Dyson Ruth: Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDyson Ruth: Environmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4545. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]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.