Woods Megan: Environmental Reporting Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Environmental Reporting Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7044. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call on the third reading of the Environmental Reporting Bill. What is not my pleasure is the fact that Labour cannot support this bill because I actually agree with a great deal that the Minister for the Environment who has just sat down said in his contribution. This is an important bill. New Zealand is the only country in the OECD that does not have environmental reporting. Labour absolutely agrees that it is timely and that it is preferable that this be rectified and that we have a way in which we monitor and report on our environment so that we can be making the important legislative and policy decisions that we need to make in the future based on evidence. Our hope was that the Environmental Reporting Bill would deliver this.We have consistently been saying throughout the passage of this bill through this House that we have very much wanted to support this bill. We certainly support the intent of it. I think it is pretty much motherhood and apple pie that we would be monitoring and reporting on our environment and providing that evidence base—that we would be looking at the key five domains of air fresh water land marine atmosphere and climate producing the domain reports and then every 3 years having a synthesis report that would cross all domains and draw together the best available data. But the Minister says that we are churlish and just entering into opposition to the bill for the sake of opposition in our opposition to this bill. Nothing could be further from the truth.We worked constructively atthe Local Government and Environment Committee and I would like to acknowledge the work that the select committee did on this legislation. We did actually manage to make some improvements to the legislation and I think that that was a good thing. But what we could not change is what has been since the first reading and since the introduction of this legislation our core concern and that is the lack of political independence in deciding what it is that we are going to report on in setting those domain report topics in setting those synthesis report topics—which is vested in the Minister.We would have an objection to that whether we were in Government or Opposition. It is of concern.This is not the kind of legislationthat we put in place on something so importantwhere we should be getting it wrong. It is our concern that we are getting it wrong. The Minister told us in his contribution today that there is that independence in clause 18 guaranteed by clause 16. This is not the case. We listened very carefully to the submitters as they came before the select committee. More than half the submitters who came to the committee and spoke to this bill spoke about their concerns around the regulation-making powers in clause 18 of this legislation. That is our reason for not being able to support this bill.We had the Law Society come and tell us that for it “The regulation-making power enables Ministers to set the agenda by determining the topics to be reported on. This regulation-making power has the ability to undermine the independence and integrity of environmental reports published under the Bill.” This is not something that I could not listen to. This is not something that Labour members on the select committee could not take note of—when we had the Law Society come and talk to us about that.We had many submitters and I am sure some of my colleagues will go into some more of those submissions. Fish and Game New Zealand came and gave an excellent submission on this and I think it made a very good point when it said that “The grant of some legislative power to the executive is inevitable in modern democracies but that does not mean that matters of high policy going to the heart of the Bill”—i.e. setting the topics—“should be contained in regulations.” This is simply giving the Ministers far too much power.We supported the calls that we have the Government Statistician and the Secretary for the Environment rather than the Minister of Statistics and the Minister for the Environment making those calls on it because we did want to see that level of independence. The Minister says that the Ministers need to be able to make those decisions because things change and said that we just need to look at how quickly in this space we might need to look at what needs to be reported on. He gave the example of chlorofluorocarbons as something that changes the environment quickly.We are not for one moment in our opposition—and I want this to be very clear on the record—suggesting in any way that we set down in the legislation what needs to be reported on. What we are saying is that we do not hand over that much power to the executive to set the rules and be the people making the decisions. This should be legislation that holds our executive to account. This should be legislation that provides us with the factual basis on which we are to measure how a Government is performing on the environment. To suggest that it is preferable that we then have the executive making the decision as to what we report on is nonsense and is not the political independence that we want to see.We do not want to set down in this legislation that we set the topics. That is not what we are suggesting for clause 18. What we are suggesting is that we take that power away from the Ministers and that we give that to the Government Statistician and to the Secretary for the Environment who would also be required to consult with some of the groups that are laid out further in clause 18.I think the Minister’s assurance that one of the reasons we could not do that is our need to be flexible and to move with the times simply does not hold water as a reason why we would not do what it is that the select committee heard submitters say—that is take this much power away from the executive. We also heard from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and of course the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has a very important role in this piece of legislation which is laid out in clause 17 of the legislation and that is in terms of analysing the reports and having a commentary function. As Parliament’s person who is a bit of a watchdog for the environment the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment does have an important function under this legislation.The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment gave a very full and very knowledgable submission that I think needed to be listened to far more closely by Government members of the committee than they did. I personally would have liked to see more of the things that the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment someone who is Parliament’s servant in matters of the environment came to us as legislators and gave her view on. She said that “Giving the selection of topics to the Government of the day creates the opportunity for political interference. For instance it would be possible to avoid reporting on an environment topic that is important but also controversial.” That is the point. No one is suggesting for a moment that any given Minister is going to politically interfere but Labour cannot support a piece of legislation that enshrines in our legislation the opportunity for a Minister to do that.We need to be better than that in terms of the legislation that we are putting in place. We need to ensure that we cannot do that—that we are putting something better in place. New Zealand has waited a long time for this legislation and I commend the Minister for bringing this legislation. Actually I commend the Government for bringing this legislation. But what I cannot commend and support it on is the fact that it is putting the legislation in place without proper political independence. It is a missed opportunity. We could have done so much better and it is with a heavy heart that Labour cannot vote on this legislation.I remain hopeful that we may be able to work to a more non-partisan position on this because I think it is important that the very structure that we are putting in place to be the monitoring legislation for our environment not be about partisan politics that we can actually have some political independence and that it genuinely be about the state of our environment.