Woods Megan: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWoods Megan: Environmental Protection Authority (Protection of Environment) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 22 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5213. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr MEGAN WOODS (Labour—Wigram): I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate my colleague Meka Whaitiri on having this bill drawn and to commend this bill as a very important piece of legislation.In her contribution to the House Meka Whaitiri described this bill as having seven very simple but very important words. Contrary to the contribution from the previous speaker Scott Simpson the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee this bill will not fundamentally change the purpose of the exclusive economic zone legislation. Rather what this legislation does is clarify what the purpose should be. It shows the difference in the political winds perhaps in terms of what two members can say. Actually in his initial contribution on this bill I thought that Mr Simpson was very respectful very congratulatory and that he understood the purpose of what Ms Whaitiri is trying to do. What Mr Simpson argued in his previous contribution if I remember correctly was that there were other pieces of legislation—largely the Resource Management Act and the Climate Change Response Act—that provided the “definitional functionality” I think he put it that was required under this bill.What the bill that we have before us here today does is provide this clarity. It provides some certainty around the kinds of criteria with which this independent and politically neutral body—the Environmental Protection Authority—should be making its decisions about what the right decisions are. All that this bill seeks to do is to say that the environment should be front and centre of that decision making. It in no way undermines political neutrality; it in no way undermines independence. What it does is what this Parliament is meant to do: provide guidance to an agency around how to make its decisions. These are very clear criteria that do put the care of our environment front and centre.In many ways this is symbolic legislation to make sure we enshrine in our legislation the fact that the environment has to be something that the Environmental Protection Authority is making its decision on but in the last few weeks we have seen the reason as to exactly why it is that we need legislation such as this. We have seen something as important as the marine protection areas which have historically been under the guidance of the Department of Conservation taken away from that body and that Minister and handed over to the Minister for the Environment with absolutely no obligation to provide that those areas will not fall under the jurisdiction of the primary legislation that this member’s bill is seeking to amend with this amendment. Could it be that there is a particular Minister entrusted to shepherd through legislation of that kind of importance or could it be that this is signalling a change from this Government in how it intends to view the very important marine protection areas that we simply need to get in place and that are going to be coming very soon?The other objections that Mr Simpson put up in his initial speech were I thought very simple objections. I think it would do well for this Government to support this bill’s referral to select committee and for us to examine these measures and see what can be done. What we have seen throughout the history of not only the primary legislation that this bill is seeking to amend but three or four other pieces of amending legislation that have had to sit alongside the exclusive economic zone legislation is that it has been the select committees that have come in and actually saved the day on very poorly drafted legislation. This bill is an exception to exclusive economic zone amending legislation in that it is very well drafted and it is a very well-crafted piece of legislation unlike other offerings we have seen from the Government.I think I would say to Government members that this is a very simple piece of legislation and all it does is seek to insert seven very simple but very important words that clarify exactly what it is that we want our Environmental Protection Authority to base its decisions on—that is putting the environment first. Thank you.