Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill

Second Reading Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Minister for the Environment) (15:45): I move, That the Environment (Disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. The Environment (Disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill, which we’ll call “the bill” from here on, will allow for the Ministry for the Environment to be merged into the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, which we’ll call MCERT, alongside the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry of Transport, and the local government functions of the Department of Internal Affairs. Of these agencies, the Ministry for the Environment was the only one that was created by statute, and that means that legislative amendments are required before its structure is changed. The primary function of MCERT is to unlock the potential of New Zealand’s cities and regions. It will reduce duplication and complexity and bring a joined-up approach that reflects the strong link that exists between environment, housing, infrastructure, transport, and regional development. It will provide a simpler and more responsible public service that will boost economic growth and productivity through lower transaction costs, and it means more integrated planning and investment. The bill ensures that the functions being carried out by the Ministry for the Environment every day since its creation in 1986 will continue. These functions are being transferred as the responsibility of the Secretary for the Environment, who will lead MCERT. Let me acknowledge the feedback of submitters and concerns that we have heard from some people that considerations about the environment won’t be prioritised or will be diluted in this new ministry. I can assure this House that this is not the case. There are no substantive changes to the functions of the ministry under the Environment Act 1986. The amendments are structural and technical only, and there is no reduction in environmental protections. As the Secretary for the Environment, the new chief executive of MCERT, he will be responsible to the Minister for the Environment for these functions whilst also having regard to important matters in section 17 of the Environment Act, which remain unchanged. Section 17, of course, covers key environmental considerations, like whether proposals or policies may result in increased pollution or have uncertain environmental effects. In fact, under the changes, there are new and stronger provisions that require the Secretary to report to the Minister on the ministry’s work annually, and I’ll provide further detail on the addition of clause 13A under section 34 later in my comments. This reporting brings stronger accountability than the current system and gives the Minister the opportunity to seek assurances and ensure that decisions being taken are not ones that will be detrimental to the environment. In essence, the Minister will have more leverage to oversee good decision-making to protect the environment through this mechanism. When we debated this amendment bill at its first reading, members across the House emphasised the importance of the natural environment to the quality of life that we so enjoy in this country. Members also spoke of the risks they believe this bill poses to the natural environment. I stand with members and their constituents who take pride in our natural environment here in New Zealand, but I do not share in many of the characterisations made about this bill. This is not about reducing the importance of the environment in New Zealand. Our natural environment is and will continue to be a source of great pride for all New Zealanders in our cities and regions and those based overseas. I remind the House that the Secretary for the Environment, through MCERT, will continue to advise the Government on all aspects of environmental administration, including the management of natural and physical resources and ecological systems. As has been the case since 1986, Ministers and the Government will still receive advice on improving the operation and effectiveness of environmental acts, assess and monitor environmental impacts, manage polluters through waste minimisation legislation and regulation, and identify and reduce exposure to natural hazards. The changes will modernise the existing accountability framework to better align with that of other Government departments. It will also enable other instruments under the Public Service Act 2020 to implement the Government’s desired machinery of government change. With the establishment of MCERT, the environment will continue to have a strong voice at the heart of decisions on long-term challenges facing our natural and built environment in the coming years. I’m sure this House can agree that our natural and built environments are intimately connected. We see this every day. As severe weather events occur and there is greater awareness of natural hazards and of shocks to particular regions, we need to be thinking more about these connections across planning, housing, and transport, flood and natural hazard mitigation, waste, pollution, ecosystems, and, of course, our climate. MCERT will bring a joined-up approach with portfolios brought together that can coordinate better and help us tackle some of the country’s greatest economic and environmental challenges. This is about integration rather than silos and reflects the strong links that exist between environment, housing, infrastructure, transport, and regional development. MCERT will reduce duplication and complexity and provide a combination of advice to solve complex problems, backed by a strong economic engine and high-quality data and insights. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Environment Committee for their work scrutinising the bill and all those who provided input on the bill through the submissions received in the oral presentations given. Through submissions, it became clear that the bill could be strengthened by requiring greater transparency around how important Environment Act functions are performed, so the committee has recommended the addition of clause 13A, under new section 34, that requires the Secretary for the Environment to report annually on the performance of their functions under the Environment Act. MCERT’s required to prepare this annual report under the Public Finance Act 1989. It is proposing that this will apply from the financial year beginning 1 July 2026. I support this recommendation and welcome the additional public scrutiny this change to the bill will bring. As I’ve said and want to reiterate again, the functions being carried out by the Ministry for the Environment will continue when transferred to the Secretary for the Environment, who will lead system change as the chief executive of MCERT. It will ensure greater accountability for these functions within MCERT to Parliament and to New Zealanders who care deeply about our natural environment, and that’s something, I believe, this House can agree on. In a phrase, this bill is about changing form, not function. Environment capability will remain a core capability of MCERT. The E in MCERT is there for a reason. By transferring the functions from the Ministry for the Environment to the Secretary for the Environment and, by extension, MCERT, we will be integrating consideration of the environmental system into the heart of some of the key decisions on the economic and environmental challenges facing this country. In many ways, this bill will be amplifying consideration of the environment rather than diluting it. I wish to thank again all the public servants who have been working at these agencies for the benefit of all New Zealanders for up to four decades and who will continue to work through this period of change. We are establishing a high-performing agency in MCERT to match our intention in our delivery of high-performing planning, infrastructure, and funding and financing, and, of course, local government systems. I do believe that MCERT represents an opportunity to grow our economy and protect, preserve, and enhance our environment at the same time. I commend this bill to the House. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (15:53): Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a sad day it is today. Here we are talking about the total flipping of the conservation land one minute, and, now, we’re getting rid of the Ministry for the Environment. These things are linked. Of course, in the 1980s, we had large-scale reforms that went into the 90s around our environmental institutions. We had the Environment Act that set up both the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment but also the Ministry for the Environment, which has this role in policy and monitoring and other issues as well. Plus we had the Department of Conservation stood up. A lot of different agencies went into that as well, and then we had the resource management legislation. These things were all purposely done together to set up institutions and a framework whereby we have our conservation land, there are property rights involved with that and also the preservation of the biodiversity, of the heritage, and of the tourism aspects of that. We had the department, then, that’s active and operational. We’ve got regional councils with the Resource Management Act (RMA) when the RMA came into being—and it’s still the case. Regional councils are dealing with air and water and biodiversity issues, and district councils are dealing with those planning issues—district councils being territorial authorities and city councils as well. This was all set up together, and, now, it is all being broken into pieces to undo what people in this House acknowledged was a problem in the 1980s, and that was that our environment needed protecting and that we needed to do better for it. We are doing exactly the opposite. Here we’ve heard from the Minister that this is no dilution and it’s just form over function. That is difficult to believe, given this Government’s attitude to the environment across all pieces of legislation. I am suspicious of anything that comes out of this Government that says that they are somehow going to do better for the environment. That is not their track record on any measure. If the Minister is so sure that there will be no dilution, I am interested in the speeches that will be given by her and her colleagues on how it will be that they will measure this no-dilution outcome, which she has just stated. If they will somehow do what the Minister for resource management reform suggested in our annual review debates the other week and, in fact, somehow do better for the environment—we can hear these words wafting around with those words of “efficiency”, but I have seen nothing from that other side that says how it is that this will improve the environment and what the accountability will be. This is a question that I have brought to the Ministers for the Environment—various Ministers—time and time again and said, “Well, you say that you’re making this change and it’s not going to have a negative impact on the environment. How are you going to prove that? How are you going to demonstrate it?” All I ever get is crickets—crickets. We also heard the Minister, just then, talk about the importance of integration in terms of the environment. I totally agree that an integrated approach to our environment is especially important. The environment is everywhere. But what do we have from this Government? We have legislation to repeal the RMA—after this Government brought back the RMA—that tries to separate the natural environment from the urban environment. It is totally different from this talk of integration. What this Government is doing—particularly the ACT Party; the under-secretary has said that this Government’s RMA reforms are there to end integrated management; that is what he said, Mr ACT member who’s heckling me at the moment. I want to know, from those members across the aisle, how it is that there will be more integration when their RMA replacement legislation is doing exactly the opposite of that. Then we hear, from the Minister for resource management reform, that, suddenly, we need to reorganise local government in a way that regional councils just don’t matter and that that is somehow because of RMA legislation, which also requires the disestablishment of this ministry, he tells us that. This Government has got legislation, in front of the House, that separates the natural environment, the things that regional councils do, with the urban environment, the things that district councils do and the things that territorial authorities do. Their logic is a complete mess. Are we having an integrated approach or not? That is my question to those members. What is the role of regional councils and catchment-based planning? What is the role of managing for improving our waters? That’s not necessarily a particular urban area. Most of our countryside is in un-urban environments—I’ve just made up a word there. In environments that are not urban, there is great swathes of land that is not urban, and so what are we doing to make sure that our rivers are swimmable? How does getting rid of the Ministry for the Environment, and adding it in with housing and transport—how does that help that issue of our waterways in non-urban environments? I have not heard any answers to that question. David MacLeod: What about the beaches in Auckland? That’s urban. Hon RACHEL BROOKING: There are people on the other side saying, “Well, what about the urban environment?” I don’t disagree that urban environments have environmental problems that need to be dealt with. Of course that’s an issue—of course it is—and so are our rural environments, as well. You can do both things. David MacLeod: We are, and will. Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Well, the members opposite are saying that they are going to do both things. That is interesting because we heard from a number of submitters—Marie Doole was one of them—that were talking about the need for officials to be going to a Minister, and we don’t even know if the Vote is going to be separate or not. Is the Vote going to remain? Is there going to be a Minister for the Environment? Within that department, how are they going to get separate advice on these environmental issues, and is it all just going to be muddled up with all of that other advice that goes to housing and transport? Our concern is that that will happen, and we don’t know what the reporting requirements are and those public interest mandates will just fall off the wagon. Nobody will be advocating for that better water quality outside of urban environments, and that is what we are deeply concerned about. We had the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment come and tell the select committee that the environment is not just a branch of planning law. We need policy that goes beyond that Resource Management Act and the planning law of urban environments, and that is what the Ministry for the Environment should be doing. I’ve talked on this contestability of advice, and it’s a very real issue that I’ve not heard addressed by the other side. We are also concerned about the process of this legislation. We had a very short select committee turn-around period and we did not have a regulatory impact statement. Grant McCallum: It’s very short bill. It’s a simple bill. Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I’m hearing members across say that, well, it’s a very short bill, and it is interesting that that is where this Government has got to now: “Oh, don’t worry about it. The bill is little.” Cameron Luxton: No, he said “simple”. Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, the bill is simple; not just little. Disestablishing a Government department that is part of our environmental institutional infrastructure is not a simple thing, and I would remind those members to think about the people who are involved in these workplaces, as well. They have had to come and face up to our committee, telling us that they should be disestablished, and so I thank them for their work. Like everything else here, it’s a terrible piece of legislation. LAN PHAM (Green) (16:04): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Where do I start with this? I think, firstly, I want to be really clear in thanking submitters, and that’s because the one thing that I take heart from this absolute abysmal action that this Government is undertaking is that the voice of submitters was so clear and so strong. I think what’s astounding in all of that is we’re hearing from Government members right now who were part of those select committee hearings that the significance of this bill and the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment is absolutely lost on them. What’s really clear with that is that they did not hear or they weren’t listening to the overwhelming submissions and the overwhelming response that said, “We do not want this to happen. This is a bad idea.” I think it’s really disingenuous for it to be painted as if there were two sides to this from submitters, because we had not one credible submission actually in support of this. We had one individual who literally said, “Oh, yeah, scrap the Ministry for the Environment. They’re a bunch of ecosocialists that are trying to ruin our economy.” Now, I don’t know about anyone else, but that does not seem like a credible submission to me, particularly when we understand the fact that the backbone of our economy in this country is not any one industry; it is the environment and our relationship with it and the way that we manage or mismanage it. That’s exactly the topic and the concern that members should have heard because that’s what we heard from academics, from legal experts, from iwi and hapū, and from environmental groups, and it was unanimous, and yet this Government is pushing ahead with this bill. I think the concern with that, and with a number of things that the Government have brought to the House today is this. For one, it is the “Conservation Reform (Dress It Up and Sell It) Bill”, and for the other one, it is the news that the Government is actually legislating to prevent the prosecution of climate-harming corporations. We know and understand that in a time line of human evolution, this is the low point. This is the low point, where we do not pay attention to people’s views, we do not pay attention to evidence, and we just go ahead and put through legislation like this without any due consideration, and that’s exactly what’s happened with this bill. Here we have 588 submissions. Again, they are almost unanimous in saying we don’t want this. Not one party campaigned on the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment, because if they had, they would not be in Government. They wouldn’t be in Government, because New Zealanders of any political stripes believe and understand that having a dedicated voice for the environment at the heart of Government is absolutely essential. Now, let’s look at the purpose of this Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT). We’ve heard it time and time again that it’s not changing things and it’s not diluting things, but the Cabinet paper that literally establishes MCERT makes it really clear what the purpose of MCERT will be. It’s going to provide joined-up advice to solve problems, with a regional focus on deals and delivery, backed by a strong economic engine, and rich data and insights. Apart from the “E”—the Minister has clearly pained herself numerous times to point out that there is an “E” in MCERT, which stands for “Environment”—I don’t see any assurance when it comes to environment being front and centre when it comes to this new mega-ministry’s functions. It was really clear in the departmental report, when officials pointed this out to us as a select committee, that the Secretary for MCERT will be tasked with jumbling the 15 environmental Acts that he is tasked with, with 54 transport, housing, land, and local government Acts. Now, I’m not sure, because, again, we haven’t had any assurance of this on select committee because we’ve had so little time to consider it, but that doesn’t sound to me like the environment is going to have priority or that the environment is going to have a clear voice. We also heard from submitters that the very Cabinet papers that were used to establish this decision to disestablish the Ministry for the Environment and put in this mega-ministry—we heard from academic experts that Cabinet was presented with incorrect or misleading statements made by Ministers in charge of the bill. Again, I want to acknowledge the Minister Nicola Grigg in this, because this is the ultimate hospital pass from the previous environment Minister Penny Simmonds. Bronwyn Hayward from University of Canterbury has pointed out that the assurances in the Cabinet paper that say that stakeholders may fear environmental priorities will be diluted and these concerns are unfounded because other countries successfully integrate similar functions—she could find “no evidence of other countries that have successfully integrated such diverse oversight as Environment” with development and economic objectives. The only ones she could find were the Maldives and Kosovo, which have really unfortunate and concerning conflict of interest issues. She looked overseas and she found that other jurisdictions like Canada and the UK merged similar functions when it comes to the environment—like climate with environment, for example—not did not have environment subsumed into a mega-ministry. Now, I also wanted to touch on the Minister’s thanks to the select committee for our scrutinising of the bill. I want to make it clear to New Zealanders that the disestablishment of their ministry—the Ministry for the Environment—occurred with just over three hours of consideration from the Environment Committee, and that included the time for public hearings. We had just two hours and 45 minutes of public hearings, where, again, everyone was telling us that it was a bad idea and they didn’t want it to happen. That was followed with 40 minutes of deliberation on the departmental report and the draft commentary, and that was pulled together, alongside no regulatory impact statement and no assurance on transparency about Votes coming into Budget in May. This is an absolute travesty for New Zealand, and this Government should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. I want to conclude by reflecting on the disappointment of the significance of this moment being lost on Government members. That’s because of the history where, 40 years ago, New Zealanders decided that they wanted to elect a Government who campaigned on the establishment of not only the Ministry for the Environment but the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment because the environment matters. It mattered then; it matters even more now. We know that it matters more, because we