12. Environmental Reporting—Confidence and Number of Public Servants Working on Climate ChangeEUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the EnvironmentEnvironmental Reporting—Confidence and Number of Public Servants Working on Climate Change12. EUGENIE SAGE (Green) to the Minister for the Environment: Does he have confidence in the quality of the Government's environmental reporting?Hon CRAIG FOSS (Minister for Small Business) on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: Yes. The reporting programme draws from the scientific expertise of the Ministry for the Environment and the independence and statistical rigour of the Government Statistician. I also welcome the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's (PCE) response to Environment Aotearoa 2015 and the associated website and data service. The report has been enabled by the environmental reporting regime established by the Environmental Reporting Act. I value the PCE's views and note her comments that those who worked on Environment Aotearoa 2015 are to be commended for producing an entire synthesis report so soon under the new system. Eugenie Sage: Why should New Zealanders trust the Government's state of the environment report when the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says it provides very little information about how good or bad aspects of the environment are in different parts of the country and that it presents environmental statistics without context?Hon CRAIG FOSS: I totally reject that attack on the independence of Statistics New Zealand and the good work of the officials in the Ministry for the Environment. The original report is a joint report using the expertise of both those agencies and organisations to assist the Government. I do note that it is this Government that has probably done more for environmental reporting and taking action than that party over there forever speaks about.Eugenie Sage: Can the Minister explain why his ministry has only 1.4 full-time staff working on responding to the impacts of climate change when the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment describes climate change as the most serious environmental issue we face?Hon CRAIG FOSS: As other Ministers have answered and said in this House we take climate change—and all things environmental—very very seriously. We do not measure it by simple headcounts and blunt instruments such as that member is describing. I was quite happy to stand by this Government's record in all things environmental than whatever that party claims to represent.Eugenie Sage: I seek leave to table the Ministry for the Environment's answers to the select committee which are not publicly available that show only 1.4 full-time ministry—Mr SPEAKER: No. No. Order! [Interruption] Order! The purpose of tabling that information is to make members more aware of it. It is available to all members.Eugenie Sage: Why has the Minister still not produced an action plan as the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment recommends to fix the environmental issues that were identified in the state of the environment report released last October; and when can we expect to get such a plan?Hon CRAIG FOSS: We welcome the report today and we are looking forward to the further reports that are coming from our various reporting regimes. The original report builds on previous reports and I am quite sure that the advice or some of the recommendations from the PCE are taken seriously. In today's report she commends the Ministry for the Environment and its statistics for the actions it has taken subsequent to her report on the earlier report.