Cunliffe David: Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCunliffe David: Environmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4465. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn): Occasionally in this House one comes across legislation with aims that are entirely laudable but implementation that is entirely mistaken. This is one of those bills. Labour and the Greens both supported this legislation to the Local Government and Environment Committee. We did so because we took the Government at its word. This was a bill that was ostensibly designed to improve the quality of environmental reporting. We take no joy in the Committee stage in now having to take the floor and say that the select committee’s analysis and the submissions to the select committee have revealed such fundamental flaws in the drafting that we can no longer support the bill. There are such fundamental flaws that we are forced to the position where we believe they are designed-in—let me be clear about why. There is some discussion that we will come to in later parts about clause 18. What so many submitters saw as a fundamental flaw is that Ministers by regulation can set the topic.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): No no—Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I said we will come to that later.What I wish to turn our attention to is Part 1 clause 3 the amended purpose clause. It is very interesting that the bill as reported back from the select committee described the all-important purpose of the Act as to require—independent reports perhaps? No there is nothing about independence. Fact-based reports? No there is nothing about evidence. It simply requires regular reports and regular is a bar that is far too low for our precious environment.The old version of the purpose clause had such radical language as to specify that it wanted regular reports on the state of the atmosphere and climate. It is no wonder the Government did not want that in. Fresh water—I can see why they did not want that in; just go ask Ruataniwha. Land and marine domains—just ask Māui’s dolphin.The bill had a prior clause 3 that sought to “ensure that the producers of environmental reports act independently and provide fair and accurate reports”. Well that was all too much for the Government. That got struck out by a majority. The prior clause sought to “ensure that the expertise of government departments is utilised”—that means that it is evidence-based—and to “affirm the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment in reporting on environmental reports and the processes that produced the reports.” So the watchdog is not only the watchdog on the issue but the watchdog on the integrity of the process that defines the issue and both are essential.What do we find further down in the interpretation clause clause 4? Well we scan down we go to e f g and then we jump to i. The only i word is “impact”. There is no independence defined in the bill. The principle of independence is missing. It has been excoriated from the draft legislation and the Minister has the temerity to ask why the Opposition can no longer support this mistaken piece of drafting.It is no accident; this Government has a stock-in-trade technique. It is one that has been employed repeatedly in New Zealand. It is one that the same consultants have advised for Mr Cameron’s British Labour Party and it is called taking an issue where your opponent is making—Hon Dr Nick Smith: Mr Cameron’s Labour Party?Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: Mr Cameron’s conservatives. Take an issue where your opponents are making ground and cover it like in a tacking duel of yachts; take the air off it by offering the “lite” version. This bill is “environmental reporting - lite”. It lacks teeth in its purpose clause. It lacks independence. It lacks integrity.It is not the only time the Government has tried the “lite” version as a way of giving some public impression of progress while ensuring that the vested interests that stand behind it are not too threatened. It has an “emissions trading scheme - lite” one that will not change behaviour for decades to come and where friends of the Government routinely pop up in the media and say that climate change is a hoax. It has a “capital gains tax - lite” the one you have when you have not got a capital gains tax. [Bell rung] Mr Chairman?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): The Hon David Cunliffe—but just concentrate. We are not talking about climate change and other things. Just focus on the bill.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: You are quite right; we cannot talk about climate change except in so far as climate change was specifically struck out by the Government from clause 3 in Part 1. In fact clause 3(b) required “regular reports on the state of the air atmosphere and climate”. It no longer does because the Government took it out. That is why climate change is in the scope of this debate. In the same way that the emissions trading scheme has been watered down and in the same way that paid parental leave was watered down the role of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is in this very section watered down. The parliamentary commissioner should be the one who is specifying what topics get reported on. The parliamentary commissioner is the independent evidence-based and highly qualified agent who can say what should be in the reports. We do not believe it is appropriate that a Minister a political actor in the Government of the day—and it does not matter whether it is the current Government or the next Government—play a quasi-watchdog role. It is a conflict of interest for the Minister to be the Minister’s own watchdog and that is why this bill is so fundamentally—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): That’s Part 2.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: In Part 1—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Yes focus on Part 1.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: —the purpose has been reduced in clause 3 to take away anything other than regularity. If I might this is yet another example of the kind of to use a big jargon word reductionism—take a concept as worthy as protection and enshrinement of our environment and then reduce it to something economic and then reduce that to a business growth agenda and then reduce that to a private balance sheet and then privatise the resources of the State so the ability to effect change is more limited. That is the stock-in-trade of this Government.We are opposing this bill because we are sick of “Government-lite”. We are sick of “environmental protection - lite”. We are sick of “purpose clause - lite”. We want real environmental reporting that is truly independent not only in the statistics that are employed from report to report—I concur with the Minister on that. Nobody on this side of the House is criticising Statistics New Zealand or its chief executive or its Minister; that is not the issue.The issue is one of scope integrity and the avoidance of the impression of a conflict of interest. The Minister should not constrain the reporting of the Minister’s own outputs. That is why this bill is fundamentally flawed and why it does not and cannot achieve its twin objectives of providing independent advice and conveying the public impression of integrity based on evidence—and truly systemic independence not only in the outputs but in the choice of those outputs. It is in clause 3 in Part 1 of this bill that the reader gets the first clue about what is really going on here. This is a dance of the veils and the veil that has just come off is that of the Government’s true intent.Clause 5 in Part 1 is the shortest clause in the bill. It simply says: “This Act binds the Crown.” I believe that that is one reason that the Minister wants to retain the power to set the breadth of the reviews—because the Act does bind the Crown. The Minister does not want the Crown being bound by a report that is directed or defined by an agency independent from it but in so doing—in imposing the constraint that the Minister has imposed later in this bill—the Minister has actually reduced the perceived value of the reporting exercise to something that frankly is not worth the trees that died to produce the legislation.Clause 4A is also important. It is the Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi clause—and it requires that “In order to recognise and respect the Crown’s responsibility to take appropriate account of … Te Tiriti [it must] provide for te ao Māori”—the Māori world view—“[as] an impact category in preparing synthesis …”. You know I think future generations of New Zealanders are going to really thank—Chris Bishop: The National Party. The National Government.Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE: I was going to say Māori but it is all New Zealanders and successive Governments Mr Bishop whom they will thank for the Treaty of Waitangi. They will thank successive Governments for honouring the Treaty with the return of resources because they are not resources that are going to leave the country. The Treaty is perhaps the one provision—