Genter Julie Anne: Environmental Reporting Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Environmental Reporting Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 23 September 2015. Volume:709;Page:7052. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Most New Zealanders cherish our natural environment—our mountains our forests our rivers our beaches. I know I do. I know that all of this is a core part of the national identity—of what it is to be a New Zealander. I know that many voters even those who do not vote for the Green Party care deeply about our environment not only because our “clean green” brand is worth a huge amount to our largest exports like dairy and tourism but also because it is priceless being able to take our children walking in native forests and swimming in our rivers.I have no doubt that there are many Government members over there on the other side of the House who do care deeply about protecting the environment. Todd Muller spoke up in this debate about how he believes that this Government has done more to reform environmental protection than any other. I am sure that he would like that to be the truth. I am sure that he would like to be part of a Government that was actually improving environmental protection because he cares about the environment and he probably knows that it is worth it to our economy. We cannot be economically successful unless we protect our environment. Those two things are inseparable.Unfortunately it is simply not the case that this Government has been good for the environment. In fact its entire economic development strategy is predicated on degrading our natural environment—on increasing extraction and pollution. That is the sad truth and I have to speak up about that. This bill is a perfect example because although Government members have claimed that it is best practice it is not best practice and it is not going to result in robust and independent reporting.We would like to vote for a bill that did that—we would. Government members in this debate have claimed that the Opposition is looking for reasons to oppose the bill. That is not true. That is ridiculous. We have supported good legislation when this Government has put it forward and there is nothing I would like more than to see the Government of the day actually improving environmental protection in a way that makes it no longer a political football and that means that we can have cross-party agreement that New Zealand’s environment is worth protecting and fundamentally is critical to our long-term economic prosperity.So we are opposing this bill because it is not going to result in the independent and robust reporting that is essential for us to make informed decisions about policy. Any business person would tell us that we must measure what matters to us. And it must be independent because any Government of the day is going to come under huge pressure from vested interests to not regulate. We have seen this. The previous Labour Government under its state of the environment report suppressed a chapter about water quality because the Government was under huge pressure. That chapter which the Green Party ended up leaking and providing to the public told the hard truth that our intensive conversion to dairying had resulted in significant degradation of our waterways.We have to face up to these hard truths. We are not going to be better off or save money or improve the economy by allowing people to continue profiting at the expense of our waterways and our natural environment. It is simply not possible. So the first thing we have to have is independent robust credible information.To get that we need legislation that sets out that framework and we need the Government to actually fund it. That has not been forthcoming from this Government; in fact it has been reducing the amount of money available. It speaks up about the importance of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. That is a small office and an incredibly important one but it is now doing the work that the Ministry for the Environment should be doing itself.There is a real opportunity for New Zealand to improve our economic performance to ensure long-term prosperity for all New Zealanders and to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions but we are not going to be able to seize that opportunity as long as we do not have the independent monitoring and frameworks set up to ensure that we can make the best decisions. The sad truth is that the National Government is simply looking for opportunities to say that it is doing something on these issues just like it claims that we are doing something about climate change and that we are reducing our carbon emissions. The truth is that we are not—not under National’s policy.So again this bill is window dressing. It is not going to make the substantial changes that we need and the Green Party cannot support it unfortunately.