Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It's really interesting listening to the speaker who has just resumed her seat Dr Liz Craig as she prepares for her electoral migratory transformation north to Dunedin South for opportunities to nest there in her new habitat. I'm sure that it won't be long before she takes flight from her current habitat and decides that the attraction and lure of Dunedin South is far too compelling and her migratory flight will be complete in a few months' time.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That's very interesting but could you come to the Estimates.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: The Estimates debate is very important. What we've found actually is that this was a Government that came into Government on such high promise and such high hope and then what's happened is that we heard at the Estimates hearings actually so little has been delivered—so little. So much of the promise so much of the hype so much of the expectation hasn't been delivered. For a party or an accumulation of parties that like to ban it tax it or make things compulsory actually they've done very little. Their urge and their natural instinct is to do that but they haven't really done it and so we heard about plans for further tinkering with the Resource Management Act. Actually what it amounts to is the Minister conceding that really all they've done is set up another working group—Dan Bidois: Another one.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —literally another working group—and just literally kicked the can down the road for another couple of years.We heard that they hadn't been able to deliver on their promise on their much-vaunted campaign promise and then the commitment that was made in the Speech from the Throne. The Minister came to the select committee and told us that they had made no progress on their commitment to put a royalty or tax on the export of bottled water—that that had proved too hard for them; that the slogan that the campaign placards actually were too hard for them to deliver on. And then guess what? Now suddenly it's not a priority for them. Just changed priority because that's an area they're not delivering on.We heard about the lack of progress in terms of planning standards: no delivery no progress no policy formulation no delivery at all. And then we heard about their lack of performance and their lack of focus on our much-degraded urban waterways. And it's well known across the country that our most degraded waterways are in fact our urban waterways. What progress has been made? Zero—almost none almost none. And here we are into their—well they're running towards the end of their term. They're running out of legislative runway they're running out of regulatory runway and they're running out of time and so there won't be anything there for them to do. The Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary is another area—absolute non delivery. There's a bill that's been sitting on the Order Paper for years now and no progress made. They came in and they said they were going to fix it. They said that there was an opportunity to fix it. Nothing has occurred. We talked about at select committee the lack of progress on coming to terms with the new science and technology of biotechnology. Nothing being done. The Government is seeking advice on whether the law caters appropriately for any new technologies. That's about all: seeking advice. And so what we found in select committee when we were hearing from the Minister—and it was interesting that none of the Associate Ministers fronted and were ready to answer questions—Hon Member: Again again.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: —for a second year in a row no Associate Ministers prepared to come and answer questions of the select committee.But the real problem for this Government is actually—we as an Opposition of course had very low expectations of this Government delivering on any of their environmental promises. And sadly I have to report that our low expectations have been met. In fact our low expectations of their delivery have been exceeded. But the people who are feeling most let down about the lack of delivery from this Government particularly in environmental areas and particularly from the Green members of the coalition are their own supporters. Those are the people who had the highest expectations. Those are the people who had an expectation that the promises that were made the commitments that were made would be kept. Actually no delivery and it's their own supporters who have been most frustrated who are most angry and are feeling most let down by a Government who has been utterly unable to deliver on even some of the most basic of their environmental commitments and promises. And as an environmentalist as a conservationist it comes as a great shame.