Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): I'm very happy to take a call on the Appropriation (2016/17 Confirmation and Validation) Bill in the area of the environment especially as I serve on the Environment Committee. As a first-term MP having only been around for about six months I had expected to have a very busy time in select committee. After all select committee is where all the grunt work happens as we know: where we pull apart and forensically analyse legislation we consider each clause in great detail and we hear the views of interested parties and the New Zealand public. Based on this we make changes to greatly enhance legislation. This is long hard tough work and I had expected my committee to be very busy to be swamped with legislation to be up night after night poring over Government bills with long hours in select committee.I expected this for a couple of reasons. Firstly there was the rhetoric from the Labour Party prior to the election. We heard from Ms Ardern about her plans to clean up rivers and tax water bottlers and about how climate change was her nuclear-free moment. Ms Ardern talked up a storm and I thought Wow! My committee is going to be swamped." The second reason that I expected to have a busy hard-working committee was because of the Greens. As they are in a supply and confidence partnership in this three-headed coalition one could reasonably expect that the Environment Committee would be very busy with all the legislation the Greens have been preparing and campaigning on over the last decade or so just waiting for their chance to be in this very position that they're in today.So we could reasonably expect to have a very busy Environment Committee if not the busiest committee. In fact I have it on very good authority that the Environment Committee was one of the most hard-working committees in the last Parliament. After all the previous National Government had introduced Predator Free 2050 Battle for our Birds the War on Weeds and the fresh water legislation that introduced enforceable standards and a reporting framework that has never been seen in this country before. So one could be forgiven for thinking the Environment Committee in this Parliament is a very busy committee given our history and the Government's supposed focus on the environment.The reality is that other than the annual reviews the Environment Committee has conducted over the last number of weeks our workload has been almost nil. Our committee looked at the Christ Church Cathedral Reinstatement Bill. It was a wonderful bill and I was very happy to work on it but I can see why we were given it: we didn't have any other work. The only other bill we've had in front of us is the Conservation (Infringement System) Bill—a National Government bill worked on by my esteemed colleague the Hon Maggie Barry—and really that's about it. So here we are six months down the track with a supposedly green-focused Government with no green legislation. What this clearly shows is that the talk from the Labour and Green Parties prior to the election was just that; it was talk.Hon Scott Simpson: Virtue signalling.ERICA STANFORD: Green virtue signalling—you got it Mr Simpson. The last six months of the Environment Committee with no work clearly shows that this Government was not ready to govern. What I would like to say though is that the only thing that the Greens have had an impact on in the environmental space is to put the kibosh on having cameras on commercial fishing vessels. So for all their talk about wanting to protect seabirds and dolphins their actions say otherwise. They are deferring the deployment of these cameras on commercial fishing vessels and they cannot explain why. In fact we had the Department of Conservation present to our committee in the annual review process and we asked them specifically about cameras on commercial fishing vessels. We asked "Does the department maintain its policy position that cameras on fishing boats are essential if we are to reverse the decline of the seabird species that we see in your annual report?" The answer from the Director-General of Conservation Lou Sanson was yes absolutely. So despite the department backing this measure despite the Australians and many of our Pacific Island neighbours using these cameras to alter behaviour and protect marine life the Green Party has deferred the deployment of this tool.So far this year my committee has had one piece of environmental legislation: a National Party bill. We're about to get another one a fantastic National Party member's bill in the name of the Hon Scott Simpson to combat littering. We have had no Government legislation. The only thing we've had from this coalition is the deferring of a tool that the Department of Conservation desperately wants and needs to protect seabirds and dolphins. And that's all I've got time for."