Goudie Sandra: Urgent Debates — Child Youth and Family Services Department—Merger with  Ministry of Social Development Whangamata Marina—Minister’s Intervention 
Goudie Sandra: Urgent Debates — Child Youth and Family Services Department—Merger with  Ministry of Social Development Whangamata Marina—Minister’s Intervention 
[Volume:629;Page:1735] 
SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) 
: 
 The Minister did get it wrong and I will tell the House why he got it wrong. The Whangamata marina case raises a deep question about the principles of Government. In short it was wrong in principle for Minister Carter to overturn the decision of the Environment Court to allow the building of the marina. It is not a case of whether the marina is good or bad; it is a case of whether the Minister should have intervened. 
A fundamental principle of law is certainty. People should be able to know what the law is that it is predictable in its application and that they should be able to rely on the decisions of the courts. The reasons for that lie at the heart of modern society. People need predictability in order to be able to make their own decisions. If the rules cannot be predicted investment will not take place. Orderly Government will fail. That is precisely why the divine right of kings was overthrown. The issue was not only that it was unrepresentative; the principal reason was that decisions were likely to be capricious. Those are the words of my esteemed colleague Dr Wayne Mapp. 
Dr Mapp goes on further to say—and I fully support his words—that that is exactly the problem with regard to the Minister’s decision about the marina. What is the point of preparing an extensive case for the court and of having a hearing lasting 27 days and costing many thousands of dollars when the decision of the court counts for nothing? The Minister takes a few hours takes only one side of the argument and then turns his thumb up or down—in this case down. He actually stated in a document I have here that he has disregarded any other correspondence or communications he received on the marina that were not considered by the court in the statutory process but I for one do not believe that for a moment. I do not think that anybody in his or her right mind could do that—particularly after the Minister tried to display the many emails he is using to try to justify the stance he has taken. 
The Minister has argued that he is simply discharging his duty under the law and that the law was passed by National in 1991. But a law that gives such powers is inherently bad and blaming National for passing it—as the Minister has attempted to do on many occasions—does not make it any better. That does not get to the core issue which is the fundamental issue of the right of veto. 
National recognised that issue in a review of the Resource Management Act in 1998. In hindsight it was clear that it was fundamentally worrying in principle to give a Minister the power to overturn a decision of a court. Labour voted against removing that power not just once but also again in 2003 when it refused an amendment to remove the ministerial power to overturn a decision of the court. The Minister in the Whangamata case—or indeed any other case requiring a similar ministerial discretion—should not exercise his discretion to overturn a decision of the court. The issue was a clear-cut case of the basic principle of how a Government should work but the Minister has comprehensively failed the test of constitutional propriety both in making that decision and also in voting against the law change that would have removed that power. 
That view is supported by the concerns that have echoed throughout local government. Indeed people throughout New Zealand were profoundly concerned about that veto. It is the first time in 15 years that the veto has been exercised. Opponents use spurious claims about rich developers yet the issue concerns an incorporated society: a local club. For 30 years a local resident has never seen anybody and certainly not iwi take shellfish from the particular area where the marina is to go—which is less than 1 percent of the Whangamata harbour. Parliament has overruled the Minister in the past on such decisions and it can do so again. 
The concern that is felt throughout New Zealand about this decision is also felt particularly by local government representatives. The Mayor of Thames-Coromandel District PhilippaBarriball—one gutsy lady—has been inundated with phone calls from mayors and councillors from throughout the country. They are hugely concerned at the implications of the Minister exercising his veto. “It certainly calls into question” she said “why central government are intent on legislating for councils to undertake decision making when every time we do so they tell us we got it wrong.” For example councils are asked to provide a roading priority list to the regional land transport committee only to have Transit say that they have got it wrong. They are asked to undertake representation reviews and the commission comes along and says they have got it wrong. They are asked to prepare and administer a district plan and Carter says the local authority the regional council and the Environment Court all got it wrong. PhilippaBarriball goes further to say: “Well my Beehive colleagues why bother asking us in the first place?”. 
The ministerial veto actually makes a complete mockery of the resource management process. Why not just go straight to the Minister and ask whether we can have something approved? Local authorities have plenty of projects throughout this country that they want to have supported and now they want to know whether they should even bother to start the process of seeking resource consents because that process can cost millions of dollars. We are talking about all sorts of projects here. We are talking about waste-water projects which are absolutely vital for protecting our environment. But councils are now questioning whether they should go ahead with them if the Minister will only veto them at the last minute given that he has the right of veto on projects in their coastal areas. A council is looking at doing a major $28 million marina project on Banks Peninsula. Why would it even start that process if the Minister will just say “Sorry guys.” The Resource Management Act processes take years and they take hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars so why would councils even start on those processes? 
The Minister’s decision could start local government processes to spin out of control because local bodies will look at their waste-water schemes and say: “We need to protect the environment but heck if we go down this path what do we do? Do we spend lots more ratepayers’ money or do we try to avoid the Minister’s veto and think of an alternative?”. That is in spite of the fact that they have probably spent hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars already. It is an indictment of the process whereby the Minister has the right of veto and for that reason we are concerned about the decision. 
We want the veto to be removed. The judicial process must be upheld. Why are the law-abiding citizens of this country being treated worse in the resource management consent application process than criminals are in the justice system? That is wrong. We have heard of a worse case than the marina with regard to Wanaka where someone with an inner courtyard wall painted blue of which about a square metre could be seen from the road was told to repaint the wall. It is all just out of control and something needs to be done. Parliament needs to uphold the Environment Court’s decision. We need to have justice in this country. 
When we had the public meeting at Whangamata on Saturday I stood at the door wondering what to expect. People started to pour in and it was emotionally overwhelming to see all that support. People allowed concerns to be aired at that meeting and applauded the people who expressed those concerns in that environment—which was in support of the Whangamata Marina Society. They applauded the people who had the courage to come out and express their concerns and they treated everybody with respect. To say there was any threat against other people’s lives is an absolute nonsense. I am appalled at the untruths that have been spoken through this whole process. 
The fundamental issue is an issue of justice. This Parliament needs to uphold justice so I hope that all members will consider supporting the member’s bill in the name of the Hon Nick Smith to uphold the Environment Court decision and to remove the power of veto from the legislation.