Shaw JamesHon JAMES SHAW (Minister for Climate Change): Thank you Madam Chair. I felt compelled following that diatribe from the Hon Scott Simpson to respond in relation to this year's Appropriation Bill in relation to the environment. There is a reason why it's difficult to get through the programme of government that we've got and that is because we inherited a Public Service that had been atrophied under the previous National Government to the point where it actually was extremely constrained in what it was able to do. So what we have done over the course of the last couple of years—and is happening again as a result of this Appropriation Bill—is to rebuild the Public Service in particular in the environmental area in order to be able to deliver on all of the priorities that went neglected under the previous National Government. I would like to list them: so that the last National Government—they basically had one environmental priority and that was to clean up our rivers and they got it wrong.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): We are actually discussing the Government of which you are a part—the Estimates. So let's focus on the Estimates—sort of looking forward.Hon JAMES SHAW: It's a fair point—it's a fair point. My point being that the reason why the Estimates bill is in the shape that it is is because the Ministry for the Environment was resourced for one environmental priority under the previous Government and we have had to scale it up to be able to deliver on five environmental priorities. They didn't even get the environmental priority that they had right. One of the reasons why they lost the election is because they couldn't deliver on clean water. We're having to deliver on water on climate change on biodiversity resource management reform and on waste management—all things which got neglected under the previous Government and that's why we're investing in them in this Budget and through this Appropriation Bill.When it comes to some of the reforms around biotech that the former Minister referred to I would encourage him to listen to Fonterra. In their submission on the zero carbon bill when somebody said Do you think that gene editing is the way out of this?" they said "You would be crazy to try and despoil our 'clean green' brand with something that consumers overseas would devalue." The science is a science—right?—but there is an argument to be had about whether or not you want to introduce a technology that would instantly devalue the value of our products and services. So that is why we will only step into that very cautiously. I want to refer to some of the funding around waste. I have to say I think China actually did New Zealand a great service by cutting off our exports to China of our waste where we had been sending so much of it because it has forced us to take responsibility for our own waste. We've now got product stewardship schemes coming in for the first time since the waste minimisation bill was passed by my former colleague Nandor Tanczos 10 years ago. We're actually bringing in the first-ever product stewardship schemes covering areas such as battery disposal because obviously in the new low-emissions economy we're going to have to work out how to deal with in particular car batteries and things like that—bottles and container deposit schemes tyres and all of these kind of things that are crying out for attention and haven't had attention for many many years. Because it was raised by Sarah Dowie the point around Department of Conservation spending—you know you've got to remember that the Department of Conservation has to look after all of our marine conservation inside our exclusive economic zone—which is enormous: the size of Europe—plus one-third of New Zealand's entire landmass on less than 1 percent of our entire Government Budget right? It's got to look after a third of our land on less than 1 percent of our Budget and they do an extraordinary job under those conditions.So the funding that we put in—we put in roughly $180 million over four years in Budget 2018 and then we doubled that in Budget 2019 through the international visitor levy. That side of the House said that the economy would collapse and that no one would come to New Zealand if people had to pay a $35 levy on their travel to get here. As it happens tourism numbers continue to grow to come into New Zealand. I went and presented to a regional mayors' conference a couple of months ago and they clapped when we said that we had got that over the line because they could see the value of it. So we are delivering in this Budget. We're delivering through this Appropriation Bill. We're looking at waste we're looking at water climate resource management biodiversity—many things have been neglected for many many years.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I call—Erica Stanford."