Robertson Grant: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5219. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): They say that in this place what goes around comes around and I believe that I may well have been long ago the person who was responsible for this piece of legislation finding its way to being written up. Meka Whaitiri took it on and had better luck than I do in terms of the members’ ballot and had the bill drawn. I think that it is fantastic for Meka and good for the House to be debating this legislation right now.I just want to start by responding to Joanne Hayes’ comment that the introduction of the words “protects maintains and enhances New Zealand’s environment.” to the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority Act would be difficult and confusing. It is a little hard to believe that mentioning the importance of protecting maintaining and enhancing the environment would actually create enormous confusion among people working on something called the Environmental Protection Authority. That is a silly argument and it is not actually what this is about whatsoever.It is a very very simple bill. It is a bill that tries to do something that I think the National Government always had a problem with when it came to the creation of this agency. When you read it everything about the legislation is minimalist. It is as little as the Government can get away with in terms of protecting the environment. So when you look at section 12 of the Environmental Protection Authority Act which is being amended substantively by this bill the objective of the Environmental Protection Authority Act is to “undertake its functions in a way that—(a) contributes to the efficient effective and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment …”. That is not very ambitious. The party that was ambitious for New Zealand—the Bluegreens; Nick Smith’s little faction within the National Government—would have beavered away on the creation of the Environmental Protection Authority and it celebrated its victory with the idea that the Environmental Protection Authority would contribute to the efficient effective and transparent management of New Zealand’s environment. The Act also goes on to say that it will enable New Zealand to meet its international obligations. Well there are some interesting things that we could talk about there.So the Act is minimalist. It is as little as the National Government could be seen to do to have some kind of agency whose job it was to–I do not know—protect maintain and enhance New Zealand’s environment. This is what the bill that Meka Whaitiri has brought before this House tries to do. It tries to lift the sights of the National Government. Pick up and say: “Nick Smith could have done better than just considering the effects on the environment; he could have a piece of legislation and an authority whose job it is actually to get out there and promote New Zealand’s environment—protect it enhance it and be ambitious for the place of the environment in our wider society.” but no the National Government is turning down that opportunity today because what it wants is an agency that does not have that ambition of protecting and enhancing the environment.I think that is sad because as a rule I believe that New Zealanders want that from their Government. If there is one thing that New Zealanders are proud of it is their attachment to their environment—be that in the broader sense of just being out in the environment tramping or being in the conservation estate all the way through to how we stand up for ourselves in the world. Our clean green image is the thing that drives so much of our economy. All of that is about the environment.Fundamentally New Zealanders want to be proud of their environment and want to see it protected maintained and enhanced and the opportunity is here today for members in this House to insert a simple clause into the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority Act to help add to that whole picture of how New Zealanders see themselves and of how we can be proud of ourselves here in New Zealand and around the world. [Interruption]. Mr Assistant Speaker tells me that I have 1 minute to go and in that minute I will speak about a court case. That will not give him much time to make me sit down over that but I will do so within the rules.Right now in the High Court there is a consideration of the Environmental Protection Authority board of inquiry’s decision about the Basin Reserve flyover and the very thing that the New Zealand Transport Agency is arguing today is that the environmental impact of that flyover should not be the primary consideration—that is the very thing that it is arguing today. This legislation would give certainty to the fact that the importance of protecting maintaining and enhancing the environment should be one of the objectives of the Environmental Protection Authority. This bill should be supported.