the Local Government and Environment Committee were not supportive of the overall intent of the bill. We were also very supportive of the changes to Part 1 in relation to clause 4A which recognises the Crown’s responsibility to take appropriate account of Te Tiriti o Waitangi yet the Minister suggested when he made comments from the chair that there was opposition to that. That was completely incorrect. We do support that clause in the bill but we have quite major concerns about the lack of independence for the whole system.I think the Minister in his comments from the chair also suggested that Opposition members should look at the Statistics Act and the fact that that Act provides for Ministers to establish the matters that will be reported on. The major difference is that that Act was passed at a time when there was a robust and independent Public Service. We have seen under this Government a major hollowing-out of the Public Service. We have seen a lot of interference by Ministers and we have only to look at the example of the Minister responsible for this bill when he interfered with the Department of Conservation’s responsibility for statutory advocacy on the Ruataniwha Dam and effectively quashed a 32-page submission by that department on the Ruataniwha Dam application. So the concern that Ministers will interfere is a very real one given that as the Minister himself alluded to there has already been an example of that happening with the suppression of a chapter of the state of the environment report that made some recommendations for change.So the two major flaws with the bill are the lack of independence and the real failure to ensure that the reports are comprehensive and take account of matters where there is inadequate information—that that is actually recognised. I have got some changes in Supplementary Order Paper 87 that address that matter. The original purpose of the bill—to provide this independent system—was good but that is not what the bill is actually going to deliver.When the Government members have been talking about the bill they have been saying that it recognises that protection of the environment is intrinsic to every Kiwi. That was what Mr Doocey said. So what is the Government so afraid of in having the Secretary for the Environment and the head of Statistics New Zealand actually making the decisions around what topics should be reported on? What is it so afraid of that it wants Ministers to set out those topics? The provisions in this bill for regulations are thereonly to enable Ministers to set the topics to be reported on and that is a major deficiency in the bill.I have got a number of changes that are set out in my Supplementary Order Paper and I hope other members can support these. We have sought to be constructive with these changes. They are not the sweeping changes that we would have liked to have made to the bill. I think it is very disappointing that the Government has not taken up this opportunity to improve the bill because once again it is an example of legislation that the Government is ramming through that does not have the support of all of the House. It is such a fundamental part of our environmental policy to ensure that we have robust state of the environment reporting to inform changes to the law and to inform changes to policy yet the National Government wants to slant that reporting by having it politicised and it wants to risk the legislation being changed when there is a change of Government. It would be much better with this sort of legislation to have a consensus across the House and for the Government to take on board some of the changes that are being proposed through my Supplementary Order Paper in order to improve the bill rather than just reject them as we expect that it will do. Thank you.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is nice to finally take a call this evening on a piece of legislation in the Committee of the whole House. This Environmental Reporting Bill is an important piece of legislation and in talking to Part 1 of the bill this evening I just really want to make the point that in the Local Government and Environment Committee we had very useful and constructive conversations and debates around a whole range of issues particularly relating to the purpose clause clause 3 which was well debated in the select committee. Ultimately the select committee decided by majority that it wanted to simplify the clause that was first proposed to it in the first reading of the bill which was long-winded and did not really get to the nub of what the purpose of the bill is. So we have ended up by majority landing at a place where clause 3 says: “The purpose of this Act is to require regular reports on New Zealand’s environment.” That is a short precise and succinct clause but it is important because what it does is neatly sum up the purpose of this bill. It does so without politicising it and without getting into an area where parties that want to grandstand and take a platform on issues could use the legislation to pursue their own political agendas. That is the purpose of depoliticising this clause of the bill.What we have heard in previous contributions on Part 1 of the bill is really opposition for the sake of opposing because as chair of the select committee I know that deep down members opposite really do want to support this legislation. They do want to support it because this is the first time that New Zealand will have a legislative regime once this bill is passed that ensures that we do have regular independent reporting on the environmental matters relating to the domains that are so important to our natural and environmental surroundings. Clause 4 the interpretation clause lists those domains—the air domain the atmosphere and climate domain the biodiversity area and climate is defined as well. These are where the meat if you like of the legislation is defined for reference in terms of the domain reports that will be provided on a regular basis once this legislation is enacted.It will come as no surprise to people listening to this debate this evening that in fact we have been as a nation a little tardy in this area in terms of reporting regularly and independently on our environmental status. We are one of very few—in fact I think maybe we are the only OECD country that does not currently have a legislative statutory regime for reporting of this nature. So this bill and the purpose clause neatly