know from the Ministry for the Environment’s own work that environmental outcomes across the spectrum—whether it be air, water, ocean, or biodiversity—are going backwards. It’s absolutely shocking that we have a Government today that does not understand that and that so flippantly moves to abolish the one part of Government that could have had a clear voice, and we won’t have that any more. What’s really shameful about that is I think when it comes to New Zealanders, it’s in our nature to care for the environment. It’s in our nature to actually understand that when we harm the environment, we ultimately harm ourselves. The Green Party condemns this decision. We are so ashamed of it, and we will not be supporting it. CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (16:14): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, I rise in support of this bill. The Environment Committee did hear quite a few submissions—two hours and 45 minutes, the previous speaker Lan Pham said—and I believe that these have been properly addressed here. The Secretary for the Environment will now be required to report annually on the performance of their Environment Act functions, and that report will sit inside a new ministry, which will be created and will report to this House. That is the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport. The reason that this bill is required is because, as previous speakers have said, as a stand-alone piece of legislation creating this ministry—I noticed there were no tears for the other ministries that are being brought into this. You would have to say that for too long we have had housing, transport, environment planning, and local government each in their own corners and siloed off. It’s just not good enough. Let’s be honest about something. People have confused having a separate bureaucracy with protecting the environment, but they’ve never been the same thing. A logo on a door in Wellington does not clean a river, and a stand-alone ministry does not make a wetland. We do not accept that this is an attack on the environment. We believe that you can protect the environment while also making space for the beautiful humans of New Zealand that live within the environment. We need space for everybody. We need joined-up planning, an end of the silos, and an end of the multiple ministries. This is a good piece of legislation. Thank you, Madam Speaker. Dr DAVID WILSON (NZ First) (16:16): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to address the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill. Look, we know there were many submitters who were fearful and worried about the disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment, and fair enough—it is what we know. This is a bold change, and so we hear them. But one of the New Zealand First’s election promises was to set up a ministry for infrastructure, absorbing the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and other infrastructure aspects. This is about integrated and spatial planning. During the amalgamation of Auckland, we went through a whole lot of angst about how all of these things would come together on the ground. Aucklanders were sick and tired of roving around different ministries, different departments, different portfolios, and how many Ministers they needed to see just to get something done on the ground. That was the hardest thing. We had a siloed Wellington. Here we had the amalgamation of Auckland, looking at spatial planning for Auckland and where things go, both in terms of the physical aspects of that but also—I say to the member for the Green Party—the environmental overlays, the economic overlays, and the social and community overlays that need to be integrated into a spatial plan for a city region the size of Auckland. It’s very important to all of us that that succeeds. What this is trying to do is to provide an opportunity for Wellington to address those kinds of concerns by being more integrated and having a better front door for all of those concerns to come together in terms of long-term planning—absolutely vital. We hear this. This all points towards having a more integrated approach, rather than a siloed one. We need to assist with spatial planning and developments on the ground, and it is forward-thinking. For those that are still sceptical—and there are some—I just point you back to how successful the spatial planning in Auckland has been and how integrated that has been, and we need to respond to all of the regions of New Zealand in an integrated way. We commend this bill to the House. Thank you. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (16:18): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Thank you. I stand in opposition of this particular bill. What we’ve been seeing month after month, week after week, and hour after hour is the continual eroding of the protection of our taiao, and I heard the speaker before me talk about what it means in an urban sense. It should not be the excuse for “either/or”. We should surely be at the stage where we can “and, and”, and what we’ve seen is an erosion of another layer of protection of our taiao. It’s an erosion that’s not supported in any way or form by iwi, who the Government has an obligation to have a partnership with. We’re continually seeing and hearing the excuses of why we should get rid of the only agency that has a role to protect our taiao, and that goes hand in hand also with some of the things that we’re seeing happening in local government—erosion here, erosion here. The thing that worries us the most is how our taiao loses representation and loses its voice and sight on anything that’s going. Let’s take just one slice of what this impact has on iwi settlements. It’s really interesting that the Government is always ready to open the bonnet of settlements when it suits them, but it doesn’t open the bonnet when iwi are saying this legislation doesn’t work for us. We are continuously seeing attacks on aspects that have been protective measures for all New Zealanders, and I’ll give an example of that. Most will know that I’ve been part of the seabed mining kaupapa and the opposition to what we don’t want to happen in our environment—for 15 years in fact—and when you get down to the crux of it, when you get down to winning in the High Court, to winning in the Court of Appeal, to winning in the Supreme Court, they all came down to the role of what iwi and Te Tiriti had in that aspect. You cannot help but be really cynical about the agenda here. If it was just about effectiveness and cost economics and being able to be more fluid with what urban needs are, that would float, but it’s not, because there has been a reputation, inside this Government, of its view of opening wide the doors for any corporate exploitation and getting rid of any agencies, getting rid of anything that honours Te Tiriti, getting rid of anything that has partnerships within iwi settlements. That’s the cynical view that we have of the changes that are happening here. I think, when we look at the minimising that is going to iwi all the time, minimising them to a position where they’re actually now reduced to being an advisory note—iwi becoming an advisory note—we are the last bastions of looking after our taiao and protecting our taiao. We need to be calling this out for what it is. It is a brutal attack on Te Tiriti, on the taiao, and on every New Zealander’s right to be able to live on land and moana and within an environment that has protection and recognition of future generations. There were key aspects to us winning the seabed mining in Aotearoa, and one of them was the fact that the Supreme Court concluded that tikanga Māori