Nash Stuart: Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Environmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4885. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier): I back up a lot of what my learned colleagues were saying and I think that it is quite rough actually to have a go at Ruth Dyson. She has been a valuable member of the environment caucus in the Labour Party for a hell of a long time and she knows a lot more I suspect than the vast majority on the other side of the Chamber could even hope to know. When we are talking about the commencement date it is slightly unusual I must admit. Normally a bill says “on the day after the date on which it receives the Royal assent.” But this actually gives a 9-month lead-in period.Dr Megan Woods: Gestation.STUART NASH: A gestation period—is it 9 months on purpose? Do they need to think about it? Do they need to give birth to this bill? The analogies are quite staggering. As Ruth Dyson said the commencement is “by Order in Council”. Therefore Ministers can determine when they are going to do this which again just plays into this whole argument about a lack of independence.When we talk about the name of this bill some very good names have been suggested but I would like to throw a couple more in there if I may. The first is the “Environmental Bitter Pill Bill”. Really this just does not acknowledge that there is a huge depth of competency and expertise in this country which absolutely could have been utilised in terms of making this bill so much better than it is. It would have been very easy. Labour offered a compromise to one clause which would have seen us support this bill and get it on the road and make it happen. Even that was turned down. One clause and we would have got across the line; we would have had the vast majority in Parliament supporting the bill.Another name that I think is quite apt is the “Brand Damage to the Wider Global Environment Bill”. By this I mean—and I talked about this in an earlier speech—that this is what we go to the global market place with: our clean green “100% Pure” image. If we are not seen to be playing that walking the walk then we can actually devalue our global brand to the point where we are not getting the premium on our products that we should be getting. This bill is the sort of thing that goes along that way of devaluing the brand because it is seen by outsiders as not being independent. This is seen as driving a Government agenda as opposed to providing a really objective report on the state of our environment. I suspect that there will be some parts of the environment that will come up with fantastic reports but as we know there will be other parts of the environment that will be a damning indictment of how we have allowed things to drop away over the years and of how we need to fix them. So this really does cut into what it means to be New Zealand and what that brand means and it is a missed opportunity. That is the thing that is so disappointing about this.Another title perhaps could have been the “Government Agenda (Environmental Mismanagement) Bill”. As a number of my colleagues have spoken about this bill is about the Government’s agenda as opposed to what is the right thing to do for New Zealand. And we could have got that across the line if only we had worked together in the way that the people of New Zealand expect us to. This is how legislation is supposed to work in this House: we go into a select committee and work together to come up with a bill that meets the requirements of everyone. Labour put a compromise an alternative on the table and it was rejected. I just do not think that is a great way to work together for something as important as the environment in a country like New Zealand.Another potential title is the “Government Knows Best (Bugger the Rest) Bill”. Again the reason I say that is that I do not think this title the Environmental Reporting Bill does this piece of legislation credit. As mentioned this is the Government’s agenda. This is what the Ministers want to see; it does not necessarily reflect what the wider New Zealand wants to see or needs to see—and that is the important thing. If this is not seen as being objective then it loses a lot of its power and it loses a lot of its credibility and this is where we are going to get into trouble.Another name that this bill could have been called is the “What Could Have Been But Is Now Unseen Environmental Bill”. Again it comes down to the whole notion of independence. I was not on the Local Government and Environment Committee even though I would like to have been for this bill because it sounds like it was a fantastic process and there was a fascinating list of submitters that came in. I have looked at some of the submitters and these are experts in their field. This is the thing about MPs: we can never be experts in absolutely everything so we rely on those outside of Parliament to give us advice.