sets us in an area of best practice in terms of international best practice standards and also enables us as a nation to find that we have this independent reporting that is going to be so important to the underpinning of the legislation.Clause 4 the interpretation clause goes on to set out the role of the Government Statistician and the Ministry for the Environment by way of the establishment of a process for reporting. These are important matters and important parts of the bill because they go again to the sort of machinery to the mechanics of what makes this bill work and how it is going to tick. Bringing together the agencies of the Ministry for the Environment and the Government Statistician means that we will be able to draw as a nation upon the independent well-respected and credible resources of both those State agencies in a way that has previously been unavailable to us as a nation. The outcome will almost certainly help us identify areas where we could probably do better because undoubtedly in any environmental situation there is always room for improvement. It is very obvious to those of us who have been involved in business and commercial matters—and we understand—that what you cannot or do not measure really has no relevance or importance. For too long our legislation has not enabled us to measure these important aspects of our environment so I am very confident that where we have landed as a select committee will ensure that the role of the Government Statistician will provide the kind of robustness that will be equalled and measured by the input of the Ministry for the Environment and that those two agencies will be able to provide us with the independence that is being sought by members opposite.There is a Treaty clause. It is clause 4A of the bill and it is a clause that we included at the select committee in order to acknowledge the role of the Treaty and in order to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibility to take appropriate account of the Treaty and its principles. This set of provisions in Part 1 goes a long way I think to establishing the foundations of a very good and important piece of legislation—one that if I was to be I guess picky I would say should have been advanced by a Labour-Green Government when it had the opportunity to do so. Members opposite are now literally clutching at straws to find reasons to oppose this very good piece of legislation when they had more than enough opportunity to bring something like this in themselves when they had that chance and they chose not to. They put it in the too-hard basket probably because they could not really get their heads around the way a piece of complicated measuring and reporting should be done. So to hear members opposite now opposing as I say largely for the sake of opposition a bill that deep down I know they wish to support is somewhat galling for members on this side to have to listen to.This is very good legislation. It does not have the flaws that members opposite are attributing to it and indeed my advice to members opposite is to stop looking for shadows where none exist. It is very easy I guess when you are in Opposition to do that and to get into a mindset where things may be conjured up out of the mists of nothing—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member and in doing it I am going to plead guilty to being relatively slack in the early stages of chairing this part especially in Mr O’Rourke’s speech but also in the first part of the member’s speech. What we are debating at the moment is Part 1 of the bill as it has been reported from the select committee. All the changes have been accepted by the House so we are not debating what has been taken out. Mr O’Rourke was pretty irrelevant and—Denis O’Rourke: That’s absolute nonsense.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will stand withdraw and apologise.Denis O’Rourke: I decline.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well the member—in my experience in these matters and it is pretty substantial—does not have a choice. The member will stand withdraw and apologise.Denis O’Rourke: I withdraw and apologise.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): As I was attempting to say replying to speeches that are irrelevant is in itself irrelevant. The member has now got into that and it is my intention to tighten this debate right up to Part 1 as it has been accepted at second reading and to whether Part 1 implements the principles of the bill which the House has already accepted.Denis O’Rourke: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I wish to say to you that I object very much to the comments you made about me and my speech. They were completely wrong not called for and not needed as part of the exchange you had with the other member. I would ask you to withdraw them.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well I decline to withdraw to the member. What I did say at the beginning was that I did apologise to the Committee for not intervening sooner and the reason I did not intervene was that I wanted to consult the Speakers’ rulings and take advice as to whether or not the comments that the member made about whether or not clauses that had been taken out of the bill should have or should not have been taken out at select committee were relevant. The advice that I have received and I have taken and I have accepted and it is now the view that I have expressed to the Committee is that it is not relevant and therefore I am not going to allow Government members to go on about it because they would be being irrelevant too.SCOTT SIMPSON: I acknowledge the content of your ruling and accept it—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Just do not comment on it at all.SCOTT SIMPSON: —without reservation. Clause 3 of Part 1 of the bill is the purpose clause and it simply says: “The purpose of this Act is to require regular reports on New Zealand’s environment.” What the committee was I think trying to get to there was a question of the nature of the regularity of those reports the nature and the breadth of the term “environment” and whether or not those needed to be extended in any way in the drafting of the clause. We ultimately decided against that.Clause 4 is the interpretation clause and therefore it sets out the various domains and the context required for defining those for the purposes of the bill. “Biodiversity” for instance is defined as meaning “the variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes of which they are a part”. So it is easy for us as a legislature to get into quite technical and succinct parts of language that have a very scientific application. I suspect that as members who are literally members of the House of Representatives we by and large do not have the expert knowledge that is required to come to terms with the absolute interpretation of those words that are used in the clauses as presented in the bill tonight. But what we do know is that the science specialists and those who have expertise in this area will be able to flesh that out in terms of the reports that are provided on a regular basis as proposed in clause 3. I think that is probably all I wish to say in terms of Part 1 of this bill and I look forward to the debate as it continues. Thank you.Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): Can I first of all commend the member who has just resumed his seat Scott Simpson for his competent and capable chairing of the Local Government and Environment Committee which has brought the bill back to the House in a better state than it arrived at the select committee—in my view and the view of my colleagues who served on the committee. But I want to pose a question to the member—not that he is in a position to answer it although it is possible that he may be in a position to be sitting as a Minister in the chair in the not too distant future with the way things are going. The question is whether at the end of 2017 when he is no longer in Government he will have achieved every single thing that he wanted to do. I think that the answer to that would be no which is why I can say with confidence that his contribution in relation to our opposition was incorrect. That is a very generous—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am now going to interrupt this member—Hon RUTH DYSON: Oh that would be a change.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Please take a seat. Responding to irrelevant responses cannot possibly be focusing on Part 1. I just invite the member to focus on Part 1 of the bill directly.Hon RUTH DYSON: I certainly will and actually I am going to ask you to consider whether responding to his challenge on our position on Part 1 is irrelevant because in my view that is not a correct interpretation of my contribution to the debate because it is about Part 1 and about Labour’s opposition to it. This is not the most contentious part of this bill. It is not the issue on which the Committee will seriously divide and I think it is a great tragedy that we will have that in the second part of the debate. Part 1 is pretty small but it covers some important issues. It covers the purpose of the bill and I guess if you ask most people in the Chamber and outside the purpose of the bill really is the fundamental part of it because it is what it is about.Eugenie Sage has got Supplementary Order Paper 87 which covers a number of proposed changes to the—sorry just one on new clause 3 on the purpose which after “require regular reports on”is to insert “the state of”. So the purpose would become if the amendment is agreed to—and I certainly hope it would be—“The purpose of this Act is to require regular reports on the state of New Zealand’s environment.” rather than as it currently is: “… reports on New Zealand’s environment.”In the same way in respect of the interpretation in clause 4 Part 1 there are three amendments again proposed by Green member Eugenie Sage and we will be offering our support for that. Clause 4 in Part 1 the interpretation clause was subject to quite a large number of submissions. We have already noted the changes that were made by the Local Government and Environment Committee in regard to the interpretation clause right through to defining who the Ministers are. That is obviously going to lead us into that more substantive debate when we get to Part 2 and the insertion—Scott Simpson the chair of the committee said that this change was by majority. I thought it was a unanimous insertion. The member is nodding. Is that indicating that it was unanimous the new clause 4A Treaty of Waitangi insertion? I thought it was unanimous. It may have been by majority but it calls into question the contribution that Minister Nick Smith made in this regard backed up by the earlier contribution of Eugenie Sage.The Treaty of Waitangi provision in Part 1 is quite a new legislative recognition of the Crown’s responsibility in regard to the Treaty. I am not sure whether members decided that that was appropriate but it was clearly discussed at the select committee. It was not a close vote if it was indeed a majority vote and it certainly got support. I think that that is going to give us new challenges in terms of our understanding of the Crown’s responsibility. That is not a bad thing. I am really wanting to express my appreciation to the committee for giving us that opportunity.In relation to the submissions on the interpretation a lot of submitters noted the absence of definitions for key terms that were used in the bill and asked for clearer definitions. The part that we are no longer able to discuss was one example of that but I will not obviously be referring to that. There were four submitters who were specifically concerned about the definitions of the various domains. These are important organisations which had a substantive amount of consideration and input into this legislation: the Environmental Defence Society Local Government New Zealand the McGuinness Institute and Seafood New Zealand. They were specifically concerned about the definitions of the various domains in the interpretation provisions. Again these will be subject to more debate in Part 2 where we look at the domains and synthesis reports but it is important for us to consider whether we have got the interpretation provisions correct and whether we have met the concerns of the submitters because as I say I think they were substantial contributions.Other submitters looked at the definitions of “impact category” “ecological integrity” “public health” the economic benefits and the culture and recreation and again said that there should be more specific definitions around those. I think that the one that was singled out by most submitters though was the term—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am going to interrupt the member on the same basis as I should have interrupted other members earlier. We are now debating the bill as it was reported from the select committee and the amendment of Eugenie Sage. We are not debating what is not in here. That was done at the second reading. If there was an amendment put up to include something it becomes relevant. If it is not it is not.Hon RUTH DYSON: Could you just alert me to the relevance of that in relation to what I was saying because I actually cannot make the connection.