Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I rise to take a call mainly in relation to Vote Environment but I am also going to touch on climate change. Obviously in the 5 minutes that I have available I cannot touch on all environmental matters so I am going to use the criteria that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment used last week when she announced her critique of the Government's State of the Environment report. She I think gave Parliament some wise advice. She said that we should be concentrating on what is important widespread and where the trend is worrisome.If she applied those three criteria she said that some things are getting better and therefore we do not need to be too worried about them—like air quality. She gave the example of where air quality is getting better—it has for quite a long time now. It needs to improve a little bit in some areas but we can be pretty satisfied as a country that we have got that under control. She said in respect of point-source discharges into rivers like municipal sewage outlets factory discharges those sorts of things that whilst not perfect—there were some to be cleaned up—overall as a country we have that under control.She noted two areas where we are in a worrisome position where—after 8 years of this Government—things actually are not under control and in some areas are getting worse. The two she noted were water quality from non - point-source discharges—this is increased intensity of agriculture making our waterways dirtier. Her second point was in respect of climate change and gases. She emphasised—this is a point that I am going to come back to I hope if I have time—that at times there is a crossover between those things. This is because where the Government's policy has been worse it has caused worse outcomes both in terms of water quality and in respect of climate-changing emissions.My assessment of water quality is that we are still paying the price of the Government's having spiked the form of the national policy statement that was awaiting it shortly after it took Government which had been overseen by the former Principal Environment Judge Judge Sheppard. It essentially said that clean rivers ought to be kept clean; dirty rivers ought to be cleaned up over a generation; and in order to stop clean rivers getting dirtier and to do this effectively we had to make it clear that increases in land-use intensity that increased non - point-source discharges could no longer be a permitted activity until such time as we had decent rules and plans controlling those sorts of eventualities so that overall effects do not get worse. The national policy statement that the Minister for the Environment through the Land and Water Forum has put forward is not yet of that quality because it is not of that effect. We still have areas in New Zealand where non - point-source discharges are getting worse and water quality is deteriorating. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's report makes that clear and reports on the widespread incidence of where it is getting worse.In respect of climate change the economic irrationality of the Government's settings is quite wrong. Yes we have improved in electricity-generation emissions because of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) covering them and because of various other initiatives—mainly from the last Government but which have been continued by the current Government. Yes transport emissions are actually getting a little bit better but there is not nearly as much improvement as there should be. The standout area where things are still getting worse is agricultural emissions. What does the Government do? It excludes it not just from the ETS but—they see no evil hear no evil—also from the terms of reference of the review of the ETS which is just irresponsible. Indeed some of the major submitters came along and said: Look we'll put up our hand for doing away with the two-for-one emission rights. We'll pay our full quota. But we don't think it's fair that we should have to take on the burden of the increase in emissions that's occurring in agriculture." So they came along and said that this is economically irrational and environmentally damaging—and they are right on both counts.An example of that is what has happened in forestry. As the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment said if we had better signals around deforestation—if we were charging them a reasonable price for deforestation instead of letting the price of carbon go to zero—if we were charging agriculture for increased agricultural emissions following land clearance then we would have had less of both. We would have had lower climate-changing emissions we would have improved water quality we would have had less nutrient load and we would not have blown the dairy bubble bigger—as the Government did before it popped—flushing billions of dollars of wasted investment down the drain. So the incompetence of the Government in that area has made our climate-changing emissions worse our water quality worse and our economy weaker—a trifecta that I am sure that the Minister will call comprehensive."