Smith Nick: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5220. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): The Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill exposes just how lazy Labour has been after 6 years in Opposition. This bill is the sum total of its contribution to improving New Zealand’s management of its environment. It is poor law and it is a vacant bill and let me explain why. Somehow there is a view on Labour’s benches that adding the words “(Protection of the Environment)” will somehow save the planet. It is as shallow as saying: “Let’s just pass a bill that says: ‘Let’s Make Sure All the Children Don’t Go Hungry’. That’ll fix it. Let’s pass a law for workplace safety: ‘All Workplaces Will Be Safe’. Let’s pass a Health Act that says: ‘Nobody Will Get Sick’.” That is how pathetic this bill is in its contribution to improving the state of New Zealand’s environmental laws.Let me share the legal advice from the Ministry for the Environment because it too shows just what a pathetic bill this is. You see the Environmental Protection Authority administers the Resource Management Act on a decision like the flyover. It administers the legislation on climate change. It administers the legislation on hazardous substances and new organisms. Each of those Acts has a very clear purpose about what it is about. What the Ministry for the Environment rightly says is that by somehow asking: “Is the purpose of the Resource Management Act sustainable management?” that should make up the decision on a case like the flyover or should it be this—can the member answer me?Grant Robertson: Sorry what was that?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Does the purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority when it makes a decision on the flyover—should it be the purpose of the Resource Management Act which is a purpose clause that has been debated extensively in the House or should this bill be it?Grant Robertson: No the EPA has objectives Nick and that’s how they help make the decisions.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Oh the member cannot give me a straight answer. He actually does not know the answer to that critical legal question. The point is that the Environmental Protection Authority makes its decisions under the climate change legislation under the Resource Management Act under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act and under the purposes that are contained within those Acts and it just creates legal confusion and a mess if you then superimpose the provisions that are in this bill. It is sort of like saying that if we want to protect the environment all we need to do is to repeat those two words 10 times and it will be better environmental protection. Well why not put them into the Act 20 times or 30 times? Of course the words “environmental protection” are in the Environmental Protection Act. Of course the words—Grant Robertson: Where?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: In the title. Of course the words “environmental protection” are a core part of the Environmental Protection Authority.What sort of shallowness masquerades as good environmental policy by putting two extra words into the law? Is that the sum total of the intellectual rigour that Labour is prepared to give around the environmental challenges that our country has? Labour opposed the establishment of the Environmental Protection Authority and if this bill is the sum total of Labour’s contribution to good environmental law in this country it needs to spend another hundred years in Opposition to be able to make a contribution to better law in this area.This is a pathetic bill. This bill will do absolutely zip for the protection of the environment. It is the sort of bill you have when you have no other ideas about how to make a contribution. This House should reject this bill consistently with the sound advice that has come from the Ministry for the Environment. It does nought. It contributes nothing. It is the sort of policy you have when you have no policy.