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I think the member was clearly listing a group of submissions about things that should have been included in Part 1 of the bill and it—Hon RUTH DYSON: I am having a bad run with the Chair tonight.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Because it is not relevant.Hon RUTH DYSON: I do not think it is our lucky night Mr Simpson. You can pass on my sharing of this feeling to Mr Macindoe when you see him later in the evening. I think there has been a bit of a hiccup in the communication. What I was—Kris Faafoi: Just stop.Hon RUTH DYSON: It is only a quarter past nine. I do not think anyone is voting for an early knock-off. What I was referring to was specifically—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Clearly one or two are actually.Hon RUTH DYSON: Well if you are suggesting you might be leaving early that might be a different matter Mr Chairman. It was just a light-hearted response to your interjection of course. So what I was referring to were the changes that were made in the interpretation clause because they were the subject of substantive submissions and they were agreed by the committee. I am commenting on the changes that were made and therefore are reported back and are included in Part 1. In fact particularly if you look at the changes that were made by the committee in relation to “ecological integrity” it now says “ ‘ecological integrity’ means the full potential of indigenous biotic and abiotic features and natural processes functioning in sustainable communities habitats and landscapes” which is a result of the contribution from submitters. That is where my earlier contribution was leading to.I just want to conclude by again referring to Supplementary Order Paper 87 in the name of Eugenie Sage. In relation to clause 4 in the definition of “topic” it asks to replace “regulations” with “notice in the Gazette”; in new clause 4A(b) to replace “regulations” with “a notice in the Gazette”; and the same in new clause 4A(b). I have noticed a tendency in some debates that we have had that the National Government has just voted against Supplementary Order Papers that are put up by members but I urge further consideration particularly led by the chairman of the select committee because there has been some constructive debate about this bill. Even though we will end up voting against it we have I think had a contribution that has been helpful to the debate. In the end if we had had an environmental reporting bill as defined in the interpretation provisions in clause 4 that would have meant that we could have an independent setting of the atmosphere and climatic domains—for example the air domains—and then it would be a bill that we could support.The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 87 in the name of Eugenie Sage to clause 3 be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendment be agreed to.Ayes 60New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.Noes 61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendment not agreed to.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 87 in the name of Eugenie Sage to clause 4 and new clause 4A be agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That the amendments be agreed to.Ayes 60New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12; Māori Party 2.Noes 61New Zealand National 59; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Amendments not agreed to.A party vote was called for on the question That Part 1 be agreed to.Ayes 63New Zealand National 59; Māori Party 2; ACT New Zealand 1; United Future 1.Noes 58New Zealand Labour 32; Green Party 14; New Zealand First 12.Part 1 agreed to.Part 2 Environmental reportingThe CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): We now move to the debate on Part 2. We have Eugenie Sage’s amendments to clauses 7 10 12 13 14 16 18 and 19 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 87 and a tabled amendment inserting new clause 11A. I am making it clear that we are debating those amendments and what was agreed at the second reading.Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on Part 2 and I want to speak to clauses 7 and 10 of the billin particular which cover off the content of both the synthesis and the domain reports. Clause 7 covers the synthesis reports and clause 10 covers the domain reports. In addressing those clauses as agreed to in the select committee and reported back to the House I also want to address the amendments around the way they may be improved which Eugenie Sage has put up in Supplementary Order Paper 87.Let us turn our attention first of all to clause 7 of the bill which covers the contents of the synthesis reports. It asks that “(1) Each synthesis report must describe in relation to the topics prescribed in regulations made under section 18”—and I will come to section 18 in a further contribution—“all of the following matters: (a) the state of New Zealand’s environment including biodiversity and ecosystems; and (b) the pressures that may be causing …”. The reason why we are supporting the Supplementary Order Paper that addresses clause 7 of the bill is that what we want to see meaningful environmental reporting that is of genuine benefit to the environment and that gives us some way to analyse what the cause is of the state of the environment that we are observing. What we are seeing in terms of the legislation as it is before us in clause 7 is that it is far too descriptive and not analytical enough. What Eugenie Sage’s amendmentsays as set out is that there are ways to analyse the content of those reports and it is a far more productive and useful document when we have the synthesis reports come back to us. That is the change.We have signalled our opposition to this bill from the very beginning. We have signalled our opposition to it at the select committee and in our contributions to this stage of the debate. What we have also signalled is that we would be willing to support it if