must be a guide to assess that of mana whenua. It also talked about Te Tiriti principles. Now, those are aspects that this particular agency was established to help uphold in many of our settlements, and it is absolutely beyond me to understand how and what the Government is proposing to put in place to be able to honour those settlements. We continuously see, again, the fact that it feels like this Government is trying to slam shut the door on any potential future decisions in the court that could go the way of tangata whenua, who are obviously here to protect all of Aotearoa, to stop the fact that we are going to be able to use our rights as tangata whenua, as Te Tiriti has promised, and be able to use our rights as tikanga and mana whenua. This bill is a huge attack on the taiao. It opens up the door for corporate exploiters. It makes sure there are no winners here. The only winners are those investors who this Government is well reputed for protecting. The loser here is the taiao. We do not support what the Government is intending to do with this bill. Shame on you. STEVE ABEL (Green) (16:23): Kia ora, Madam Speaker. Well, we’re 40 years on from the world-leading establishment of a standalone Ministry for the Environment, which occurred in the context of an environmental movement globally that came to its height in the 1980s. Recognising the existential threat that destruction of the world’s biodiversity presented to humanity, we as a nation, similar to the time we declared ourselves a nuclear-weapons - free nation, established a Ministry for the Environment. We passed homosexual law reform, as it happens, that same year: 1986. We set out the fact that protection of the environment was in the common interest. It was a recognition that something could not possibly be more important than establishing a basis for life on Earth and for the thriving of our society—and, indeed, the functioning of our economy—because, without that nest of natural existence on which we depend, there is no human thriving, there is no economy, and there is no health and wellbeing. Well, 40 years on, this Government, dedicated to the war on nature, is blowing up the Ministry for the Environment, and we should not be surprised, because they have done everything, in every legislative realm, to diminish, to weaken, and to undermine environmental protection. They’ve passed legislation to weaken water protections, so that people’s drinking water is not safe, so the ambition that we might be able to swim in our rural rivers again is once again undermined. Grant McCallum: Rubbish. STEVE ABEL: They have allowed the expansion of dairying, Grant McCallum, in the Canterbury Plains, the primary cause of nitrate contamination, the primary cause of climate change. They have weakened the extensive measures that were taken, at one time unanimously in this House, for us to agree on a pathway to reducing our climate emissions, and they have even started subsidising the fossil fuel industry again: $200 million for the fossil fuel industry. They have, at every turn, taken opportunities to dismantle protections for the environment, and this is just the latest instance of it. When the Minister says this won’t, as submitters warned, dilute the effect of the environment ministry, in fact, it will do exactly that. We heard from submitters that disestablishment of the ministry would weaken long-term environmental stewardship, dilute oversight, and signal a change of national priorities. It sure does signal a change of national priorities—as if the signal wasn’t loud and clear already. For them, the way they address the pollution problem is not by dilution of the pollution but by dilution of the ministry that deals with pollution. They are, indeed, weakening the agency that this core environmental ministry is set up to deal with. Further, in terms of Crown-Māori relations, to echo the sentiments of my colleague Debbie Ngarewa-Packer, we heard from submitters that the merger potentially reduces visibility, accountability, and institutional capability to uphold the Crown’s responsibilities under Te Tiriti o Waitangi—surprise, surprise, another piece of legislation that weakens and harms and damages the Māori-Crown relationship, as well as trashing the environment at the same time. This Government, in their one term, will go down in history as the most environmentally destructive Government of New Zealand. I doubt that any Government will be as bad and as anti-environment as this one, and it is right that, in their final year, in the dying breaths of their final term, this one-term Government gets rid of the environment ministry. We should not be surprised that that’s what they will be doing. We will indeed be opposing this, and when we get back into Government, we’ll fix this righteous mess they have made. Thank you, Madam Speaker. CATHERINE WEDD (National—Tukituki) (16:28): We’ll just bring back a little bit of common sense. Look, on the side of the House, we are progressive. You can achieve development as well as protecting the environment at the same time. This bill is structural, it’s administrative, and it is the first step to creating the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport—MCERT—and, of course, this is going to support housing, transport, urban development, environment, climate adaptation, housing affordability, infrastructure, and protecting our environment at the same time. It is going to support our new Resource Management Act framework, which is, of course, about getting things built and consented in this country, so that New Zealanders can get ahead. This is good, common-sense legislation. I commend it to the House. Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour) (16:29): It’s really interesting that the chair of the Environment Committee thinks it’s common sense to disestablish the environment ministry. At a time when we are going through a climate crisis, a biodiversity crisis, and we have the highest level of threatened species in the world, her Government is pushing through bills that will again weaken and water down environmental protections as she rushes them through select committee, and yet she thinks this is common sense. Thankfully, most of the 588 people who submitted on this bill don’t agree, and, today, I will go through some of their reasons for that. I want to begin with a point that was made by the McGuinness Institute, who said that they do agree that we have a duty and we do need to improve New Zealand’s environmental policy, but they oppose this bill in its current form. They are concerned that the bill focuses on the short term, meaning long-term environmental policy will lose out in favour of short-term economic gain. I agree because that seems to be the trend with this Government and with a lot of their legislation that is in the environment and conservation space. We have just today had the introduction of the first reading of the amendments to the Conservation Act, which will do exactly the same. That will change the function of the Department of Conservation away from protecting the environment towards overt economic growth and economic gain at the expense of the environment, and that seems to be what underpins this Government’s anti-environment agenda. The McGuinness Institute goes on to say this, as many other submitters have said this, as well. It makes the point that the Ministry for the Environment has been in operation since 1986, when the Environment Act established it in order to provide independent advice to the Government of the day, and I will come back to the importance of that in a minute. This Government and Ministers, and members opposite, have stood up in this House and