O'Rourke Denis: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9365. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): We have heard some pretty irrational nonsense from National Party speakers tonight. First and foremost amongst those was the comedy speech just given by Jo Hayes which is almost as good as the science fiction fantasy speech given by Paul Foster-Bell—all irrational nonsense; absolute piffle from beginning to end.All this bill would actually do is to add a new paragraph to section 12(1) of the Environmental Protection Authority Act by adding the words: “(c) protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” That is all it does. Try to relate that to the speeches we have heard from the other side of the House tonight. I cannot but I would like someone to try to give me that relationship because it seems to me that the speeches given by the members on the other side of the House had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the words that I just read out. I would like to know why they gave those speeches because they seemed to me to be either irrelevant or irrational or incomprehensible or science fiction or a comedy show—one of those.Those words should certainly be in the Environmental Protection Authority Act. Another part of that Act says this—this is section 12(2): “When undertaking its particular functions under an environmental Act the Environmental Protection Authority must also act in a way that furthers any objectives (or purposes) stated in respect of that Act.” That is a purpose of the Environmental Protection Authority. Or you could say that it is the only objective that is stated in that legislation because there is nothing else. It refers to the words “an environmental Act” and that is defined in section 5 and there is a list of legislation in that section. We have heard that so I will not repeat it again. But it does include the Environment Act itself. You would have thought therefore that that Act would actually have environmental objectives and yet the Environment Act actually does not specify any environmental objectives at all. We have that strange situation then where the purposes of the Environmental Protection Authority Act are those in other pieces of environmental legislation including—and I would have thought especially—the Environment Act itself. Yet that Act actually does not have any stated environmental purposes whatsoever. Where does that leave the argument of those opposite? I think it leaves them in cloud-cuckoo-land because their argument simply does not make sense.Clearly the Environmental Protection Authority Act therefore has sloppy drafting when it comes to what its objectives are. In order to find that out you have to look at other legislation some of which does have environmental objectives in it and some of which does not. It is very difficult to find out therefore what the objective of the Environmental Protection Authority Act is. Furthermore where those other environmental Acts they are referring to do state an objective then they are completely consistent with what this bill would do in adding the words “protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” Just look at those other Acts—look at for example the Resource Management Act and its objectives which are stated particularly in section 5—they are completely consistent with what this bill would do. Again where does that leave the argument that is put forward by the National members opposite? It just does not make any sense whatsoever. So the point that I would make principally here is that there is in fact a problem to be fixed—one which members opposite do not acknowledge and will not do anything about. Of course the Environmental Protection Authority Act should have an objective. All important legislation of that kind should.In the last minute or so I want to begin with the main arguments in support of the environmental objective for the Act as set out in this bill. The first thing is that the authority’s primary purpose should be in protecting the environment otherwise why have an Environmental Protection Authority? Even the title itself “Environmental Protection” tells you something—it is about environmental protection so should its objective not actually state that its objective is the protection of the environment as set out in this bill?Debate interrupted.