O'Rourke Denis: Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionO'Rourke Denis: Environmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 17 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4540. Text is subject to correction.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First):I wanted to speak about only 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.