Shaw JamesJAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green): It has been fascinating watching a number of members of the National Party speaking against something that the corporate sector has been engaged in for the last 25 years. In particular people who have actually had some background in the corporate sector like Andrew Bayly and Chris Bishop as David Cunliffe said contort themselves—pirouette—to find reasons for speaking against the bill when in fact they are quite well aware that the sector that they purport to represent has been doing this kind of thing for ever.I am just going to rattle through some of the objections. One that was made is that it is unnecessary because we already measure some of these things. Government does not act in alignment. For example on the one hand we sign up to the Paris Agreement and say that we want to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and on the other the Minister for natural resources opens up an enormous block area for oil and gas exploration that if burned would massively contribute to global warming. So the Government says one thing on the one hand and then does precisely the opposite on the other.One of the reasons why we want to have integrated reporting at the level of the Minister of Finance in the Public Finance Act is to create single-point accountability that joins up Government. The members from the National Party who have spoken against this bill have essentially been arguing against the notion of having a balanced scorecard—the notion that you would have a dashboard of indicators. It is sort of like saying: I'm going to go driving but the only indicator on my dashboard is going to be r.p.m." Well r.p.m. is not terribly helpful if you want to determine how fast you are driving how safely you are driving where the lights are or anything like that. So they are saying that they want only one measure and it is essentially what is going on under the hood.One of the other objections was that there are too many indicators. As I have said the reason why you have a select committee process at all is so that you can improve the bill. So I do not think it is terribly valid to say: "We think the bill is flawed. Therefore it shouldn't go to a select committee." That is the whole point of having select committees.I just want to touch briefly on some of the points around gross domestic product because it does seem that there is actually unanimity across the House on the limitation of gross domestic product. Simon O'Connor did say that it is well understood. Actually it is not well understood. When I was doing my Master's programme there was a guest speaker Dr Bob Ayres from INSEAD who is both a nuclear physicist and an economist and he has looked at what gross domestic product is actually composed of. Actually we know only about 45 percent of a GDP number in terms of direct causation—right? The remaining 55 percent of GDP is largely correlation. There is some stuff happening over here in the economy and the GDP number is this and so we think probably there is some form of relationship but we cannot say why exactly. So even GDP itself is actually poorly understood let alone a very limited measure of anything.All this bill does is improve our understanding of capital. So as Stuart Nash said—I think he gave a really brilliant point—our natural capital is our greatest asset. Here in New Zealand the country with tourism as its primary source of income—and its second-largest source of income comes from the primary industries which take place in the environment—our natural capital is our greatest asset. So what we are suggesting is that the Minister of Finance simply understands and has alongside our appreciation of financial capital an appreciation of our natural capital. Having some kind of balance between those sorts of sets of indicators makes a lot of sense especially for a country like New Zealand.It is disappointing that despite agreement apparently unanimously across the House about the principles of this bill and the underlying flaws in the way that we currently measure things New Zealand First and the National Party are going to vote against this bill—despite the fact that they basically completely agree with everything in it. So it is sad but this is an idea whose time has come. The private sector has been doing this for decades and we will get there. Parliament can be a place that considers good ideas."