Muller Todd: Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMuller Todd: Environmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 June 2015. Volume:707;Page:4871. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TODD MULLER (National—Bay of Plenty):I rise to take a call on the Environmental Reporting Bill particularly on Part 2. Can I start by just acknowledging the comments from Kris Faafoi and obviously express condolences from this side of the Chamber on his loss—obviously of an advocate for the Tokelauan community.In respect though of the specific Supplementary Order Paper that he raised I certainly hold the view that the priority of this bill is quite rightly New Zealand and should remain New Zealand. The various impact categories that the various synthesis reports and domain reports are to cover as expressed by Part 2 should be focused quite rightly on New Zealand so in that respect I am not swayed that we should widen the scope at this point in time in terms of the enabling legislation to the Pacific Islands and the broader South Pacific community. That said—I think over time as the various synthesis reports are produced every 3 years—who is to say that in the future those synthesis reports might not talk to the interrelationship between the New Zealand environmental position and those of our Australasian and Pacific neighbours? Into the future that may well be a part of the synthesis report.Specifically in respect of Part 2 there are a couple of points that I would like to note. I appreciate that there has been some conversation on this already among members of the select committee. I think the changes to clause 7 were useful particularly around providing clarity on the specific impact categories that came from our select committee deliberations. With regard to the previous clause 7(1)(c)(iii) which stated “economic benefits derived from utilising natural resources:” I think it was quite right that submitters to our collective deliberations pointed out that this was the only category that referred to benefits and the new wording that we have in that clause is more neutral. It specifically says that the economy just needs to be one of the categories considered.Also the introduction of Te Ao Māori—the Māori World—view again reflected significant feedback from the submitters to the process: that the language that the original bill used was perhaps not quite as comprehensive as it needed to be in order to capture that particular component and of course we are all pretty comfortable with the new proposed wording.I notice clause 8. It is very good to see the change there in respect of the first synthesis report now being required to be published not later than 3 years after the date of the first domain report. That makes sense. Further on in clause 8(2) we have a clarification of the timing in respect of the first domain report and then that triggers the requirement to have our first synthesis report within 3 years. So I think that is very useful. Under the domain reports in clause 9(2) I think the introduction of the requirement “As soon as is reasonably practicable after the Secretary and the Government Statistician have published a domain report the Ministers must jointly present the report to the House of Representatives.” is also a very helpful addition in terms of transparency and public awareness of the outcomes of these particular reports.In terms of clause 13 we had quite a long debate and discussion ably assisted by officials helping us through this particular challenge on the roles of the Secretary for the Environment and in particular the Government Statistician and on the requirement to ensure the independence of those two through the environmental reporting framework. We had quite a lot of debate about that. A number of submitters wanted to mandate explicitly that the Government Statistician and the Secretary for the Environment seek expert advice. I think that what we have here does enable the Government Statistician to be able to seek that advice. They are able to utilise expertise from other agencies. Certainly I feel that they have enabled through this proposed bill the capacity to be able to get the information that they need. It is certainly my view that clause 14 and the rather explicit duty to act independently provide the adequate safeguards to protect independence for both the Government Statistician and the Secretary for the Environment.We had a significant debate over the original clause 16 “Disclosure of information”. As the select committee has deliberated we have seen a significant change to that clause. Essentially there was a long debate about the ability to be able to disclose information and analysis to the public and about whether that was an open right and obligation all through the process. Clearly we felt that it would be appropriate to have in some part of that process—particularly around untested information that needed to stay protected as they tested their methodology and tested the ultimate conclusions of the report—a requirement for that definition of untested information to stay outside the public domain as the reports were being developed. I think that is a sensible way through. It focuses just on data and statistics and findings that have not been published previously and it does create I think the opportunity to protect the independence and the integrity of environmental reporting and does not hinder access. This untested information is of course time bound and once the publication ultimately becomes public in the public domain then of course the release of that background information is enabled. So this is a particular subset of information that is required to be kept out of the public domain as it is part of pulling together that final report with the integrity and robustness that is required.My last comment relates to clause 18. I appreciate that there has been quite a lot of debate about this but I would like to add my voice to that. Clearly a number of submitters opposed clause 18 as outlined. We have heard some very strong and impassioned views: that Ministers setting topics is incompatible with independent environmental reporting. I am not swayed by that view. I was not at the start and I am still not swayed. In my view it is absolutely appropriate for Ministers to be able to hold a view on the topics for these reports within the tight parameters of the clauses that are listed in clause 18. The topics are outlined. The robust data and statistical methodology is outlined plus there is a significant requirement for consultation. I am simply just not swayed by the view that somehow that is an environment for an overt politicisation of the process. If you move to the specifics particularly around the topics clause 18(2) states that the Ministers must be satisfied “that any—(a) pressure topic or impact topic affects significant areas resources or numbers of people: (b) topic can be measured with robust statistical methods: (c) pressure topic is closely related to any state topic…”.In essence what this is saying is that we have a framework that in my view materially constrains a Minister to be able to focus on signing off or proposing a topic within that framework. Bearing in mind that both the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Statistics have an obligation under this to consult with the Government Statistician the commissioner the public iwi authorities and local authorities that is a very robust obligation on the executive to consult widely on what those topics should be. I have a lot of confidence that ultimately we will get an outcome here that is sensible and that delivers a significant improvement to the reporting on the state of the environment in this country.In conclusion it is worth repeating that this is another step of reform in a Government that has delivered significant reform in the reporting of the environmental state of this country enabling us to have a data-informed data-enriched discussion.