said that they’re doing this all in the name of efficiency, that they’re bringing together a number of ministries because of the silos that exist within the Public Service, and that they want to promote collaboration. We are supportive of wanting to promote collaboration. We think that there should be incentives for Government agencies to work collaboratively, but this is not it, and, as this particular submitter points out, they are concerned that this bill would lead to inconsistency, uncertainty, inefficiency, and increased costs. I will come back to this in a minute, but I will also make the point that this is not something that this Government campaigned on, either. It has partly exacerbated the inconsistency, and the uncertainty is also exacerbated by what this Government is doing with regard to the two bills that will replace the Resource Management Act. They are the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill—bills that, basically, are designed to focus on the urban environment, and then the natural environment, and where there will be a need to ensure that the trade-offs are managed in a way that makes sense, as well. Many submitters were worried that that will not happen, and I will point to the submission by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment (PCE), Simon Upton, whose own position is established by the same Act: the Environment Act. He lays out quite clearly his concerns with this bill, and I’ll come back on a bit of a process point about the fact that there is no regulatory impact statement for this piece of legislation. He does lay out why that is, and he says quite clearly that no exemption was sought at the time when policy decisions were being made but that the Ministry for Regulation has now determined that these proposals would have been eligible for an exemption. He goes on to say that that’s because the Ministry for Regulation considers that the bill makes only sort of minor impacts, which is a point that we’ve heard raised by Government members in their very short contributions on the second reading of this bill, as well. However, the PCE then goes on to say that what this bill will enable the Government to do will present a very different face to businesses, individuals, and not-for-profit entities. The current Government intends the ministry in charge of the environmental management to be a new consolidated ministry that, as we’ve heard, will be in charge of not only managing the environment but also will be responsible for cities, for transport, and the regions. He makes the very salient point that what is missing from this is a focus on rural New Zealand, which I find incredibly curious for a Government that purports to be the party for rural New Zealand. In fact, he goes on to say that that’s where, arguably, some of our biggest environmental challenges will lie. He also talks about the specific risks in amalgamating all of these areas and including the environment in that. When it comes to the two bills that are going through the House and going through select committee at the moment, he makes the very good point that having contestable advice, which is what the Ministry for the Environment was set up to do, will “be critical to ensuring the trade-offs are robustly considered”, and that there is a “real risk with this ‘mega-ministry’ that the trade-offs will [now] be resolved within the organisation” by officials, whereas they should have been and should be elevated to ministerial decision-making where the accountability for those trade-offs will sit, and now we will no longer see that necessarily happening. He says that it would make sense for each bill, therefore, to be managed by a separate agency. I also want to speak to this amalgamation. The Minister made the point that this happens around the world and that there are many jurisdictions where this has happened successfully. We’ve had a submitter, Professor Bronwyn Haywood, who has clearly pointed out in her submission that she cannot find any example of a comparable jurisdiction where this has happened successfully, and so that’s one point. In the second point, I will speak to my experience when Labour was in Government and established the Ministry for Ethnic Communities, elevating it from an office that sat within the Department of Internal Affairs. At that point, the argument that we made—which is pertinent to this particular bill—that the chief executive at the time had about six to seven portfolios to manage and a number of different competing priorities, which meant that he couldn’t be expected to have the capacity to focus on ethnic communities, which were one part of the six or seven or eight portfolios that he had to manage, and so elevating it to a ministry would ensure that independent policy advice pertaining to those matters would actually see the light of day and would not be subsumed in a mega-ministry. This bill is taking us in the opposite direction. It’s taking us to a point—and it’s a point that many submitters have made—where the focus on the environment will be subsumed into this mega-ministry. It’s for those reasons that the PCE argues that the Ministry for the Environment should be left out of this amalgamation, and I would tend to agree, as well. Other submitters go on to make the point that there’s a lack of evidence where mega-ministries have worked internationally. The fact that it relies on internal decision-making within the mega-ministry and it risks creating a concentration of powers without adequate checks and balances is also particularly important at a time when people are starting to lose their trust and confidence in public institutions. I don’t believe that this sort of rushed legislation, which lacks the transparency and transparent oversight when it comes to environmental legislation, is a good thing for us when it comes to democracy, either. One of the other points that has been made is to put this in context of what we are seeing currently. The submission by Waiheke Resources Trust says, “Aotearoa New Zealand is currently facing escalating environmental pressures, including climate-driven extreme weather events, biodiversity loss, freshwater degradation, and growing ecological instability. At such a moment, the removal of a dedicated environmental ministry risks weakening policy leadership, diminishing institutional accountability, and undermining the coordinated national response required to address these challenges.” It goes on to make the point that community organisations are doing a heck of a lot of work in this space, but that it cannot replace strong national environmental governance. To end, I will quote the process. This bill was introduced on 15 February, it had its first reading on 19 February, it opened for submissions on 20 February, and less than two weeks, when it comes to business days, was what people had to submit on a bill that will disestablish an important ministry. We had less than three hours of hearings, and bear in mind we had 588 submissions— ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): The member’s time has expired. GRANT McCALLUM (National—Northland) (16:39): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before I take my call on this very important bill, I’d just like to acknowledge the reason we have so many visitors in the gallery is that today is the valedictory speech to be given by the Hon Judith Collins. She is someone who has contributed a lot to our party and to our country, and I’m really looking forward to seeing her and wishing her the best for her future endeavours because she’s certainly done a heck of a lot for this place. Right, moving on to the purpose of this bill. Anyone would think, listening to the Opposition on the other side there, that we do not care about the environment. Well, that’s rubbish—absolute rubbish. What we are doing is we’re putting the environment at the heart of the decision-making process around when we’re combining transport, housing, and certain local government functions—making those decision-making processes. In particular, one of the key things this Government is trying to address is housing affordability because that is one of the key things that will lead to a much more coherent and unified society, and by making environment part of the process and working hard for it to be at the centre of the decision making, we will have a much stronger chance of achieving those goals. I commend this bill to the House. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): This is a split call. DAN ROSEWARNE (Labour) (16:41): Thank you, Madam Speaker. Thanks for that previous contribution over there on the other side of the House. Now I know why the House is starting to fill up and it’s not for this bill, the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill, and so that’s fantastic. I’d just like to start with the Minister’s opening remarks. She acknowledged the feedback of submitters, but let’s take a look at how many submitters there were. There were over 580, and so I think, from here, there were 580 that opposed this legislation, there were four that were neutral, and then only one that actually supported it. So whether that acknowledgment actually took place, I’m not too sure, but anyhow, let’s crack on with the bill here. The Hon Rachel Brooking has very well articulated how different districts and authorities plug into the ministry and how the disestablishment of the ministry would actually make things a lot more complex for preserving our environment. I must say that in my previous role, I used to have the pleasure of taking overseas visitors on tours of New Zealand. We would meet up with the locals, tour some of our local landmarks, and go over some of our world leading tracks, and they absolutely loved it. At a lot of places in New Zealand that we took for granted, they were overwhelmed, and they couldn’t believe that we would take some of this for granted and wind back the protections for this environment. They’d see it as our greatest asset. One example was when I brought a Korean delegation over. Korea has a population of 51 million on a land mass smaller than the size of the South Island, and these people were just absolutely flabbergasted about how beautiful this country is. When we talked about winding back a lot of this legislation, they were just at a loss as to why we’d do it, and so that is definitely a worry. This bill actually winds a lot of those protections back. The Green Party contribution talked about how no parties actually campaigned on the disestablishment of the ministry, and that’s a concern, because if you did that, it would have absolutely cost votes. Cameron Luxton— Cameron Luxton: Labour only ever did things that you campaigned on when you were in Government, then? DAN ROSEWARNE: —the ACT member who is heckling over there—you know, he was reading off his speaking notes and he was wanted to go back a bit. He was winding back red tape, but the political party that is all about reducing regulation and red tape has through this bill inadvertently added a lot more complexity and a lot more red tape to something that should be more simple and should allow this agency to actually protect our environment. Debbie Ngarewa-Packer quite rightly said that iwi were becoming an advisory note and the last bastion of protecting our environment. Effectively, this is slamming the door shut on tangata whenua, and that’s something that we all need to be worried about. But we’ll go back to the bill. With regard to clause 9, which replaces section 29 of the Act, the Government has repeatedly told the House today through their contributions that it’s only kind of like a bit of a house-cleaning measure, but clause 9 tells a different story. It collapses the Ministry for the Environment into a single statutory office, with the Secretary for the Environment personally responsible to the Minister for all environmental functions. Now, that may look tidy on paper, but it weakens the institutional independence. A ministry can push back. A secretary answers directly to the Minister, who controls their appointment and their performance reviews and then their future roles, and so what we’re seeing here is a deliberate reduction in democratic oversight and accountability for our environment. Everyone in New Zealand should be concerned about that. Environmental protection often requires uncomfortable advice from our agents. We need to rely on that so that we can provide legislation that protects our environment, and, unfortunately, that is absent with this bill. For that reason, I do not commend it to the House. DAVID MacLEOD (National—New Plymouth) (16:46): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take this call on the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill. This bill is actually quite a small bill—it’s only eight pages long—it has the intention of facilitating the Government’s plan to combine the functions of a number of entities, with those entities being the Ministry for the Environment, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, the Ministry of Transport, and also the local government functions within the Department of Internal Affairs. During the select committee process—yes—there were a lot of submissions there that gave us lots of advice. One of the amendments that came from that was to strengthen the feedback from the Secretary for the Environment, who will hand the ultimate responsibility for this new ministry back to Parliament. We have inserted a new clause, and it’s requiring the secretary to report annually to ensure that he’s reporting on the performance of their function, as is required under the Environment Act. We have listened, as a select committee. It is a small bill, and it sets in place a future for this new ministry, nicknamed “MCERT”—the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport. I commend the bill to the House. Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour) (16:47): This Government has no commitment to the environment. If I look at what this bill is doing, it is removing our precious Ministry for the Environment and diluting all its powers by mixing them into a mega-ministry, where the focus on the environment will be lost. It’s a disgrace. I don’t want to go over the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s submission again, as my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan went through it beautifully, but the Parliamentary Commissioner of the Environment—a former National Party MP, and a man who was appointed to the role by Labour and reappointed by National—said, “For these reasons, the Ministry for the Environment should, in my view, be left out of this merger.” That’s a man of some eminence who is saying that that should happen. The Environmental Defence Society, which is a long-respected organisation in this country and an organisation which all parties are across this House engage with, has said that there is a huge risk of diluted functions within this new mega-ministry and that this merger should not go ahead. I have a particular concern around this merger, and that is around the loss of focus on climate. Now, all the advice on climate for this Government, or the advice that comes from officials, comes out of the Ministry for the Environment—the Ministry for the Environment that is being diluted, and, along with that, the focus on climate. There