Craig LizDr LIZ CRAIG (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair. It's an absolute pleasure to speak on this bill because I'm proud to be part of a Government that's taking some of these long-term issues seriously and I think within the environment space two of the most important ones are our approach to freshwater quality and also our approach to climate change. The Government's making significant investments in Budget 2019 in both of these areas.I think for me based in Invercargill the best way to think about the previous Government's hands-off approach to freshwater quality was thinking about what's happened to our New River Estuary because what's happened over the last decade or so is we've had years and years of sediment and nutrient washing downstream from our local farms but we've also had issues with storm water contaminated with sewage that's been leaking into our local estuary because we haven't upgraded the pipe work. We've also had stuff leaking from one of our local rubbish dumps into the estuary. So what we've got is we've got an estuary that's completely silted up. You go out there and you're up to your knees in thick sticky oozy mud and in some places even the nuisance algae is struggling to survive.So I'm proud to be part of a Government that's taking this issue seriously. What we're doing in Budget 2019 is investing $229 million in a sustainable land use package and what that will do is it's going to invest in projects to restore at-risk waterways. It's also going to provide support to farmers and growers to use their land more sustainably. So what it will mean for farmers and growers around the country is it'll be providing them with the tools to understand some of the impacts that they're having on the environment and to make some informed decisions about things like nutrient use. What we're doing is investing in improving decision support tools like OVERSEER. So what farmers and their advisers can do is have a look at and optimise their nutrient budgets on farm.But also what that package does is it's going to be investing in projects to improve water quality in at-risk catchments and so one of our first investments is in the Kaipara harbour where we're going to be benefiting from that fund. I think it's also more important to if we can stop those catchments deteriorating before the harm starts to happen but I think for many like the New River Estuary that early intervention is actually—the moment has passed.But across the country and also in our community there are a lot of people that are willing to put up their hands to make that difference in terms of freshwater quality. I think I'm just thinking about the catchment groups that have sprung up—20 or so of them—around Southland these farmer-led catchment groups that are doing all they can to improve water quality in their regions. Over the last couple of years I've had the privilege of attending many of their Fieldays. They're sharing best practice in terms of winter grazing looking at some of the other opportunities in terms of sustainability—so things like solar-powered dairy sheds and on-farm effluent management systems—but are thinking about that ability to disseminate best practice across our region and around the country.The other thing though is it's really important that we do have quite strong rules and so enforcement and implementation are also crucially important. That's why the package is also investing in support so that we can improve some of that consistency between councils to look at compliance and enforcement and looking at how we improve the scientific knowledge that's going into some of those plans in terms of on-farm use. I think a lot of this is crucially important because with consumers around the world becoming increasingly environmentally aware our economic bottom line in our region is going to depend on us being able to produce high-quality foods in an environmentally sustainable manner.I think that comes on to the second part of what I want to talk about in terms of sustainability and that's actually our zero carbon bill because this is something that we're looking at as a select committee at the moment. What it aims to do is make sure that New Zealand can make our contribution to ensuring that our temperatures don't rise more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels. So what the bill does is it sets emission reduction targets right out to 2050 but it also creates an independent Climate Change Commission to advise the Government on achieving those targets.So these are some really great investments that are going on in Budget 2019 to ensure that New Zealand does our share in terms of reducing global warming. I'm proud to be part of a Government that's taking a proactive approach in both of these areas. Thank you.