Sage Eugenie: Regulatory Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Regulatory Reform Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Sitting date: 22 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4695. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 Certainly the Green Party supports other aspects of the Regulatory Reform Bill but as Lianne Dalziel has noted we have concerns about Part 4. That is because Part 4 would allow existing concession holders to continue to operate even when the concession term expires during the process by which they are applying for a replacement concession. That is not so much an issue because there is a similar provision in the Resource Management Act and it does seem sensible because it prevents business disruption while the application is considered if you have an existing concession. But where the difficulties are is that it would also allow a concession holder whose concession term has expired and who has then applied for a replacement consent that the Minister of Conservation has declined to continue to operate until the Minister has reconsidered his or her decision. That potentially means that quite high-impact activities like mining—with the access agreements and the like and the facilities that go with the mining—could continue even though the Minister had declined the concession application on reapplication. It is the fact that if the application is declined by the Minister then it should cease. 
One of the major concerns about the bill is also clause 51 which provides for new section 48AA to be inserted around regulations prescribing time limits for applications. There is no provision in that clause that the regulations are made on the recommendation of the Minister of Conservation. Given this Government’s agenda—clearly flagged in the Department of Conservation’s statement of intent—that the department should increase business activity on conservation lands and increase concession revenue this clause 51 would potentially allow Ministers like the Minister of Economic Development to push the department to— 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: There is no Minister of Economic Development. 
EUGENIE SAGE 
: —for Economic Development— 
Todd McClay 
: There isn’t one. 
EUGENIE SAGE 
: —Mr Joyce— 
Todd McClay 
: Hon Mr Joyce. 
EUGENIE SAGE 
: —Hon Mr Joyce—push for regulations that constrain the department’s decision-making process. We are seeing two major tourism development applications for concessions in the Te Wahipounamu - South West New Zealand World Heritage Area Fiordland National Park—one for a tunnel and one for a monorail. They are very complex applications with a number of potential effects. The provisions here are for regulations to set out time limits to prescribe a time limit by when the Director-General of Conservation has to respond and to provide for the consequences of not meeting that prescribed time limit. 
Here we see the Government potentially introducing regulations to penalise the department in the same way that it has introduced changes to the Resource Management Act to penalise local authorities in terms of them not meeting the time limits for processing consent applications under the Resource Management Act. It potentially restricts the department’s ability through these regulations to properly consider serious applications and their impacts on public conservation values recreational values and ecological and landscape values on the conservation estate. 
In trying to be constructive here there is Supplementary Order Paper 23 which is in my name and which proposes some changes to clause 51 new section 48AA to provide before any regulations are made that they are recommendations from the Minister of Conservation. Also the Minister has had to have had advice from the New Zealand Conservation Authority which is the statutory body that provides advice to the Minister and has a range of representatives from organisations like the Royal Society the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society Local Government New Zealand iwi representatives and members of the public. The New Zealand Conservation Authority is a statutory body providing advice to the Minister and it would be a useful safeguard and a check on this power to constrain the department’s consideration of concession applications around time limits and other matters if that was on the advice of the authority given that these time limits are not set out in the substantive bill itself but are being done by regulation which the public cannot contribute to.