Ardern Shane: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22300] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 People always know when there is a socialist administration in the last throes of its existence in this Parliament. They can always tell. Here we are in the eleventh hour on the last day of Parliament locked in a time warp still in Tuesday with a piece of legislation that is so out of touch with what needs to happen today it is unbelievable. The Minister the Hon David Benson-Pope who is only 5 minutes in the job has now come up with a Supplementary Order Paper of some 136 pages which was delivered to people this morning to have a look at—a Minister who has spent his whole political career both before he came into Parliament and since he has been in Parliament telling people how important it is to have a robust consultation process. 
I just ask the question: how could that happen? Listening before to the co-leader of the Green Party—the potential future coalition partner of any future Labour Government—I heard it all revealed. That member chaired the Local Government and Environment Committee in the first instance after the 1999 election and the red pen was put through all the recommended changes to the legislation that had been put forward after a thorough consultation process. That was Simon Upton’s bill and a red pen was put through all those recommended changes. Now here we are today with a bill and with a Supplementary Order Paper that is almost as big as the bill itself being recommended to make some minor amendments along the lines that Simon Upton recommended at that time. It is ad hoc; it is the wrong way to go about it; and it certainly will not work. It will not fix the problem. 
I say to the Minister that we all know that this has come about as a result of the circus that took place with Project Aqua in the South Island. We all know that the “muesli man” the new Mayor of Auckland has said to his favourite political party that what it is proposing will not work that it will add a whole layer of cost to the Resource Management Act and that it will not achieve what it is designed to achieve. We all know that power prices have gone up by 50 percent under this administration and that they are continuing to rise. We all know there is a crisis in the electricity industry because new generation capacity cannot proceed. We all know that—all of New Zealand knows that. We know that there is a huge crisis in roading right across New Zealand. We know that the small-business committee that did an investigation under the leadership of Paul Swain came back and recommended to this Government that the single biggest issue concerning small business and the development of New Zealand is the Resource Management Act. We know that but here we are in the death throes of this Government with a piece of legislation that will not address those issues. 
Phil Heatley 
: It tinkers! 
SHANE ARDERN 
: It tinkers with the edge of the issues but it will not address them. 
We ask the Minister in the chair the Hon David Benson-Pope in his last gasp of air in this Parliament why he cannot just listen to his own people—his own constituents his own supporters—on the left of local government around New Zealand and do what they ask him to do. It is interesting to note when we look back that the member for Auckland Central—the “member for Auckland Affairs” I believe they call her—Judith Tizard said in one of the earlier debates on this legislation that the recommendations put forward by Simon Upton in 1999 were evil—evil and dangerous. She said that a direct referral to the Environment Court was an evil dangerous thing to do. Today in this debate with exactly that proposal before us we hear— 
Hon David Benson-Pope 
: It’s not. Tell the truth. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: It’s not exactly the same. 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Well I will be interested to hear the Minister take a call or either of the Ministers—the one who was there for a start and who got the sack or the one who is in the chair—to tell us why I am wrong. That is exactly what we are doing here today. Those Ministers need to know that it is our roads in this country that need engineering not our people. So the Ministers should front up and tell those people who have supported them why they will not pass legislation in Parliament today that would save the Western Springs speedway—why they cannot do that. Why are they so against that kind of thing particularly when their own people and all of local government are telling them that? 
It has been stated many times that this Government has been supportive of local government. Well this is where the rubber meets the road right here today.