O'Rourke Denis: Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Environmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4874. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): I would like to respond to some of the speeches made by the members opposite with regard to clause 18 of the Environmental Reporting Bill and especially the question of independence when it comes to the choosing of topics under that clause. In doing so I would have five questions that I think the people of New Zealand some of whom may be watching this debate should ask themselves in relation to that clause.The first one is why it should be just two Ministers who should choose those topics when clearly much better options exist. I think that is a question that those members on the opposite benches have not properly answered and that I have not heard answered yet. Fundamentally there are two alternatives being put forward both of which seem to me to be better. One is that proposed by Eugenie Sage which would be for the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician to jointly make those decisions. If that was the case we could then guarantee independence and transparency. Alternatively there could actually be a schedule to the Act which would then have to be changed every 3 years. That would not be a bad thing because it would involve the whole of Parliament in doing that and after all every 3 years is not so frequent that it would be impracticable. I think both of those would be superior to what is provided here.The second question I would ask is why those members opposite feel that the regime set up in clause 18 is indeed a robust one. That is a word that they have used and that I have heard several of them use. When you look at clause 18(2) in particular you see that the language used is for example in paragraph (a) of clause 18(2) that the Minister must be satisfied that “significant areas resources or numbers of people:”are involved or that in paragraph (b) any “topic can be measured with robust statistical methods:” and so on. So it comes down to the personal opinion of the Minister as to whether those Ministers are satisfied with those things. How do we know? What will be the backup information provided so that the rest of us can tell whether the conclusions reached by the two Ministers are reasonable in respect of those issues? There is a complete silence as far as those matters are concerned.The third question is whether consultation is a substitute for independent decision-making. I particularly remember Minister Smith commenting: “Don’t worry. It’s all OK because we have in clause 18(3) a provision for consultation.” as though somehow that was a substitute for independent decision-making. Well consultation is not decision making at all. It is simply an obligation to hear and to take into account the views of others. There is nothing wrong with that but it is not in fact decision making and it makes no genuine contribution to the requirement that many of us are concerned about which is genuine independent decision-making. So I say to those members opposite and especially to Minister Smith: you have failed totally to convince me that consultation is in any way a substitute for independent decision-making. I think that the people in the public listening to this debate today would understand exactly what I mean.The fourth question relates to one particular issue that I have not heard members opposite speak about at all. That is the point that this regime talks about which topics Ministers may choose. But they have not talked about the fact that under this regime Ministers could actually decide not to report at all on some topics and would have no responsibility to discuss them or tell people anything about them and we would never know. That is not good enough. I think that one of the most dangerous parts of clause 18 in this whole regime would be for Ministers to simply decide that there is a topic here that they do not want discussed in public and to be reported on and so they will make sure that it does not happen. I think that is one of the big defects in this. The final—