Commissioner makes it clear the evidence does not back up some of the more emotive claims.

A report to parliament this afternoon is expected to endorse fracking but advocate stronger safeguards.

Solid Energy and the country’s environmental watchdog are at loggerheads about the viability of proposed lignite developments in Southland.

Dr Jan Wright, the parliamentary commissioner for the environment, released a report today in strong opposition to large-scale lignite developments.

Both state-owned enterprise Solid Energy and the L&M Group are investigating lignite developments over thousands of hectares in Southland and Otago.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s report on mining in the conservation estate brings a welcome dose of sanity to the mining debate, Straterra CEO Chris Baker said today.

He commended Dr Jan Wright for presenting mining as an activity that should be and can be an environmentally responsible activity – and said that this concept was already well established.

The Electricity Commission last month stated the need to watch overseas developments before regulating smart meter installation in New Zealand, but this week's announcement that all UK households will have smart meters by 2020 was not welcomed by all industry players.

The UK’s Department for Energy and Climate Change’s £8 billion ($NZ18.3million) scheme is designed to see 47 million meters installed in 26 million properties by 2020.