there are some changes made to the legislation as it is reported back. Actually making sure that we have meaningful synthesis reports and meaningful domain reports and the way that the Supplementary Order Paper sets out the amendments which would go some way to achieving this would mean that Labour could support the legislation. Like the Greens we would like to have seen some perhaps more far-reaching changes but we think that the amendments that have been put up particularly in Part 2 are going a long way towards making this a bill that every member in this House could agree to. I will be very interested to hear from the Minister in the chair the reason why the Government will not agree to the measures in Part 2 which are being put up and supported by a number of parties in this House and which would mean independent reporting.In mentioning this I am turning my attention now to clause 18 in Part 2 of the legislation. What I want to know from the Minister is why there is objection to putting in place protections to ensure that we do not just have a Minister of whatever political hue making decisions for political reasons about what is going to be reported on in our environmental reporting. What we want to see is that the decisions that are being made about what topics will be covered off are being made for purely environmental reasons—that they are in the best interests of the environment and not in the best interests of someone’s political agenda. That is what the amendments that Eugenie Sage has put up in her Supplementary Order Paper would achieve. She has found a very good way to work around that.There are other bodies. Many submitters came to the select committee and described other mechanisms that could be used to ensure that we do have independent environmental reporting. Although these have not found their way into the bill that we have before us they have found their way into Eugenie Sage’s Supplementary Order Paper and into the amendments that she has put up. Several other bodies were put up as alternatives. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment was put up as one body that could make the decision. The Parliamentary Commissioner herself told us that because she had a commentary role in this bill this would not be appropriate. So for that reason the amendments that we are looking at today look at alternative mechanisms. They look to the Government Statistician as one person along with the Secretary for the Environment and the power of regulation making and the way in which that can be used. It is our firm belief that when it comes to the interests of the environment we have to have political distance in place.The other clause that I want to turn my attention to now is the one covering the role of the commissioner which I alluded to in my discussion of a previous clause. The role of the commissioner is a very specific function under this legislation as covered off in clause 17: “(1) In accordance with his or her functions and powers under the Environment Act 1986 the Commissioner may at his or her discretion report on an environmental report and the processes that produced it. (2) The matters that the Commissioner may report on under subsection (1) include but are not limited to—(a) analysing environmental reports: (b) identifying trends: (c) discussing the implications of environmental report findings: (d) recommending responses to environmental report findings.”These are all incredibly important functions and already we have seen the commissioner produce one report that is a prelude to what is going to be produced under clause 17 of this legislation in terms of the air quality domain report that was produced earlier this year. It gave the public a bit of a taste of the worth and the value of the reporting that we could potentially see under this legislation. What we had from the commissioner was a very sound consideration of the science particularly with regard to particulate levels and what it is that we should be measuring when we are considering air quality in New Zealand. Should we be looking at the kind of particulate that we have previously measured which traditionally has been of concern in New Zealand—PM10—or should we go down to a smaller level and measure a different kind of particulate?It is our great desire to be able to support legislation such as this which is going to produce such sound information on the state of our environment. It is with sadness that Labour is not able to support this legislation. We are one of very few countries in the OECD that do not have an environmental reporting framework. We heard the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee Scott Simpson who did a very fine job of chairing the select committee say that we are clutching at straws—echoing the words of the Minister who was in the chair last night. But it is simply not true. We worked hard and we worked constructively at the select committee to try to ensure that we could have genuine independent environmental reporting in this country. That is not some straw. The fact that you do not have political decision-making for political purposes around how it is that we are going to have a safeguard around our environment is not what I call a straw. Perhaps the attitude of the Minister in the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee gets to the very heart of the problem and to why it is that we have a deficit in the legislation that we are debating here tonight. They do not see a problem with having political interference and political oversight of how it is that we measure the state of our environment. But for us in Labour and on this side of the House that is not just a straw in the wind; that is a fundamental that has to be there in any piece of legislation that purports to be about reporting on the state of our environment. It is lacking here and I will cover off some other things that are lacking in this legislation in further contributions on this part. For this I want to hear the Minister in the chair Craig Foss on his feet giving us an explanation as to why it is that we cannot put in place the mechanisms that are being put up in a Supplementary Order Paper that would give us independence.What is it that is so frightening about having a level of independence in the decision making around what it is that we report on? This is something that has to be addressed in the course of this debate. We cannot have a Minister who just sits there