Genter Julie Anne: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGenter Julie Anne: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 16 March 2016. Volume:712;Page:9849. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. I rise to speak in favour of this eminently sensible bill which simply seeks to do the absolute obvious and empower the Environmental Protection Authority to “protect maintain and enhance New Zealand’s environment”. People watching at home could be forgiven for assuming that the Environmental Protection Authority would already have that mandate to protect our environment—it is a very misleading title actually. I would like to congratulate my Labour colleague Meka Whaitiri on bringing this bill to the House. It is simple it is short and it makes perfect sense.We have heard a lot of seemingly reasonable arguments against the bill from National Party members tonight but I have to say that if you really believe in protecting the environment then your actions speak louder than words. It is entirely fitting and very predictable that this National Government’s members on the Local Government and Environment Committee would vote by majority to ignore the 97 percent of public submissions in support of this very sensible bill. I do not say that lightly. I do not say that because I am biased against the National Party. I say that because after 8 years of the National Party being in Government it is obvious that it will not step up and protect the environment. It simply focuses on rhetoric and “greenwashing”. I completely understand that there are members in the National Party who genuinely care about the environment and want to protect it but the reality of this Government’s policies is that it does not protect the environment—it does not protect the environment.Here is a good example of the National Government trying to talk up its green credibility recently. I am sure that the transport Minister Simon Bridges actually wants to support electric vehicles in this country and I am sure there are members sitting over there right now who would like to see more electric vehicles on our roads. But very soon we are going to have more photos of Simon Bridges with electric charging stations—which have not been funded by this Government; they have been funded by private industry—than we will have electric vehicles on our roads. This is because the Government has not implemented any policies to support electric vehicles in New Zealand to make them more affordable and attractive for businesses and households. It has not supported a single policy. Nissan has now pulled the most affordable electric vehicle on the market the Leaf from New Zealand because there is not a sufficient market for it because there is not sufficient Government policy.Matt Doocey just said in his speech—I think; this is what I understood him to be saying—that we need to not protect our environment in order to grow the economy so that we can protect the environment. It makes perfect sense does it not? No actually it does not make any sense whatsoever.We in the Green Party know that our competitive advantage in the world is our pristine natural environment. We love our pristine natural environment—we want to protect it. Protecting it is not bad for the economy. It does not cost businesses unnecessarily; it is actually something that we can do to build our brand and sell our goods overseas. Another good example of how the National Party has missed this opportunity was in its bet on high-volume low-value commodities that we were going to sell to the rest of the world and we were thus going to somehow increase the value of our exports. That was its economic strategy and it is now in tatters as we see commodity prices have crashed—in particular dairy prices.It is such a shame because if the National Party had taken advantage of our environmental brand in the world and said that New Zealand’s competitive advantage is not going to be producing tonnes and tonnes of cheap milk powder but is going to be selling high-value clean green and safe dairy products to the world—if we had done that we would not be in the hole that we are in right now because the price for organic milk is 5 to 6 times higher than the price for milk powder. We could have protected our waterways protected our soil and protected our people and we would be better off economically for doing so. That is the green economic vision that the Green Party stands for—a real economic vision not just talk from the National Government.