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:4552. Text is subject to correction.]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.