Smith Nick: Environmental Reporting Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Environmental Reporting Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4464. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): That was a member clutching at straws to try to find a reason to oppose a bill that will substantially improve the integrity of New Zealand’s environmental institutions.Let me go through and cover each of the three points that Megan Woods raised. Here is the big amendment. The big amendment is that the member wants to add to the purpose clause to require regular reports on New Zealand’s environment and she wants to add the words “the state of the environment.” This is as dicky as the only bill we have seen from the Labour Party in 6 years of Opposition. The big measure by which it is going to improve the protection of the environment is to add the words “protection of the environment” over and over again as though somehow that will make things better. Adding the words “the state of the environment” is adding worthless extra words that actually achieve nothing.Dr Megan Woods: Will you change clause 18?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Let us come to clause 18. The member mentions it. She says that it undermines the purpose. What she is saying is that somehow because this bill—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Sorry. No no. We are not in clause 18. We are actually in Part 1 which is clauses 3 to 5. Just concentrate on that.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There has been a question by the member around the independence of the environment reporting. What she is saying is because this bill provides for the capacity for the Minister for the Environment to be able set down regulations in the area of the topics that undermines the independence of the environmental regime in this bill.Eugenie Sage: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. The clauses dealing with the Minister setting the topics are in Part 2 of the bill not Part 1.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I have just asked the Minister to come back to Part 1 clauses 3 to 5 and I am listening.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: In the purpose of the bill the key issue is that these environmental standards and reports are going to have integrity. My simple challenge for Eugenie Sage and members of the Labour Party is to read the Statistics Act. Every member of this House would have confidence in the independence of the statistics that are produced by Statistics New Zealand. And yet they wrote a law passed a law and voted for a law that lets the Minister of Statistics not have to consult not have to write regulations but to actually tell the Government Statistician they cannot publish a particular statistic—yes just direct them—or that they have to produce some other statistic. So my simple challenge for Megan Woods and for Eugenie Sage if they want to criticise the purpose of this bill and its content—the provisions in it are far more mellow in terms of the roles of the Minister than what there is in the Statistics Act which they passed and which they would accept is independent.The third point that was raised by Megan Woods was this: she would prefer that we had the old-style vague Treaty clauses that just refer to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. The difficulty with that—in fact I have heard probably the most eloquent speeches by members of the Opposition—is that vague laws such as those that simply refer to the principles of the Treaty actually work better if we have as we have drafted in this bill a Treaty clause that is quite specific about the way in which that Treaty obligation is met. If Labour is back in the position of referring to vague principles which was the drafting style back in the 1980s it shows how far out of touch and how lacking in new ideas it is in writing new law. All of the new statutes passed by this Parliament now refer to the specific requirements that go with the Treaty clause so that it is more specific.I am actually very proud that we are a Government that is implementing a system and putting in place a state of the environment reporting system a good system which means we are going to deal with the fact that we are the only OECD country—and my challenge to members of Labour is: where were you for 9 years? Actually I will tell you where you were. The record is very clear that if you want to talk about interference in environmental reporting I would ask Labour members to read the history in 2007 when that is exactly what their Minister for the Environment was caught out doing. That is one of the reasons why we committed to bringing this legislation to this House—so that just as in education where we have open standards of education being reported and just as we are proud of our history in terms of financial reporting with the Fiscal Responsibility Act we are applying the same principles in this area and that is why this part of this bill should be supported by members.