Bayly AndrewANDREW BAYLY (National—Hunua): It is a pleasure to be talking on this member's bill. I too must congratulate the member James Shaw on putting this bill forward for discussion tonight. It is an interesting proposal and one that at first glance is very appealing. It has those elements of making sure that fiscal policy aligns clearly with environmental outcomes. At that level I think many people will share the view that this is prima facie something that is worthwhile pursuing. I think everyone in the House shares the same concern for the environment and for making sure that we are protecting what we do in New Zealand and keeping it in trust for future generations. So at that point there is no discussion and I believe no disagreement.What this bill does do however is that it starts to cut across and become almost a conflict between what you are trying to achieve from a financial perspective and what you are trying to achieve in a number of other areas—not only environmental but also social issues and you can put population into that category and demographic changes right through to the whole range of different aspects that New Zealanders hold dear. I think the biggest issue and the one that troubles me most about the bill is the inherent conflict that it introduces but at the same time there is almost a doubling up. What I mean by that last point is that when Treasury comes to do the financial forecast—and obviously we have all talked tonight about the different processes and it is a very convoluted process for Government to first present the Budget and then to report back—the inherent assumptions that go to make those projections largely pick up many of the aspects that are included in this proposed bill.For instance—I am just turning my mind to schedule 8 of the proposed bill—there is a list of aspects that have to be taken into account. Seven indicators which again when you start to think about it—the first one is population indicators. By way of example it talks about population size and growth fertility rates dependency ratios ethnic diversity and regional population change. So when the Budget comes to be made obviously people have to have regard to what is happening with immigration and what is happening with fertility rates. Those assumptions are made and we heard earlier—in fact even the Opposition was talking earlier about the fact that Treasury does 40-year forecasts. So many of those factors actually inherently have to be assumed and taken into account when preparing those financial projections.The other aspect that I just cannot link back to a financial concept is things like the biodiversity indicators. These are things like threatened species distribution of native species and area of native land cover for instance. For me of course those are vitally important and as I said before we all believe those are vitally important in terms of maintaining them. But the issue is: how do you actually quantify that when you come to do a financial budget? At the end of the day you have got to have financial outcomes.I think the mismatch with what is being proposed here is essentially around what we want to achieve as a nation and what those high-level outcomes are that we are trying to do. So if you go back to a different form—what are those economic outputs what are those financials? They all have a relationship. But to try to inject some of these issues into how you prepare a set of accounts—which is basically what a budget is—is a very very difficult concept and I think it will inherently lead to conflict.I think many of these things are covered by a number of other Acts and I have heard previous speakers talk about it. By way of example the third category in the bill Air and atmosphere indicators" is actually covered by the Environmental Reporting Act. Trying to make sure that we do not get to a point where we are getting conflicting information to help what we think is going to create a better Budget outcome I do not believe is the best way to go about doing it. I think it is very important that we are clear about the assumptions and they are built up looking at all these other aspects that are covered by various Acts to ultimately achieve a good Budget. This is what I think happens and on that basis I cannot support the bill."