7. Question No. 7—FinanceHon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of FinanceQuestion No. 7—Finance7. Hon JAMES SHAW (Co-Leader—Green) to the Minister of Finance: Does he agree with the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment that key long-term environmental issues need to be explicitly acknowledged and responded to as part of the Budget process. They carry serious implications for fiscal risks in the future and cast long shadows on the resilience of the nation's natural capital"? Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister of Finance): Yes I welcome the constructive and detailed report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment which provides valuable insights for the continuing improvement on how we budget for environmental wellbeing. The Government is very aware of the need to think long term about how to improve environmental outcomes which also will help mitigate fiscal risks. In fact these approaches are core to the wellbeing Budgets that we have put forward and look forward to putting forward again. Hon James Shaw: Does he agree with the serious shortcomings that the commissioner identified with the Budget process including insufficient information and advice to allow Ministers to properly weigh up environmental implications? Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes I do. The issue of the way in which we collect data and report on environmental outcomes in New Zealand is something that we have been working on and I look forward to the work of the Associate Minister for the Environment the Hon James Shaw on the subject of environmental reporting. Hon James Shaw: I'll mention it to him. Does he agree with the commissioner that aspects of the natural environment are necessary prerequisites for human health and life which means that it is fundamentally flawed to directly trade the environment off against other things in Budget frameworks? Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I agree to the extent that the wellbeing of New Zealanders is dependent on all of the matters that are covered within the Living Standards Framework. The natural capital and the environmental wellbeing that we have is critical to the way in which the economy operates the health of individuals and indeed—as we've been discussing in earlier questions—the fiscal situation. But we do try to look at wellbeing as a whole and I certainly accept the parliamentary commissioner's view that currently we do not have the information we need to be able to make the decisions. That's why we're looking to improve that. Hon James Shaw: What steps if any will he take to respond to the recommendations of the commissioner including changing cost-benefit analysis and the social discount rate to one that "better reflects the long-term intergenerational costs and benefits that pertain to the environment"? Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: We will continue to work on the Living Standards Framework and the wellbeing approach to ensure that we genuinely can reflect the state of the four capitals and be able to address those. The individual recommendations we will work our way through. I do note that when it comes to the discount rate that does not have to be applied. It is the guidance given as part of the CVACC process. We are continuing to look at how we extract better value for money. SPEAKER: Question No. 8 David Seymour. Chris Bishop: CVACC—it's back. SPEAKER: Order! Mr Bishop."