and refuses to address a question as fundamental as that. We are not asking for the earth. We are asking for a basic tenet of any robust and good environmental reporting system—that is independence from political interference. That is not too much to ask and until we can see that in this legislation we cannot support it.MATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): I just want to follow on from that member Megan Woods and talk about political interference independence and accountability. I think it is right that the Minister is involved with the domain reports and the synthesis reports for that mere fact of accountability. I would point out in clause 18 “Regulations” subclause (3) says: “Before recommending the making of regulations under subsection (1) the Ministers must consult (a) the Government Statistician; and (b) the Commissioner; and (c) the public; and (d) iwi authorities; and (e) local authorities.” So there is consultation and there is accountability. With that clause in there I think it does exactly that. It stops that political interference. It means the Ministers have to go through that consultation to speak with the Government Statistician the commissioner and the public especially. So the public will be involved in the domains and I think that very much answers that question around political interference.I can understand the calls for independence but equally what we want is accountability. That is why under this Government the Ministers will stand up and take accountability. I also draw reference to clause 15 about reports being fair and accurate. One thing that was not discussed in the previous stage around purpose is that the purpose of this bill—yes we are reporting on domains every 6 months and a synthesis report I think every 3 years but underneath that is trust and confidence.What this bill is doing through clause 15—we need to ensure that the public has trust and confidence in our environmental reporting. At the moment they quite rightly probably have very little trust and confidence. We are hardly on a par with other OECD countries and yet again it takes a National Government to stand up in the environmental space and deliver. So with the trust and confidence I think the public is sick of hearing half-truths and misinformation. We know that when we had the experience of the Green Party putting out around our primary industries having a high carbon emission rate.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume his seat. We are not having a good night tonight. The member is making a speech that might have been relevant at the second reading. We are now debating Part 2 as reported by the Local Government and Environment Committee and I want the member to come back to why or why not this particular part meets the objectives that the House has accepted at second reading.MATT DOOCEY: There is just one final clause I would like to refer to clause 13 “Roles of Secretary and Government Statistician”. Subclause (3) is about the Government Statistician understanding and being satisfied that best-practice principles are at play here. That is because we need to ensure that we have data quality. In the sense of measuring the reports of the domain reports we need to ensure that the quality of the data is rigorous and has value. So that is why I am happy to support this bill.Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister of Statistics): I just take the opportunity to talk particularly to Supplementary Order Paper 87 proposed by Eugenie Sage which has been a topic of a lot of the conversation. Clause 18 was as the member said earlier one of the contentious points during the select committee process at the second reading and now of course while we are on Part 2. There are concerns that some people have about clause 18. I do acknowledge though through the Chair that the work that the Local Government and Environment Committee did to get us to this point was obviously very very good work and well done to those members. It is unfortunate that some parties are not agreeing with and will not be voting for this part and this bill at the end of the day but let us see how we go.The concern seems to be about the independence of topic-setting by the Minister of Statistics and the Minister for the Environment and it is being made out as if this is something new. Well in fact the Statistics Act 1975 already has this same model embedded. In fact without reading the particular section of the Act the key point is that the ministerial power has never been exercised since the Act was passed in 1975 but it is essentially this same model. If in fact the Government Statistician believes the Minister has interfered in some way in the goings on or in the makings of statistics at an operational level under that particular Act they can report to the House or make public their concerns about that. As I noted that section has never been used at least not since 1975. Again that is the same model that we have here in this bill.I do note that the Supplementary Order Paper has a suggestion that the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician do the topic-setting. I also acknowledge Megan Woods’ point that there was another suggestion in I think an earlier discussion that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment do the topic-setting. But she also acknowledged why that should not happen and she pointed to some of the checks and balances in clause 17. That is absolutely fair enough but it brings me to the checks and balances because as the we saw in the second reading the House did accept the changes made by the select committee inserting more consultation around the topic-setting by the Ministers with local government and iwi.If there was deemed to be some mischief let us say clauses 6(1A) and 9(2) I think—I might have that round the wrong way—also point to the Supplementary Order Paper by Eugene Sage—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Eugenie Sage.Hon CRAIG FOSS: Excuse me—Eugenie Sage. Apologies for getting the name wrong. Clause 9(2) says: “As soon as is reasonably practicable after the Secretary and the Government Statistician have published a domain report the Ministers must jointly present the report to the House of Representatives.” So political accountability to this House to Parliament is actually paramount in this bill because the other side of the debate and the proposals from the member—in fact it is a well-worn