Simpson Scott: Environmental Reporting Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSimpson Scott: Environmental Reporting Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7046. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel):As chairman of the Local Government and Environment Committee it gives me enormous pleasure to speak in this third reading debate on the Environmental Reporting Bill which is in the name of my friend and colleague Dr Nick Smith. This bill represents part of a suite of legislation that has been introduced during this National Government’s term of office that is real meaningful and important in terms of protecting and ensuring the enhancement of and the benefit to our beautiful natural environment. It is an important piece of legislation and it is important that we as a Parliament get this piece of legislation right and correct.Therefore it is a great pity to watch the spectacle of Dr Megan Woods dancing in this Parliament on the head of a pin trying to find some kind of justification and some kind of reason for objecting to this bill. This is a bill that Labour actually does want to support. It has made that very clear in its contributions at the select committee. It made it very clear in its contributions to debates on this bill earlier in this House. But oppose it must do and it has tried to find a reason to do so.What this bill actually does is it closes a gap in our environmental legislation that has needed closing for some time. This bill brings New Zealand into a state of best practice in terms of its environmental reporting and I am thrilled and delighted to be part of a Government that is actually doing something that is constructive and good for our environment. As the Minister for the Environment said in his contribution earlier you cannot manage what you do not measure. I would absolutely agree with him. The importance of providing good reliable accurate and credible environmental information is the very foundation of making good quality decisions in terms of the future of our natural environment and our natural spaces.What this bill does is it requires the regular reporting of the state of New Zealand’s environment as a whole—reporting on the state of our air and atmosphere climate freshwater land and marine domains. Those are the five key areas. It will mean that we get a production of environmental reports independently that are credible and accurate. As a Parliament and in policy terms they will enable us to make good decisions for the future of New Zealand’s environment. Thirdly and not at all unimportantly is that this bill actually affirms the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in terms of reporting on environmental matters processes and the objectives of that office. This bill requires the Secretary for the Environment and the Government Statistician to work together to publish a report on those five environmental domains. One environmental report will be released every 6 months with the additional synthesis reporting providing analysis and cross-domain trends and interactions once every 3 years. That is at the real heart of this legislation.It is a very good piece of legislation it is a timely piece of legislation and it is one that I am very proud to support. The select committee worked well notwithstanding the Opposition’s desire to find at any length a reason to oppose. But notwithstanding that the select committee did make some useful and worthwhile changes and they have been included in the bill and that I think is a further sign that the select committee process works well to improve what is already good legislation and refine it even further. It is with enormous enthusiasm that I support this bill and I heartily commend it to the House.