Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill

Third Reading Hon NICOLA GRIGG (Minister for the Environment) (17:21): I move, That the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. This bill completes a necessary legislative step to support the establishment of the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, which we’ll call MCERT. As the House is aware, the Ministry for the Environment is the only agency involved in the merger that was created by statute. Disestablishing it as a legal entity therefore requires an amendment to the Environment Act of 1986. This is the specific purpose of this amendment bill. This bill ensures that the important environmental functions being carried out by the ministry every day since its creation in 1986 will continue. The Environment Act of 1986, with the requirement to advise the Minister for the Environment on all of the aspects of environmental administration, continues as it is today; it does not go away. The Act’s requirement to resolve conflicts with environmental policies does not go away. The role of the Secretary for the Environment does not go away. This bill represents a change of form but not function. It is important, at this final stage, to restate the context for change and what it is intended to support. Some of New Zealand’s most persistent challenges, including environmental protection, housing affordability, infrastructure delivery, climate adaptation, regional growth, and productivity, are fundamentally interconnected. Despite this, our current system attempts to manage them through fragmented institutional arrangements and policy silos. Key policy and implementation expertise have been spread across multiple agencies, making it harder to provide coherent advice on issues that cross traditional system and portfolio boundaries, and harder to deliver timely outcomes for communities. The decision to establish MCERT reflects the judgment that bringing these functions together within a single, system-led agency provides a stronger foundation for delivery. It is part of setting up the Public Service for the future through reducing the number of departments, increasing the use of artificial intelligence, and seizing the opportunity to innovate. MCERT will be at the forefront of a modern, high-performing Public Service. Despite assertions to the contrary, the Ministry for the Environment was never established to be an advocate nor independent. It was established as a department of State under the control of the Minister to ensure a full and balanced account was taken to the management of natural and physical resources. It is not the Department of Conservation, the Environmental Protection Authority, nor the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment. While the Ministry for the Environment plays an important role in the Public Service, it is not a role that must be performed in isolation. This Government believes solving the problems we are facing as a country requires working a different way. By viewing these challenges as an interconnected system, environmental considerations can now be at the heart of decisions about where and how we live, work, and play. This bill also modernises the Environment Act 1986 so that it aligns more closely with the Public Service Act 2020, which sets the standard framework for departments across the Public Service. It also updates definitions to align with the modern drafting style in the Legislation Act 2019. The Act currently contains bespoke provisions reflecting arrangements put in place when the Ministry was first established nearly 40 years ago. This legislation updates those arrangements so that environmental functions sit within the same accountability and governance framework that applies to other constituent parts of MCERT, while preserving the statutory role and responsibility of the Secretary for the Environment. That consistency matters for clarity, transparency, and effective stewardship across Government. Environmental responsibilities are not being removed, and they are not being diluted. They transfer unchanged to the statutory role of the Secretary for the Environment, who remains directly accountable to the Minister for the Environment for their performance. Select committee scrutinies further reinforced the need for accountability, recommending strengthened reporting and assurance requirements that require the secretary to report annually to Parliament and the public on the performance of their functions under the Environment Act of 1986. This will increase transparency over current arrangements, and enable this House and the public to better understand how environmental advice is provided within the new ministry. Indeed, you could argue there is a stronger level of scrutiny on the Secretary for the Environment than we have currently. This amendment bill directly supports the Government’s ambitious reform agenda. Reforms to the resource management system, transport planning and funding, infrastructure delivery, and simplifying local government all rely on a Public Service that can work effectively across interconnected issues and support coordinated implementation. MCERT will enable this by bringing together the environmental planning, housing, transport, and local government functions that shape outcomes on the ground. Those with environmental policy and implementation expertise will be involved throughout, delivering on policy decisions that impact the environment and prosperity of our communities. Let me be clear: bringing these functions together does not remove difficult choices. What it does do is provide the conditions needed to improve the quality of advice provided to Ministers—advice that clearly identifies trade-offs, clearly identifies risks, and clearly identifies the consequences across systems and portfolios to support better decision making and, ultimately, better outcomes for New Zealanders. Some have suggested that combining environmental and development-related functions is without precedent internationally, or that precedent is limited to countries that we wouldn’t want to favourably compare ourselves to. I contend there are actually well-established international examples where responsibility for environmental protection and land-use planning is brought together within a single agency. Some examples