Wagner Nicky: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWagner Nicky: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 31 July 2013. Volume:692;Page:12160. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]NICKY WAGNER (Chairperson of the Local Government and Environment Committee):The Ministry for the Environment administers Vote Environment and the Minister for Climate Change Issues and the Minister for the Environment are responsible for that vote. The 2013-14 Vote Environment appropriation is $326.5 million and the Minister for the Environment is responsible for approximately 40 percent of that vote and the Minister for Climate Change Issues is responsible for the other 60 percent. Funding for Vote Environment tends to fluctuate from year to year depending on the work streams or the roles of the ministry. In 2013-14 the appropriation is approximately double that of 2010-11 and slightly less than the 2012-13 appropriation.The priorities for the Ministry for the Environment for 2013-14 are reforms in freshwater management and resource management and also a new focus on environmental reporting. Ten percent of the vote a total of $33.7 million is for policy work and projects to improve water quality and that is to follow up on the work done by the Land and Water Forum and also the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management 2011 and for clean-ups of historically contaminated water bodies. The work streams in 2013-14 will focus on collaborative planning processes for water. They will also establish a national objectives framework. The idea of that framework is to set freshwater quality objectives and limits and find ways to manage and allocate water within quality and quantity limits.Almost $14 million is targeted to clean up waterways. It is great to see restoration projects in places like Lake Te Waihora which is Lake Ellesmere in Canterbury and also theManawatū River the Wairarapa Moana theWainoni Lagoon in South Canterbury and the Waituna Lagoon.The Minister for the Environment has also prioritised resource management reform. We need to maintain the quality of our resource management decisions but we need to streamline the process so that we can be more consistent and more predictable and we can reduce costs and get more timely decisions. We are already making progress on this. We passed the streamlining and simplification legislation and we have had some very pleasing results from everybody who has been using that and there is more legislation on the way.Funding has increased under the appropriation for the Community Environment Fund. This time it is $6.4 million and that is up from the $2.4 million that was spent in 2012-13. That appropriation is made to strengthen partnerships to raise environmental awareness and to encourage participation in environmental initiatives. There has also been an increase in funding for the Contaminated Sites Remediation Fund and that increases to $5.4 million which is over $5 million more than was spent in 2012-13. I think it is really important to see theTūī Mine site. That was one of the worst-contaminated sites in New Zealand and it has been successfullyremediated. With the success of the work there and the increased funding I think that will encourage other clean-ups in contaminated sites across the country.New Zealanders are very aware that we want and we need to keep our environment clean and green. We really look forward to the results of this work being done on fresh water and the work that is also being done on resource management and on environmental clean-ups and particularly there is an increasing interest with state of the nation environmental reporting.