Burns Brendon: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
Burns Brendon: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18502] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 As we deal with Part 3 of the Environmental Protection Authority Bill I note that a major part of it relates to the disestablishment of the Environmental Risk Management Authority. We on this side of the Chamber acknowledge the benefits that could be had by incorporating the Environmental Risk Management Authority into the broader Environmental Protection Authority. There is a sound logic to that but there is I think a flaw in this and that is that the Environmental Risk Management Authority’s staff will make up around two-thirds of the staffing of the new expanded Environmental Protection Authority to take effect from 1 July this year. 
If we look at the risks to our environment we find they are mostly risks to our reputation. We make a living in the world on the basis of our clean green image. We need to look only at media overnight and the interview with the Prime Minister on the BBC  
HARDtalk  
programme when he was grilled about whether New Zealand really is as clean and green as the tourism campaign suggests. The interviewer put it to John Key that Mike Joy a leading environmental scientist at Massey University recently said that we are delusional about how clean and green we are. Dr Joy made that comment particularly in respect of the issues facing our waterways with more than half of our lakes and lowland rivers being polluted. The Prime Minister’s response was that he did not want to get into a flaming row with one of our leading academics which sort of suggested that scientists are a bit like lawyers in that we can get whatever outcome we want from them. I think that is a bit offensive to the science community because scientists make their interpretations based on science. It is a bit of a smack in the face for the scientific community which is not like one or two other professions because all of its work is based on science. 
The core of this legislation is trying to protect the environmental reputation of our nation which makes two-thirds of its living from what we produce on our “clean green land”. We should also consider that this is not the first time that a leading world news organisation has questioned how tenuous or otherwise our reputation is and how real it is for us to be claiming that we are “100% Pure New Zealand” and marketing ourselves as such. 
We are establishing an Environmental Protection Authority that does not have an objective and goal of protecting and enhancing our environment and two-thirds of its staffing is made up of one important but still relatively small component of the environmental picture. The key thing that I would have thought the authority would deliver is the enhancement and protection of that environmental reputation which is the very core of our economic basis as a nation. 
When I look at Part 3 I see that the Environmental Risk Management Authority is included in the authority and issues of climate change are to be addressed by the authority but then I look for the gaps. I wonder why there is not a division of some kind to manage water or provide policy advice to the Minister for the Environment on water. We have to conclude that the reasons it is not there are firstly budgetary which is always a reason we have to acknowledge or secondly relating to the question of whether the Government really wants strong science on water from one of its own agencies which can confirm the sorts of findings like those of Dr Mike Joy that are being quoted to the Prime Minister on the BBC. I ask whether that science would truly be wanted by a Government that has made very clear its primary objective of rapid new growth which is seeing allocations of water take place as we speak in Canterbury and other places driving a new wave of production in industries such as dairying. It is not exclusively in dairying and I have to say that dairying can be done responsibly but unfortunately far too often that is not the case. 
Part 3 incorporates the Environmental Risk Management Authority in the Environmental Protection Authority and includes addressing climate change as an important component of the authority’s work requiring probably around 20 staff meaning we are now up to 110 staff of around 140. There is also the fast-track component which involves another portion of the staffing. 
I would like the Minister to take a call at some point and tell us how many people with some water science experience will be there to either agree with or comment on Government policy so that the Prime Minister is not just basically chipping away at the credibility of scientists when he responds to what I think will be increasing questions from international media and others—because farmers and farming organisations will be taking note of that interview. I ask what environmental science the Minister will be able to access so that he can say that Mike Joy may have one point of view but scientists working for the Environmental Protection Authority have a different view. Is it because the science is actually fairly strong? There is no doubting that we have polluted waterways in New Zealand and my source for that comment is none other than the Minister himself. He made something of a triumph of noting that water quality was deteriorating in New Zealand vowing that the situation would be turned round. He talked about 9 years of inaction on water yet yesterday we saw him delivering a national policy statement on freshwater management which had provisions that he acknowledged would take in his words several years to implement. In fact when we look at the detail we see that councils will be given until 2030 to bring everything into line in respect of improving water quality. Beyond that acknowledgments are given in the Cabinet paper that where a waterway is too badly degraded it will not have to come up to any standard; the assessment of improving water quality will be made on the whole region. So in my region of Canterbury that might mean that Lake Ellesmere which is a vital source of food for Maori and is now managed in fact by Ngai Tahu may never have to improve its water quality to a point where it is acceptable once again to swim in it or take fish from its waterways. It would also mean that that would be all right because some improvement may be made in other parts of Canterbury and over the next 16 years overall water quality will be deemed to have risen to some acceptable point. Those are the kinds of reasons why we should have in the Environmental Protection Authority some strong water science. It is a gaping hole in this legislation. Although we have some coverage in respect of environmental risk management through the Environmental Risk Management Authority and some coverage in respect of climate change water management is a gaping hole. 
There is one other hole and it might be particularly appropriate to raise this issue tonight because some of us in this Chamber will go once the dinner bell rings to one of the Speaker’s excellent science lectures and tonight the featured topic is New Zealand’s leading role in Antarctica. When the Minister spoke to the Local Government and Environment Committee in June of last year about the shaping of the Environmental Protection Authority he indicated that there would be within the authority coverage of Antarctica yet that is also not in Part 3. It is missing in action. If we consider how important Antarctica is to the issue of climate change it is rather curious that it is not associated with the Environmental Protection Authority. It is missing in action and I would like the Minister to take a call to explain to us why nobody will be employed to oversee water issues. I would like to know not only whether there will be staff on the ground for the Environmental Protection Authority in regions such as mine in Canterbury but also why there will not be any staffing for water. I am sure part of the answer will be that it is covered by other ministries but if we are to have this strong new watchdog as this authority was envisaged surely when our living is made through water it should be at the very core of this new authority.