are many challenges that New Zealand faces, but climate is a huge one. Just last week, the Climate Change Commission came out with its climate change risk assessment for Aotearoa New Zealand for 2026. It pointed out key climate risks for New Zealand—key infrastructure risks to water infrastructure, to buildings, to rail and road networks; key risks to nature and the bioeconomy, and ecosystems and biodiversity and forestry; key community and safety risks to social and community wellbeing; to emergency management; to risks in te ao Māori, in the Māori world; huge decision and funding risks within central and local government funding, within decision making and delivery. Huge risks that this country faces, and the advice to Ministers around those risks comes from the Ministry for the Environment—and yet that ministry is now being diluted and lost within the mega-ministry. It’s a huge shame. In fact, what this bill represents is yet another walk-back on climate. You know, the Government talks a big game on climate. It says it is committed to meeting Paris, to meeting net zero by 2050, which is what the world agreed in the Paris Agreement. But what has it actually done? What has this Government done on climate? It has reversed the ban on offshore oil and gas. It has excluded agriculture from the emissions trading scheme (ETS). It has ended the Clean Car Discount. It has gotten rid of the Climate Emergency Response Fund. It has weakened climate reporting. The world-leading Financial Sector (Climate-related Disclosures and Other Matters) Amendment Act 2021 is being watered right down. It has cut subsidies for public transport for young people—cutting it for young people in a cost of living crisis. It has backed out of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance. At COP30, the huge climate conference that is held every year, it refused to sign up to the pathway for transitioning away from fossil fuels, which about 80 countries around the world have signed up to, including the countries we usually like to compare ourselves to. It is allowed the ETS to fray, to decay, to the point where it is in danger of collapse. It has removed regulations for low-emissions buildings. It has diluted the Clean Car Standard. It has cancelled Auckland light rail. It has added road-user charges to electric vehicles, such that a light electric vehicle pays exactly the same road-user charge as a 3.5 tonne ute. Now, I’ve got no problems— ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I ask the member to come back to this bill. Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: I’m coming to it, Madam Speaker. It’s part of what this Government has done on diluting climate. A 3.5 tonne ute; you go ahead and drive it if you want to—that’s entirely a person’s choice—but let’s at least pay the costs associated with it. Just today, in its walk-back on climate and its diluting on climate, it has removed the capacity to litigate—it’s said it’s going to remove the capacity to litigate—for torts around climate change. You know, this has been a very, very interesting decision, because the Supreme Court ruled that there was a case that could be taken with respect to torts on climate change. It said that you had to consider that. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can the member please come back to this bill. Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: This is part of the bill, Madam Speaker. This House, this Government, has diluted the Ministry for the Environment: it is removing its responsibilities and it is losing climate change in this mega-ministry. It is part of that Government’s huge walk-back on climate, a walk-back that continues day by day by day with decisions that deprioritise the climate. Today, they have removed the capacity to litigate. They have removed the capacity for an individual to take big companies to court and to hold them responsible for their climate emissions. And, in fact, the reason that was given for this is saying—the Minister just said, well, it was creating uncertainty in business confidence. That is a very clear signal about what this Government is about. This Government needs to remember that business is a subset of the environment, not the other way around. Business is a subset of the economy. It is a subset of the environment—the economy is a subset of the environment. We cannot work in business unless we have a livable world. And, in fact, it’s a clear signal about what will happen in this big new ministry; a clear signal that in this big new ministry, the focus on climate will be lost. That is a shame. It is an absolute shame that that should happen. You know, it’s pretty clear that this Government is actually just given up on tackling climate change. It’s given up on doing the hard work. It’s taken every step possible to dilute climate actions. It is not serious about climate, and that imperils our children; it imperils our children’s children; it imperils business, for goodness’ sake. A business may not be able to operate in uncertainty, but it sure as hell cannot operate when the world around it is being destroyed by climate change. It is time to have some long-term thinking on the part of that Government, instead of the short-term, “Let’s cram it all together and push it into one ministry.” Let’s think about why we need a focus on environment. And it’s more than just that: the environment is responsible for biodiversity. It’s responsible for looking after the water that we drink. It’s responsible for the food that we eat. There are these sorts of fundamental issues that are considered by environment, and yet it is being diluted in this mega-ministry. It’s an outrage and a shame. Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: Backtrack on the basics. Hon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL: It is. Thank you. It is a backtrack on the basics. So when this Government says that it’s serious about the environment, when it says it is serious about climate, where is the evidence? In fact, in terms of the evidence of that—the way that they brush away trouble, brush away concern—let’s go back to the process for this bill. Let’s go back to the incredibly short process; the process where this bill was introduced on 15 February, the first reading was on 19 February, and then the chair of the Environment Committee, for reasons that no one could fathom, decided that it was appropriate to have less than two weeks allowed for submissions—a unilateral decision. Now, that is a ridiculous thing to do. If that chair was really committed to the environment, the name of her committee, that would never have happened. Instead, we’ve had a rushed process with just a very few days of submissions—getting the nuisance of the environment out of the way. That is the attitude of that Government: let’s get the nuisance of climate, the nuisance of the environment, the nuisance of those who care about the world that we live in out of the way. RYAN HAMILTON (National—Hamilton East) (16:57): Oh, that was so depressing. It was like a negative weather watch where the rain was coming down, the wind was blowing, and the flood was rising. This bill is really quite simple. It’s about taking the environment ministry and putting it into another ministry. Nothing’s disappearing. There’s no drama. Cheer up; the sun is shining. I commend the bill to the House. A party vote was called for on the question, That the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. Ayes 68 New Zealand National 49; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8. Noes 54 New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 4; Kapa-Kingi. Motion agreed to. Bill read a second time.