Parliamentary Commissioner For The Environment

You may think that the opposition are the group in Parliament whose job is to ‘hold the government to account’. You’d be wrong. 

MPs have a lot of things on their minds. But to keep them on track on some issues they hire professional consciences. One of them is shaded green.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment's latest report has focused on a programme used by farmers called Overseer.

Sometimes Parliament delegates powers to people so that they can help it keep a check on the potentially unbridled power of the Executive. Now one of these ‘demi-parliaments’ is about to retire.

The country's environmental watchdog has criticised the government's landmark environmental report released last year, saying it gives no diagnosis on the health of the environment.

Rising sea levels could reduce the availability of freshwater in some parts of the country, particularly in Wellington, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment says.

There is no room for speculation about rising sea levels when you're standing up to your knees in water in your back yard, says Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull. Audio

At least 9000 buildings across coastal New Zealand have been flagged as being at risk of rising sea levels. Could your home be one of them?