path if you like that we have topic-setting in the regulatory process.But I note that if the topics were to be set by the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician well yes some may see that as being a better option. But having topic-setting in the regulations also allows for important levels of accountability to members of this Parliament who are representatives of and to the public. So if the Ministers are jointly recommending regulations—i.e. the topics—they are accountable for those choices made when setting topics and for ensuring that the scope of reporting is relevant to New Zealanders—i.e. they are accountable to this Parliament to this House. If as in the other proposal under the Supplementary Order Paper the Secretary for the Environment and/or the Government Statistician were to set the topics accountability for their decision making would be met through a judicial review as it is with any statutory power.So again there are pros and cons to both proposals. I fully acknowledge that but I also fully acknowledge that these were canvassed very well at the select committee. I acknowledge that those points were reported on in the various reports by the political parties in the commentary on the bill. But actually there is a well-worn path. The model of independence is already in place under the Statistics Act in the form of a regulatory process providing certainty and confidence and accountability to this Parliament and to this House and decisions made by those two Ministers in setting the topics are open for accountability to the House.The select committee did a good job in arriving at the decision that it did. It enhanced the original bill to give it further checks and balances given the concerns raised at the select committee and now these have been accepted by the House in the bill’s second reading. For those reasons we are not supportive of relitigating the discussion and argument as proposed in respect of the member’s Supplementary Order Paper.DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I do not think that the Minister who just spoke the Minister of Statistics really knows what accountability is in the context of this bill the Environmental Reporting Bill because what I heard from him was a speech about the functions of Ministers and not about their accountability at all. In fact this bill is fatally flawed as far as accountability and many other aspects of it are concerned.Clause 18 as agreed by the Local Government and Environment Committee makes it clear that topics are to be prescribed by regulation and that that will not be an independent method of selecting topics for reporting. There is no point in having a clause 14 that imposes a duty on the secretary and the Government Statistician to report and act independently when that is not the case as far as the selection of topics by Ministers is concerned. And there is no point in having a clause 15 imposing a duty on the secretary and the Government Statistician to report fairly and accurately when that is not something that is also required of the Ministers in setting the regulations to determine what the topics are. The truth is that it is purely and completely a function of the Ministers as to what topics are to be reported on and that is not independence and that is not accountability. So New Zealand First cannot support the bill for that reason not because we just want to oppose things as Scott Simpson says. These are good and substantial reasons for opposing the bill and New Zealand First prefers Eugenie Sage’s Supplementary Order Paper 87 instead.Clause 18 says the Ministers may cause regulations to be made prescribing topics for both synthesis reports and domain reports and that means that they can choose what they feel should be reported on and they can also choose that something will not be reported on presumably if that would not be convenient for the Government. There is only a little guidance given in clause 18(2) about how the topics are to be selected. There is the requirement that a pressure topic or impact topic has to affect significant areas resources or people and secondly there is a requirement about measurability. The only other limitation is in clause 18(3) which is the requirement to consult. Mr Doocey thought that meant that that created independence and accountability as far as the Ministers are concerned but of course it does not. A duty to consult is just that: to hear what others have to say and to take it into account. It does not mean that the Ministers cannot still choose what to report and what not to report on. So it does not go nearly far enough. In the end the section reserves full power to the Ministers to control environmental reporting in New Zealand with virtually no checks and balances nor any genuine oversight nor any genuine transparency nor any real accountability for the reasons that I gave. The Ministers as a result will have virtual carte blanche to do as they wish as far as environmental reporting is concerned in New Zealand. They will have massive manoeuvring room in deciding that they will have huge opportunities for manipulation—political manipulation—as far as that is concerned and most of all they will have the power to actually prevent reporting on topics that it is not convenient for the Government to have reports on.There are two good alternatives to what is proposed in the bill. One is that there could be a schedule in the Act every 3 years to determine what the topics should be. If it is done only every 3 years then that is not an excessive imposition on Parliament and that is actually democracy. It means the members in this House would have the opportunity to say what the topics should be. That would be debated in public and the public would therefore get a good grip on what was happening. But that is not going to be the case under this bill. The other alternative is Eugenie Sage’s Supplementary Order Paper 87 which provides that the secretary responsible for the Environment Act and the Government Statistician would jointly determine what the topics would be. That is independence. That is a system that does not involve Ministers at all and excludes the possibility of political interference. That is what independence means not what some of the members on the other side of the House think it means.The only other thing that I wanted to mention about this part was clause 16 because it has not been sufficiently altered by the