Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Officers of Parliament have to bring independence of political bias and if there was any doubt that the Rt Hon Simon Upton had not left behind his political allegiance to the National Party then we would not be supporting this motion—and indeed were that the case I do not think the Government would put him up as a nominee. I think that that does need to be stated because when he was Minister his responsibilities as Minister of Health included some very controversial proposals to introduce user-pays charges into the hospital system that on this side of the House we are very opposed to. He left this Parliament in 2001. He since then has not involved himself in domestic political affairs and with his role as environment director of the OECD he has had contact with I think many people in this House on all sides. My own contact with him has had him as absolutely independent of any political bias in favour of the National Party or any other party in this House. And so on that basis the Labour Party reached the view that you can actually move on from this place and come back to roles that are associated with it without being in some way tainted by your earlier political career.That hurdle if you like being overcome we then were able to deal with whether the Rt Hon Simon Upton has the skills to do the job. On that there can be no doubt. And indeed I think there is actually some advantage to New Zealand in having someone who has been out of New Zealand coming back to New Zealand with the eyes of that international experience and actually judging whether we really are doing as well on some of these environmental issues as we would like to think we are. I suspect that the perspective that he will bring back which—although he did not draft the OECD report on New Zealand's environmental performance recently he was responsible for it and came and explained to New Zealand what the OECD saw in respect of some of the issues where we are not doing so well namely fresh water quality and greenhouse gas emissions.I suspect the other thing he will want to get his head round when he gets back is actually the terrible rate at which we are losing soils in New Zealand to the sea—the rate of erosion in New Zealand which is filling our estuaries with silt and has got to such a serious point in New Zealand that our inshore fisheries are not as healthy because we have got so much turbidity in our close seas that the kelp beds are dying at depths where they used to live and therefore the habitat and food for fish is less than it was. That is a measure of how much productive soil we are actually losing from our land which is not good for our long-term agriculture as well as being detrimental to the environment.So I hope that he will be focusing on those three issues: land use climate-changing emissions and water quality. I really think that he will make a difference. I think he will be a fine Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. At the same time he is actually carrying on a good tradition. We have actually been very well served by our recent—well by all of our appointments to the Office of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment and I think Simon Upton will carry on in that vein. As I have said I think this international perspective is important. I know that there are some European countries that have had prior problems for example with nitrate levels in their waterways—notably Switzerland—that have got on top of those problems and I would like to think that with the wise advice from the new Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment we can do likewise.