O'Connor GregEnvironmentHon EUGENIE SAGE (Chairperson of the Environment Committee): Thank you Mr Chair. So the Environment Committee reviewed seven agencies in the environment sector and I will give a very brief overview of some of those agencies. I am very aware that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in a landmark report last year entitled Environmental reporting research and investment: Do we know if we're making a difference? highlighted the need for more information so that this Parliament could do its job better on reviewing expenditure and looking at the allocation of expenditure across the Government as a whole in terms of environmental issues rather than just on an agency-by-agency basis and if we had better environmental reporting information we would be better able to determine whether the money being spent on the environment—over $3 billion in the 2022-23 year—was actually making a difference in terms of supporting the health and resilience of the environment. So we do need that better information but the committee did examine agencies one by one and one of them of course was the Climate Change Commission. The commission has been incredibly useful to the Environment Committee in terms of its briefings to us on how the emissions trading scheme operates and on things like biogenic methane but more importantly it's been critical in terms of the advice that it is providing the Government in its second year of operation as a trusted independent adviser on how we get our emissions down and also in relation to adaptation.The commission is a small entity. It's only in its second year of operation. It's been working over the 2021-22 year to build up its core capabilities systems and processes. It's got a small budget of $12.5 million and only 58 full-time staff but it does seek to provide that really high-quality advice. It has provided advice to the Government on amending the emissions trading scheme and the price control settings two reports during the year on agricultural pricing and some clear advice on how we should not rely too heavily on forestry as a cheap abatement measure. Cabinet hasn't always accepted that advice but it does provide a huge amount of transparency and accountability in the system through the advice being released. Of course a significant achievement in the year was the release and the Government's publication of our first national adaptation plan in August last year and the commission will assess and evaluate that report and look at how those actions are being implemented.Also obviously we looked at the Ministry for the Environment. Since 2018-19 the Ministry for the Environment's expenditure and its staff have grown significantly—more than doubling—to $170 million in 2021-22 with over 820 staff. That's because it's been engaged in five major reform programmes and the select committee did make some quite strong questioning of the chief executive and senior managers there. The committee knows some of that reform well because we're dealing with the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill. That's one of the major reform programmes as well as climate change improving regulatory systems and sustainable land and freshwater use and we heard from the ministry that its focus is very much now not just on being a policy agency but also on implementation. One of the new entities that the committee looked at was the interdepartmental Climate Change Chief Executives Board and how in terms of the national emissions reduction plan that board is seeking to get greater collaboration across the public sector for the different areas that agencies are responsible for in terms of reducing their emissions. A similar initiative is the Strategic Planning Reform Board which again is seeking to get collaboration across the greater spatial planning that is required under the resource management reform. One of the areas we focused on was the Jobs for Nature – Mahi mō te Taiao the $1.2 billion four-year project which was established as part of Budget 2020 as part of the COVID-19 recovery programme. We separately examined that. The major projects that are under way from the Kaipara Harbour seeking to improve the health of the harbour—landholders farmers iwi working together to reduce sediment—and the real change-making nature of Jobs for Nature. Some of us on the select committee were concerned about what happens when the funding ends in June next year. Obviously organisations knew when they were applying for funding that it was for a four-year term but that was one of the many projects—CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): The member's time has come to a conclusion.