committee—indeed not really altered at all. It prevents the Official Information Act from operating as intended by limiting access to what is called untested information. Officials will be able to withhold information that they prefer to avoid being put out into the public arena. Members of the public will not be able access this so-called untested information and they should be entitled to do so. It is arrogant for the Government to say to the public of New Zealand that they do not need—and they should not have access to—that information because it is untested. Well in my view it is over to the people of New Zealand to decide what they believe is valid and valuable and worthwhile information whether it is tested or not. Why should it matter whether it is tested or not? The public should still have access to it. It is for them to decide whether it is of value and not for some official to do so. Nowhere else I believe in similar legislation is an excuse like that given for excluding the operation of the Official Information Act. After all it is harmless statistical information. It is not as though it is dangerous information so what harm is there in allowing that information to be given?In the end this bill just fails. It fails completely not only because it behaves with arrogance towards the New Zealand public by not giving them information that they should be able to access but because it does not ensure that reporting is independent. The only way it can be independent is if Ministers do not in the end determine what topics are to be reported on or indeed are not to be reported on. Either of the two alternatives that I gave would be satisfactory and I believe would earn the support of every party in this Committee. We are not opposing this bill just because that is our job; we are opposing it for good and substantial reasons. If the Government was to move on this in the way that I and others have suggested it would earn full support right across the Committee because we all want to see a high standard of environmental reporting. That can be achieved only without political interference with independence and with genuine accountability. This bill just does not measure up.EUGENIE SAGE (Green): I rise with some degree of trepidation given your rulings tonight on relevance but we will give it every effort to make sure that the comments are relevant. I could just thank the Minister for his contribution to the debate but I think it is interesting that if you look at the Statistics Act and section 6 of that Act it provides that “No government department shall commence or commission any statistical survey or make a substantial alteration to an … existing survey without the written approval of the Minister:”. I think that is quite different from the provision that we are seeing in this bill which has in clause 18 the Ministers actually setting the topics for environmental reporting. In the Statistics Act it is the actual Government Statistician who comes up with the ideas and the proposals for statistical surveys; the Minister simply has to approve them.I think it is quite ironic that we have celebrated 800 years since the signing of Magna Carta this week. From its beginning this Parliament has adopted the Magna Carta’s ideals of individual liberty and freedom and constraint of power. One of the concepts of the rule of law is checks on the power of the executive and an independent non-politicised Public Service that is able to provide robust advice to Ministers is one of the checks on the powers of the executive. So that is one of our major concerns with this bill because the regulation-making powers in the bill exist only for the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Statistics to set the topics for domain reports and synthesis reports. That is concentrating power in the hands of Ministers. It undermines in our view the rule of law. It also signals that this Government does not trust the Public Service. It does not trust senior chief executives.By enabling the topics to be set by Ministers the Government is politicising this whole process. That is why my Supplementary Order Paper 87 and the changes it proposes to clause 18 provide for a much more independent and robust system because under my Supplementary Order Paper the Government Statistician and the Secretary for the Environment instead of Ministers would determine the topics to be covered in both the synthesis and the domain reports. The process that is set out in the bill for there to be consultation with the public iwi local authorities and the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment would continue. Instead of having regulations—there would be no need for those—the topics would simply be notified in the Gazette.So that is one of the changes in my Supplementary Order Paper. The other ones I would like to comment on are the changes to clauses 7 and 10 because clauses 7 and 10 set out the content of the synthesis reports and the domain reports—the synthesis reports being produced every 3 years and the domain reports on an occasional basis every 6 months. Clause 7 at the moment lists the matters that the synthesis reports should cover including the pressures that are causing or may cause changes to the state of the environment and the impacts that those changes may be having on ecological integrity public health the economy Te Ao Māori and culture and recreation. Officials told us that that was not intended to be an exclusive list of matters yet the bill is not clear on that.There is an advantage always in the law being clear. It reduces the scope for litigation. So my Supplementary Order Paper seeks to make it crystal clear that the lists in clause 7 and clause 10 are not exhaustive lists. There are other matters that are obviously missing here. One of them is general social well-being. That is not listed in clause 7 or clause 10. The other obvious omission is that there is no reference to climate change the greatest—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I apologise for interrupting the member. The time has come for me to report progress.House resumed.The Chairperson reported the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf Environmental Shelf (Environmental Effects) (Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill without amendment progress on the Environmental Reporting Bill and no progress on the New Zealand Superannuation and Retirement Income Amendment Bill.Report adopted.