Robertson Grant; Pugh Maureen; Bishop ChrisHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): Thank you very much Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to take my first call in Part 1 of the bill. I've got two or three questions I want to put to the Minister and to help him prepare a little bit it is around clauses 4 through 7 in Schedule 1 around Treaty settlements and then clause 8 in Schedule 1 on the fast-track consenting process. But I want to raise a bigger-picture question for the Minister on the subject of transitional arrangements because this is an unusual bill in many ways in that it will in Part 2 attempt to repeal two Acts but in Part 1 it wants to keep some of that legislation. The choice about what bits of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act are kept is the question I want to put to the Minister—the big-picture question I want to put to the Minister—because I want to know what consideration the Minister gave to other ways of the transitional provisions working. For example while accepting that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is still in force keeping it that way suspending the application of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act to the extent that they are inconsistent with the RMA retaining the bits—and I want to come back to the question of the Treaty clauses because I don't think they do exactly what the Minister said before but why just those and the fast-track consenting process? Why not give some space to the Minister to be able to effectively allow him to do this without pulling the whole house down? I'm going to make a prediction that at a certain point the Minister is going to be back with a whole lot of clauses that look really similar to the thing that he's just pulled all down and what I would suggest to the Minister is that he had an alternative. He had the alternative of actually allowing the system that we've created to continue but actually give himself six months nine months 18 months to decide whether the bits that he's now getting rid of work. So that is the first of my questions to the Minister. It is the extent to which he has considered other options that would actually allow key features of the new system to continue and the RMA exist as it did rather than have to go through and do this exercise which I think he'll end up doing twice. Moving to the more detailed questions I've got; I need an explanation from the Minister as to exactly what clauses 4 through 7 are designed to do when it comes to Treaty settlements. It seems to me on reading this that they are specifically about fast-track consenting and nothing else. I had the great pleasure of chairing 19 meetings of the ministerial oversight group on resource management reform—Hon Member: You'll never get those back. Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I'm never ever getting those hours back and I'm sure the Minister may look forward in his future to something similar to that. But in all seriousness the discussions—and the most intense discussions—during that period were around the way in which planning law affects iwi hapū and the Treaty process. It seems to me that clauses 4 through 7—and this is the question that we need answered by the Minister tonight. It is whether this justifies the fast-track consenting because if it does only apply to fast-track consenting the problem is much much bigger for this Government because the changes that were made to protect and support Treaty settlements and processes that have followed by post-settlement entities—Simon Court: They're all preserved—they're all preserved. Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: —have been significant. So why are they not in the transitional provisions Mr Court? Why are they not in the transitional provisions? Why is it just the fast-track consenting clause? I don't think it is clear to a lot of people outside of this House that that's what it is because at the beginning in the explanatory note it makes it sound like the whole Treaty settlement process has been protected but actually it hasn't. It's just the fast-track consenting process.Now Mr Bishop's going to stand up and tell us that the RMA protects that. Well no it doesn't. You can ask any iwi or hapū around New Zealand and they'll tell you it doesn't. There were other changes that could have been brought forward in the transitional provisions.I want to now come to the fast-track consenting process changes that are also covered by clause 8—[Bell rung] Madam Chair?CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I call the Hon Grant Robertson.Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank you Madam Chair. I won't take the whole of this call because I want other colleagues to have a go.My other set of questions then are around the fast-track consenting process. It's a similar point to the one that I've just been making on clauses 4 to 7. In the explanatory note on page 3 it says Schedule 1"—which we're debating—"provides … interim arrangements including … continuing in a modified form the fast-track consenting regime in Schedule 10 of the Natural and Built Environment Act". Now if we had a select committee process this would have been the time at which we would have been able to understand in what way specifically is this a modified fast-track consenting process.Now I can see in clause 8(3) a series of modifications. I want the Minister in the Chair Chris Bishop to explain to this House in plain English how this fast-track consenting process that will be the result of Part 1 is different from the fast-track consenting process that we saw in the Natural and Built Environment Act. The reason I say that is because a number of members in the Chamber have raised their concerns about what the fast-track consenting process will look like and what will be allowed and facilitated under it. We would know I suspect today if this was a normal committee of the whole House stage the answer to that question because we would have had those answers in the select committee process.So just to reiterate—I know the Minister was getting some advice while I was speaking then—I want to know how this fast-track consenting process is different. The explanatory note tells us it is clause 8 appears to show how it is but I don't see that clearly in this bill and I need an answer from the Minister on that.Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Thank you Madam Chair and thank you to the member Grant Robertson for those good questions. Let me deal with them in turn. In relation to how the Government came to the position that we came to when it comes to going back to the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) yes it is correct we considered a range of options. The advice from officials was the most legally simple way to do it was this bill which essentially—it's a slightly odd legislative vehicle and I acknowledge that the member's point around that's true. The simplest way to do it was to repeal both pieces of legislation and save some specified things—small things including fast track. The member makes the point that I may well be back here before the House making a series of amendments to the RMA. That is potentially true. In fact it's quite possible. But the point is that will be done in a thorough way by us and by the Government. It may be that we take some of the changes made through the Natural and Built Environment Act and re-legislate them and it may be that others fall by the wayside. But we will work through that in due course. So that deals I think with the first question.The second question is in relation to fast track and the third question was in relation to the—I'm just trying to remember the member's point. Do you want to remind me what it was Mr Robertson? I can't read my notes do you want to remind me what the second question was?Hon Grant Robertson: The one about Treaty.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Oh the Treaty—yeah yeah yeah. In relation to the Treaty the fast-track provisions just make that—so our position is that the RMA upholds various Treaty settlements. I acknowledge the point the member made that reasonable people could disagree about that. I've no doubt that we will work through a robust process around that as a Government. I'm looking forward to those meetings. So our position is that it does and that it can give effect to those Treaty settlements. The point around clauses 4 through 7 that the member was talking about is to make it very clear as a result of fast track that it doesn't affect Treaty settlements. In relation to his third question around a modified form of fast track I'm advised that it isn't. It is the Natural and Built Environment Act fast track that is being preserved and saved."