Twyford Phil: Environmental Reporting Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTwyford Phil: Environmental Reporting Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 05 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16373. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): Well we have heard a lot of faux outrage from the Government benches. I just want to say to Maggie Barry and her colleagues: drop the attitude—drop the attitude—and get used to the fact that we are debating this legislation. If those members want our side to vote for the bill then it has to reach a certain minimum level of credibility. To be quite honest this bill the Environmental Reporting Bill does not pass that test. This bill does not pass that test.As Moana Mackey said in the opening salvo from the Labour team we support the stated intent of this bill. We support the intention to establish an independent comprehensive environmental reporting system. That is all fine. There is no problem with that. But this bill does not pass muster. It does not measure up in terms of the independence that the bill purportedly seeks. It falls below the minimum level of credibility and that is why we are not supporting it. I say to members on that side of the House: you can drop the attitude and just get used to it.We will as Moana Mackey said work at the Local Government and Environment Committee to try to improve the bill because we believe that we do need some decent environmental reporting. What the members on that side of the House do not seem to be able to get their heads around is the fact that if this environmental reporting system was set up truly as a creature of Parliament lifted above the day-to-day political differences in this House and taken out of the clutches of the Minister of the day then it would have the credibility and the independence that is needed.If you look at the bill clause 18 “Regulations” says: “The Governor-General may on the joint recommendation of the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Statistics by Order in Council make regulations prescribing the topics to be covered in synthesis reports …”. That is the point. That is the argument that we have been making which National Party members do not seem to be able to comprehend. The very parameters of the report are going to be determined by two of the Ministers of the day. That is what makes this a political creature. If the National Party was truly intending to establish a report that had independence that was above party politics and that would be a creature of this Parliament then it would not have that clause in there. I think that if—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.PHIL TWYFORD: Let me continue with my attempt at an explanation for the benefit of the members opposite as to why Labour is not supporting this Environmental Reporting Bill at its first reading even though we support the stated intention of the bill to establish a comprehensive and independent reporting regime on the environment.Our concern is that this bill is like so much of what this National Government has brought to the House over the last few years in the environmental area. It is basically window dressing and it falls below the minimum credibility level that we would need to see if we were going to support this bill even at its first reading.Where it falls down is in clause 18 where it mandates the Minister of Statistics and the Minister for the Environment to basically decide what topics the report will deal with and that is obviously pretty fundamental. Labour would like to see that kind of decision making taken out of the hands of the Minister of the day and this reporting regime made a true creature of Parliament. I think that if we look at the success of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment if we look at the Office of the Auditor-General we can see that our democracy is strengthened by this institutional machinery that is part of Parliament rather than more politicised structures that are open to manipulation by the Minister of the day.In the whole area of measurement and reporting if we see how this Government has tackled reporting and measurement in the social sector how it has weakened the social development reporting while it has been in Government how it has refused to agree on an official measure of poverty and how in fact it has undermined and challenged Statistics New Zealand’s measure of homelessness we can see how—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Sorry—your time is all used.