include Switzerland’s Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications; Turkey’s Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change; and Finland’s Ministry of the Environment, which explicitly includes housing, building, and land-use planning. France provides another example of even broader integration, bringing together skills, experience, and expertise across environment and climate, transport, housing, and infrastructure policy within a single agency grouping the ministries of ecological transition, spatial planning, transport, cities, and housing. Similar name, strikingly similar functions. They may operate in different contexts to our own, with different pressures, but these models reflect a common understanding that environmental outcomes are strengthened, not weakened, when they are embedded within decisions about how cities grow, how infrastructure is delivered, and how land is used. As Minister for the Environment, my expectations following the passage of this amendment bill are clear, and they are practical. I expect MCERT to operate in a way that consistently brings environmental considerations into decisions and advice—not as a late check in or afterthought, but as a core input. I expect the Secretary for the Environment to resource and maintain a strong environmental voice within MCERT, grounded in evidence, statutory responsibility, and long-term stewardship. I expect advice that is honest about trade-offs, clear about risks, and explicit about consequences so that Ministers can make well-informed decisions across portfolios. I also expect the new agency to work effectively with local government, iwi, and communities, reducing complexity at the centre and supporting more coherent implementation on the ground throughout our cities and regions—everywhere that New Zealanders live, work, and play. Importantly, I expect accountability through clear public reporting on how environmental responsibilities are being met and how they are shaping decisions across the wider system. Again, this bill does not change what the law requires in relation to the environment. It improves how the Public Service is organised to meet those requirements more effectively and support delivery of the Government’s broader reform programme. The environment is deeply loved and deeply embraced by New Zealanders. I acknowledge that for many the disestablishment of the ministry may feel like the end of an era. For 40 years the ministry in its current form has been instrumental to the lives of New Zealanders and the wellbeing of our environment. It is understandable some may be feeling a sense of loss. But the ministry’s left us a legacy that we can all be proud of. I want to assure New Zealanders that this bill signals a new chapter for environmental management in New Zealand. It is not the end of the story. I commend this bill to the House. DEPUTY SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to. Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin) (17:31): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It would be so nice to not be standing here with the deeply cynical mind-set about everything that that Minister has just said. That is because, whilst the Minister has just said some very nice things about the environment, some good things about outcomes, something about the importance of the environment to all New Zealanders—things that I agree with her on—the track record of this Government is just bad for our environment; everything that they’ve done. So I cannot come to this with a fresh, rosy perspective, because we have to look at the context of what this Government has done. So let’s have a look at that. The Minister has promised that it’s going to be better, yet, in her very own words, she said that you could argue that the environment is going to be stronger in this ministry. She did not say that it must be. When we were in the committee of the whole House stage of the debate, I offered her up many suggestions for new titles that could have emphasised the importance of the environment in this new ministry, but she chose to not make any changes, which is a great shame. But what we’ve seen this Government do in terms of the environment is huge cuts to funding for the environment. No doubt we’ll see more of those tomorrow again. We have the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment talking about the $1 billion gone. We’ve seen the waste levy be dehypothecated so it now applies to any environmental issue—it does not have to relate to waste. Whilst that might sound nice—“Oh, we can spend some more money on the environment.”—what it means is the central tax fund is now not going to pay for environmental things, and so there is a huge decrease in overall environmental spending. That is not a good thing. Hon Simon Watts: Rubbish! Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, it’s rubbish, I hear from opposite. Well, yes, that is the focus of this Government. It is on creating more rubbish and getting rid of the circular economy, isn’t it, Mr Watts? That is a great shame. We have seen that the previous Minister for the Environment has banned the phrase “circular economy”, because they have said that the balance has gone too far. Cameron Luxton: Could we talk about this bill now? Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, now I’m being asked to talk about the bill. Well, this is all in the context of this. This Minister has said that we are to believe that this Government will do better for the environment, when we know their track record is to cut, cut, cut, and to make things into culture wars. It is deplorable. So we have seen the end of environmental hubs. We have seen the end of legal funds for environmental cases. This is all what this Government has done. We’ve seen speedy little changes to the Resource Management Act, which this Government has brought back, to enable pollution of waterways. That is this Government’s track record. We’ve seen a fast track promulgated to enable applicants to get around environmental protections. That is the point of their version of a fast track. We’ve seen every single climate change action gutted—totally gutted. Hon Simon Watts: Oh, what a load of rubbish! Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, and the Minister of Climate Change seems to be disagreeing with me. So I look forward to him taking a call to explain how it is that this Government is doing all the actions of the Climate Emergency Response Fund, all the actions of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund, all the actions to decrease climate pollution. I am yet to hear anything on what they’re doing about the $6 billion on climate adaptation that they got rid of. This Government has also ended localism, after campaigning so strenuously on it. We have, in fact, seen the decimation of local community plans. So that is why I am not rosy about what the Minister just said. That is why I’m cynical and deeply concerned, and why we asked so many questions in the committee of the whole House stage about the methods that we could make sure that what the Minister said is going to happen would actually happen. But we did not get much comfort there. Instead, we hear, and we heard the Minister—I think it’s the first time I’ve heard it in relation to this bill in these parliamentary debates—talk about artificial intelligence (AI), and that being one of the reasons for putting these different parts of Government together. We know that this Government just thinks it’s some sort of magical thing. AI is going to solve all the problems. “We can just give it to big international companies and they can deal with all of our data and all of our decision making and we’ll save a whole lot of money.” That is not how it works. It is much more difficult. Of course it’s a useful tool as well, but simply saying that artificial intelligence is going to fix everything shows a disdain for any inquiry or being curious about how it actually works. We’ve seen as well the manifesto—I have the National Party’s manifesto here. There is no mention in there of getting rid of the Ministry for the Environment. We heard as well in a number of submissions this concern that there will be policy capture and it will be difficult for public servants to really be able to make a case for the environment, as they would do currently, and put things up to the Minister. We didn’t hear any answers about what happens to the Vote. At the moment there is a Vote Environment. I’m sure we’ll see that diminished tomorrow in the Budget. But we had no assurances over what would happen with that Vote, nor about whether or not there would even be a Minister for the Environment. That definition is removed from the bill. And the Minister is the Minister for the Environment at the moment, but clearly the direction that this Government wants to go in is to not have a Minister for the Environment. They’re getting rid of the ministry; why have a Minister? You can have a secretary and that’ll be it. This is a big problem. We’ve also heard from the Minister before that this would get rid of policy silos. But she has not given us any indication of how we will measure the getting rid of policy silos. Will it be simply because the environment will be diminished in amongst these other ministries that are currently ministries that are all joining together to be this one agency and be forgotten about? Is that a way to get rid of a silo? You just forget about one thing and then it’s not a silo—it doesn’t exist. A silo requires different bodies. So if one just dissolves away, it’s gone. That is what we are very concerned about. Again, nothing has been said. Nobody from that side has said, “Do not worry, Labour Party. Do not worry, Green Party. We will make sure that there is a Minister for the Environment in Cabinet. We will make sure that we will not enable more pollution. We will have laws that set proper environmental limits.” These are all things that could be said. “We will make sure that there are separate policy avenues to go to the Minister, rather than going through a Secretary for the Environment.”, who is also the CEO of this new ministry and who also has transport and also has regions and also has cities. How are we going to be clear that the siloed approach is not just going to be dissolved? Those are things that we could be asking for, but we come back to this question that’s been asked over and over of who will speak for the environment in Government. We know that there’s no Minister for the Environment at the Cabinet table currently. We have this track record that I’ve already spoken about, and this needs to change. The environment has already been deleted by this Government, and it’s a disgrace. LAN PHAM (Green) (17:41): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just have to reflect in times like these, when bills are just so regularly coming through this Chamber at pace, on what it would take to understand that, as human beings, we are literally existing on this rock that is orbiting the sun at this precise point and that this actually allows life to flourish here on planet Earth. We heard from the Minister for the Environment that this change is “necessary”, and what the context of this Government’s “necessary” involves is bureaucratic shuffling decision-making that is so shallow that it ultimately gets us nowhere as a country or as a collective of human beings. What ultimately is necessary for us, not just here in Aotearoa New Zealand but around the world, is to understand the true necessity of protecting our environment, and here in this country, all the things and all the data and information that comes from this very ministry, the Ministry for the Environment, all the factors across water, across air, across biodiversity, and across oceans—the data and evidence tells us that it’s not quite getting through as to how necessary those things are and how necessary it is that we actually prioritise them and make decisions that turn the dial and enable the conditions and the functional ecosystems that will allow us to exist in the future. That is so basic, and it just astounds me the amount of time we are here fighting this type of legislation that just so, so comprehensively misunderstands that. I think what is really shocking with this, as well, is that it’s not just about a misunderstanding. It’s about the deliberate decision to do this, no matter what, and we’ve seen this with this bill. The very tiny process that we actually had at select committee in even considering to do this was so truncated that it was literally two hours and 45 minutes of public hearings. Then it came to select committee, and within 40 minutes, we had just decided that “Do you know what? We’re just going to rubber-stamp this. This is just going to go through.”, despite having no assurances about the very critical role that the Ministry for the Environment plays, about their work, or about the transparency of the Budget decisions which we’re, apparently, going to see tomorrow. We didn’t know in deciding to do this what the implications were, and, quite frankly, I don’t think committee members cared, because we sat there in public hearings, and if they’d also read all of the submissions they would know that only one person supported this, compared to 587 submitters made up of academics, iwi and hapū, experts, community groups, and environmental stewards from across the country, who were saying, “This is a terrible idea. Do not do this to the country.” They said that because 40 years ago, New Zealand elected a Government that had campaigned specifically on the Ministry for the Environment being established because New Zealanders knew and appreciated—and still do, to this day—how important having that dedicated voice for the environment at the heart of Government decision-making is, and we’re scrapping that today. This is the last, final nail in the coffin for the existence of that dedicated Ministry for the Environment. It is a shameful end of an era. I want to recognise the Minister for talking about the legacy of the Ministry for the Environment within those 40 years because the work that they’ve been doing is something to be proud of, but the context of the legacy of this Government is doing absolutely nothing to help that work. In fact, it’s taking us backwards. I want to particularly acknowledge those staff within the Ministry for the Environment because I want them to know how much we and New Zealand value their work and how much we are fighting to protect the very critical work that they do. The fact is that we need them so desperately to be able to continue that work, despite their being merged into this mega-ministry. Now, we’ve heard again the Minister and the Government be at pains to explain that “You know, there is an ‘E’ in MCERT, and it does stand for the environment.”, and yet, other than that, we’re seeing no other assurance about their work. I want to show members this document—and no one is going to be able to see this, right? This is the actual risks to the Ministry for the Environment— David MacLeod: Annual report to the House on the Environment Act. LAN PHAM: —and this would be news to you, David MacLeod, because you did not ask—sorry, Madam Speaker. Hon Member: Environment. LAN PHAM: The Environment Committee did not ask to see this information, which outlines very clearly that there are extremely high risks to the department—which it will no longer be, because it’s being merged into the Ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport (MCERT)—across competing priorities, across reduction in resource capacity risk, and across a lack of clarity of roles, because the Government didn’t care about the actual implications of this. It didn’t allow us, as a select committee, to at least be informed of them or to examine them. This is absolutely shameful, and I think it demonstrates what this Government is putting in front of us on such a regular basis, which is that the environment comes last. The fact that the Minister continues to insist that none of the roles will be diminished or diluted frankly shows how little they understand of the actual role of MCERT. We saw from the Cabinet papers that the purpose is about economic development, region by region. There was very little, if any, mention of the environment, and we know that when we look at the actual Act that MCERT has responsibility for, there are only 15 environmental Acts, which will need to be balanced behind the scenes—not in a transparent way, but behind the scenes within the ministry—with 54 Acts that cross housing, urban development, transport, and local government. This means a dilution of environmental voice at the heart of Government in a way that is not transparent. Now, we would love to be proved wrong, we would love to believe that the Minister is right, that this is going to strengthen the environmental voice, but when you put this in the context of this Government’s decisions in the environmental space, that is impossible to believe. This is a shocking indictment on this Government where not one party, including the National Party, campaigned on this. What I’m really looking forward to is this election, with those same people and the kids and future generations that are looking at this and saying, “You know what, we are going to do something about this. We are going to elect a Government that prioritises environment at the heart of decision making and who understands the absolute necessity of the environment and how critical its connection is to us as human beings and that nature is the backbone of our economy and our society.” That’s exactly what this Government is missing, and that’s exactly why they will not continue to be in power post this election, because they just don’t get it. CAMERON LUXTON (ACT) (17:51): Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise and inject a bit of life into this debate after the speaker from the Labour Party came in with all the cynicism of someone you’d expect to be a modern-day Dionysus living in a barrel on the street because we can’t build any houses. We’ve got a space cadet coming in from outer space to tell us all about how we rely on the environment. We know how much we rely on the environment. This Government represents the population of New Zealanders who love their environment and who want to live and thrive in this world, from farmers, from ENGOs, from people who get out and clean up our beaches. That’s who we’re here for. We got promised an argument; all we got was a diatribe over there. What we really are talking about here is replacing the label of the “Minister for the Environment” with “the Minister” to align with every other piece of legislation. The idea of silos where you’re going to have a secretary for the environment in the new Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport, it is there. And the idea that the positions won’t exist, well, the Ministry of Education, the Department of Internal