Coffey TamatiTĀMATI COFFEY (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to stand and contribute to this bill the Resource Management (Regional Responsibility for Certain Agricultural Matters) Amendment Bill which is getting people a little bit heated tonight I've got to say.Look first of all congratulations to Mark Cameron from ACT for bringing this bill before the House—Hon Simon Bridges: That must be the first talking point!David Seymour: It's bullet point No. 1!TĀMATI COFFEY: I'll take a moment of gratitude—that's for you—and I won't be distracted by catty little calls from across the Chamber. Thank you for that Mark.Can I just first of all respond to something that the Opposition person who just sat down before me Scott Simpson said. He said Labour were late—late—to improving our waterways and you see some people might buy that because they don't quite understand the investment that previous Labour Governments have gone and made and I would say that that member is probably being quite selective about the history of being able to improve our waterways. And I want to take the opportunity to just talk about the commitment that was made under the last Labour Government to clean up the waterways around Rotorua. An announcement was made by the Rt Hon Helen Clark back in 2008 for a restoration plan around the lakes—$144 million was made to improve the water quality of four priority lakes: Lake Rotorua Lake Rotoiti Lake Ōkareka and Lake Rotoehu.So just that actually completely disproves what the person who sat down just before me Scott Simpson said which was that this side of the House know nothing about the environment we're late to the party we've been asleep at the wheel. I absolutely negate that because actually we've been very careful about the environment for a very long time and long have Labour also had the confidence of Māori too and I would say that Māori for a very long time have wanted to have kaitiakitanga over our waterways and over our water bodies and unfortunately this bill doesn't quite cut the mustard when it comes to making sure that especially from my point of view the rights of Māori are looked after in this as well.We have had many submissions to the Environment Committee talking about reform of the resource management system. There are a lot of people that want to be involved in the planning and the organisation—at a local level granted; at a local level—of our environment. And to those people who put in their submissions over the 15 days that we were sitting I thank them for it. But what they said was especially our Māori communities We want a say. We want a local say. We're OK with setting national direction. We're OK with also regional plans as well." And I get what this is trying to achieve but as far as I'm concerned this doesn't quite get there. There is a lot of reform going on. I heard the previous member when he said that actually we should be still sending it to select committee but I would say to that that there is a large body of work going on across all of our select committees across Parliament. In fact we've been criticised by the Opposition for having too much on and here he goes wanting to lump some more work on us. But actually this is a piece of work that I again thank the member for bringing forward but it's not going to get support from me from this side of the House.What I look forward to is actually a continuation of the really really good work that we are doing in the Environment Committee specifically around looking after our environment. Te mana o te Wai Te Oranga o te Taiao—these are all concepts that we are grappling with in our committee and this is a lightly once over this bill here. What I want is a good and robust debate a good robust piece of legislation where we can actually talk about all of those issues that have been brought forward by the various submissions in terms of looking forward to the next 25 30 years of New Zealand's planning system. This doesn't do it for me. The reform that we're currently embarking on—that we will see to fruition—will be a large part of that and the legislation that we eventually put through will be informed by all of those people who have come forward and raised their concerns not just about one little slice of the pie but actually about how the whole of the environment works together how Māori can participate in co-governance structures—as we should as defined by Te Tiriti; as the Crown should be a good Crown Treaty partner—and that's what I'm looking forward to. Unfortunately I won't be supporting this bill."