Woods Megan: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 28 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5365. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): It is my pleasure to take a call in this section of the estimates debate and to listen to the words of the member who just sat down Scott Simpson—and very fine words they were. You would believe that everything was hunky-dory with the environment. You would not actually realise that this is a Government that is failing in some key issues of the environment or that we have a Government that is not being straight with New Zealanders on a range of issues from the housing crisis right through to a number of issues. We certainly have a Government that is not being straight with New Zealanders about the state of our environment.I just want to pick up from where Mr Simpson was concluding—he was talking about the wonderful work in terms of our waterways. We have just received a report from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment that gives us the facts about what the state of New Zealand water is the impacts of dairying on our waterways throughout the country and what they are.To stand in the House and say that everything is fine is just a symbol of how this Government is governing. Government members are closing their eyes to the reality and they are closing their ears to what is happening around them. They are certainly not being straight. In this area our environment is being left behind.In my address today I want to deal primarily with two key issues that we covered off at the hearings and my colleague Ruth Dyson will pick up on further areas. One is Resource Management Act reform. You might remember Resource Management Act reform. It is something that this Government has been talking about for a very long time. It is also something that this Government has been spending quite a lot of money on. So when we have a look at the appropriation that this Government is putting in under Resource Management Act reform we see $3 million there for contractors. One has to assume—Hon Ruth Dyson: What?Dr MEGAN WOODS: $3 million—that is right. There is $3 million for contractors because this is a Government that is failing to get its reforms across the line.It is also a Government that is failing to take the offer from Labour to work with it on the sensible bits of Resource Management Act reform. We will—we have put that offer in. Nicky Wagner is looking confused. She might like to look at the papers—it is in there. Labour has put the offer on the table. We have said that we will work with National on a national policy statement around housing and sensible reform—things that can be achieved. But that has been reacted to with blankness.There is no intention to work together for sustainable enduring solutions for such a linchpin piece of legislation as the Resource Management Act. Instead we have got $3 million in this appropriation for spin doctors and contractors to play catch-up because the Minister for the Environment has dropped the ball on Resource Management Act reform. He has mucked it up from go to whoa and not only in terms of what National was intending to do around gutting the fundamental provisions of the Resource Management Act. He has also mucked up relations with the coalition partners and he cannot get it across the line. The taxpayer is left holding the $3 million bill for Nick Smith’s ineptitude in this particular area. The taxpayer is of course footing the bill for Nick Smith’s ineptitude in a range of areas but in the area of Resource Management Act reform let us just call it $3 million.I want to turn my attention to the issue of climate change. This accounts for 48 percent of the Vote Environment budget. It is a substantial part of the environmental budget and even more actually if you factor in the money that is set aside for the emissions trading scheme. So after hearing speakers in the previous debate say that Labour is the conservative fuddy-duddy party that does not want to see progress I have two words for Mr Bishop—11 percent. That is the paltry sum that this Government is thinking it is going to take to the Paris talks. It thinks that is a credible position for New Zealand to take to the Paris talks about what our emissions reduction target should be but it is not.This is a Government that is being criticised all over the world for its negligence in this area—it is certainly not enough. This is a Government that has absolutely let the emissions trading scheme fail to do what it needs to do through letting the price of carbon collapse. It is a Government that is not incentivising the things we need to be doing around planting forests and it is a Government that will not take the hard decisions it needs to take around what we need to do around carbon dioxide emissions reduction. It is a Government that will not have the sensible and needed conversation about how we account for methane in our emissions target profile and about when we bring this in. This is a Government that is content to be a laggard in the world and to be criticised by other nations for not doing its bit. Thank you.