Tanczos Nandor: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
Tanczos Nandor: Offices of Parliament—Address to Governor-General 
[Volume:630;Page:2535] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I also rise to talk about Government motion No. 1 particularly regarding the work of the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment has done extraordinarily valuable work—enormously valuable work—in addressing some of the very significant ecological issues this country has to face and offering a number of very positive ways in which we can move forward in terms of addressing these significant challenges. Dr Morgan Williams is I think well known for the rigour of his work. His office produces work of a very very high standard. It is highly regarded. This has meant that because of the nature of the office it has produced some work that is highly challenging. Some of it takes quite a serious look at certain very significant alterations we have to make in our land-use practices—challenging reports but works that because of their rigour and high standard cannot be dismissed as airy-fairy or lacking in substance. So I think the work that has come from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is enormously valuable for this country. 
The first report I read was in relation to the involvement of tangata whenua in resource management decision-making. It is an extraordinarily useful work. Rather than retreating into generalities and superficialities it looks in some detail at what the practice is in different local authorities and has produced a resource that has very important lessons for local authorities all around the country. 
Essentially the main lesson I drew from it is that those councils that approach engaging with tangata whenua as a statutory requirement for which they have to tick off the box did not do it well and as a result they did not get much value from the process. But some local authorities realised that engaging with tangata whenua was not a question of compliance but of the fact that they are people with a longstanding historical relationship with the place and who have knowledge of things that the decision makers did not have access to and that therefore engaging with tangata whenua was about improving decision making by getting access to better information and working with local people. Councils that took that position actually got enormous value out of the process and did it very very well. That was a useful thing to put out in the public domain in the cogent way that it was put so it could be read clearly. 
Of course there have been a number of important reports.  
Restoring the Rotorua Lakes: The Ultimate Endurance Challenge 
 correctly identifies that the problems we are identifying now have been years in the making and are the result of long-established but no longer appropriate ways of doing things. It will take us many years to resolve those problems. 
Working Together in Thames-Coromandel: Guidelines for Community Planning 
 suggests improved ways for communities to solve their problems using cooperative processes of dialogue. Now that is the kind of stuff that is valuable for this Parliament to understand and get our heads around such as the issue of how we engage communities in decision making.  
Future Currents: Electricity Scenarios for New Zealand 2005-2050 
 serves a very useful role of characterising the different possible futures for New Zealand’s electricity supply depending on what decisions we make in the very near future. Those are the decisions that will set the path for us for the next 45 years. Thinking as far ahead as this and even further is absolutely vital if we are to make the right decisions today—if we are to make the decisions we actually need to make. 
The last report I will refer to because it is such an enormous issue is the  
Growing for Good 
 report which addresses the question of intensive farming: sustainability and what that really means in New Zealand’s environment. That is a key report identifying the impacts of New Zealand’s major land use on water quality and the dependence of the sector on energy and fertiliser for its intensification. This is a very current issue. We are undergoing a massive intensification of dairy right now because of the enormous returns from milk solids. It is causing enormous issues on the Canterbury Plains. It is a massive demand on the water resource and the issue of water allocation is now becoming extremely important. 
We are seeing the impacts of intensification of dairying on waterways in the Taupo area. We have seen it in the Rotorua lakes. Right now Landcorp is retiring a massive area of forestry into intensive dairying and drawing water from the Waikato. The effects on the river of drawing a very large amount of water from it and of the runoff that will go back into the waterways are massive issues and the kinds of things addressed in this report are very important. The commissioner’s office coupled it with a roadshow which went around the country to increase awareness and stimulate further discussion and action. 
The report tackled some really hard issues. It suggests that we have to go about finding other ways of enhancing our wealth rather than just pouring on more nutrients and using more energy to boost production. If we are to get serious in this country about creating a sustainable economy that means our children and our grandchildren have any kind of future at all we have to start paying attention to this enormously valuable work that is coming from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment.