Or, which will incredibly not do so, if you were Dunedin Labour MP Rachel Brooking, who had a busy Tuesday afternoon saving the planet.
First up was the Conservation Amendment Bill, an innocuously-titled piece of legislation with a sweeping purpose — to modernise the management of conservation lands.
The Conservation Act is 40 years old and time has not been kind to some sections of it — it is well worth clearing out some of the weeds.
But where the government and opposition part ways is what such a rewrite should set out to achieve.
The government wants to both support economic growth and improve environmental outcomes: the opposition wants much more of the latter and stricter environmental protections to be in place if the former is a path to be pursued.
Conservation Minister Tama Potaka was in a bullish mood as he trumpeted his looming reforms.
‘‘DOC protects some of the most iconic landscapes and seascapes on this side of planet Earth, but it must also operate in a system that enables people to experience, invest in, and responsibly use this land in ways that strengthen both conservation and regional prosperity,’’ he said.
‘‘That is what this Bill seeks to achieve: a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reform conservation legislation; to make it clearer, more efficient, more responsive, and, of course, protect the natural places, the historic places, the wondrous heritage, that New Zealanders value most. ‘‘
And make money. Tourism on conservation land generates about $5 billion annually, and more than 1600 businesses operate on it.
The Bill sets out to establish a ‘‘National Conservation Policy Statement’’, and Potaka said one of its aims would be to ease the way for low-risk activities on conservation land.
The government’s theory is that more business on conservation land will essentially subsidise the expensive task of maintaining that land and the species that live on on.
Before politics Rachel Brooking was an environmental lawyer and, as she reminded the House, her father is an environmental historian.
To her mind this was not about cutting red tape — which she acknowledged was indeed an issue — but rather it was a paradigm shift.
‘‘There’s been so much legislation in New Zealand since at least the 1870s about the need to preserve these special areas,’’ she said.
‘‘What we see, in this amendment, is that the purpose is to enable use and development of that land. That is a huge change, and it is one that we are very much opposed to. I know there will be a lot of submissions on that topic from all of those people who have advocated for conservation status over many generations.’’
She went on to question just what the government wanted to achieve by granting the Minister the ability to set out amenity areas — ‘‘Are they intending to go to Mitre Peak to attend a wine bar? Is this what this Bill is about?’’ — and raised what will be a thorny issue getting this Bill through.
‘‘We know that most conservation land is in the South Island — the best island — and the majority of that is in Ngāi Tahu’s takiwā . . . they have already said that this legislation totally undermines that [Treaty] settlement.’’
But if that Bill was bad enough, Brooking’s high dudgeon reached stratospheric levels immediately afterwards when the Environment (Disestablishment of the Ministry for the Environment) Amendment Bill was read a second time.
The Environment Ministry is an endangered species and conservation efforts to save it seem doomed. It is poised to be absorbed into the new mega ministry of Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport — not all catchily shorthanded to MCERT.
Until her promotion Invercargill National MP Penny Simmonds was in charge of killing off what some regard as a pest species: now Selwyn MP Nicola Grigg has the — likely very brief — task of being Minister for the Environment.
However, she assured Parliament, the ministry might be going but its work would endure.
‘‘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,’’ she said, adding that this was all structural and technical and not really anything to worry about.
‘‘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.’’
None of which mollified Brooking one iota, who in response called the whole proceedings a sad day for conservation and the environment. It all went downhill from there.
‘‘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,’’ she thundered.
‘‘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.’’
She was certainly hearing plenty of commentary from the other side of the House, which was enthusiastically heckling, but Brooking was in no mood to ease off.
‘‘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,’’ she said.
‘‘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 . . . like everything else here, it’s a terrible piece of legislation.’’
Terrible or not, 40 minutes later it passed and the next day Brooking was back on the barricades trying, again unsuccessfully to save the ministry during the Bill’s committee stages.