Affairs’ Local Government in New Zealand provisions, the Ministry of Transport, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, that will be a part of this new mega-ministry, as it’s being called. I commend this bill to the House. JAMIE ARBUCKLE (NZ First) (17:52): Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First in the third reading to support the Environment (Disestablishment of Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill. We have heard a lot of alarm around this bill. We’ve heard obviously through the select committee people opposing the bill who are concerned about it. But the reason for that is this is something new. This is something bold from this side of the House. It is putting a label on it. The Ministry of the Environment doesn’t fix the environment. I’ve sat for 15 years as a resource consent hearings chairman, and often people would come in, and nothing in those consents would be about the environment. It was all about money. It was not about the things that should be focused on. The current framework is of responsibility results in several aspects of a proposal being split between different portfolios. This is new, it is bold, it is the ministry that will be called the Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport. It’s about cities, it’s about the environment, it’s about the regions, and it’s about transport. As we heard from the Minister, this is a change in form, not function. This is about ministries that will actually start to talk to each other. They will be embedded with the same values. As we just also heard, we’ll get rid of those silos and actually start working together. One of the great things that came out of the select committee and through the committee of the whole House aspect was that the Secretary for the Environment will report, and they will report back every year to the Minister, and we firmly believe, in New Zealand First, that this will give better environmental and development outcomes. Also, I heard from the other side of the House, from the Labour speaker, about AI solving everything. Well, AI can’t solve everything, because it can’t give Labour any policies. I will commend this bill to the House. Thank you. DEPUTY SPEAKER: This is a split call. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Pāti Māori) (17:55): Thank you. I appreciate it. Look, I speak to this kaupapa as a mokopuna of muru raupatu, and I know that often when we speak to these kaupapa, it’s hard to make people realise the life that we come from, some that perhaps the Government doesn’t have connection to. So for us everyday at a taiao level, I’m very blessed to wake up beneath my maunga, Taranaki Maunga, knowing everyday that our tūpuna did the same and our mokopuna continue to be blessed to do the same. Our maunga is something very important to us, and, in fact, the Government’s recognised the significance by giving legal embodiment to him. I guess it’s in that basis as a native born kaitiaki that we have spent a long time trying to make sure that our taonga are understood and here for everyone’s mokopuna. It doesn’t matter whether you have indigenously arrived here or just arrived last week. I think, you know, for us, nā te whenua te toto o te tangata—the land is the lifeblood of the people, all of our people. And so for us, what this risks doing with this disestablishment and the lack of focus as we feel, as tangata w’enua, on our kaitiakitanga, is it enables the Government to disconnect all those years of understanding what the maunga, the w’enua, the taiao, and, importantly, the descendants of those taonga are about. That’s not something that you can pass on from one Government agency to another. It’s taken years and years of trust and w’anaungatanga to understand. It feels like this bill not only weakens our role as kaitiaki, but it also weakens the lessons and the value of that relationship that we together have as kaitiaki. It feels like every time we progress and get somewhere as Māori over the years and we’ve got these little wins, and believe me, this agency isn’t the perfect agency, but there’s such a lot of intel, there’s such a lot of cultural involvement and connection. And it feels like that’s up to be traded. I think that’s the that’s the sadness that we have, is that, yes, these agencies are bricks and mortar, but inside them are people who have built up that w’anaungatanga and that intel. And so, I guess we’re still so used to the fact that we get a few steps ahead and then we lose it. I guess the thing that I want to emphasise to our people is that sometimes we just have to believe in what it is that we can do, even when the Government is going to threaten some of that with the closure of these agencies, the Ministry for the Environment, and remind us that, you know, we still were able to win the Trans-Tasman seabed mining. We were still able to win against Shane Jones’s own direct designed, customised fast-track seabed mining bill. We were still able to win against forcing the name of Egmont away from our maunga. We were able to win Te Awa Tupua as a legal entity. We were able to win and still stand in survival against muru raupatu. We were able to win against fracking wai pollution. Because we intergenerationally have this mātauranga and this connection to our taonga. Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tangata. [If the land thrives, so too do the people.] So we can see Governments attempt to derail, disestablish, and dismantle, but they have truly learned nothing from the lessons of our forefathers—many who are on these walls. This ridiculous bill may attempt to shut up the doors of Crown accountability, to nail up the shutters of Government responsibility, to cut the w’are taiao beyond recognition. But now that we as tangata w’enua, we as natural kaitiaki, will be here beyond this Government and be here as we continue with our indigenous solutions to thrive and our w’akapapa to thrive. And we will make sure that our history shows where we stood when we were trying to stand up for our environment, just as we had to so many times before. So kia kaha to our w’ānau, kia kaha to those kaimahi. Kia ora rā. DEPUTY SPEAKER: This debate is interrupted. The House will resume at 7.30 p.m. Debate interrupted. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. Vote Correction