Collins Judith: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Collins Judith: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5497] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It was most enjoyable to listen to the last few lines of that fairy tale from United Future. I am always very positive about United Future because I think that its members are just slightly wayward and will come back to the right path in time. As I address the title of this particular bill I think what a disappointment it is. I have to take up some of the suggestions of my colleagues. I will even at this stage mention the suggestion from the United Future speaker when he drew some relation between this bill’s name and that of the Prostitution Reform Bill. I think both bills should be put in exactly the same place which is in the rubbish bin. They are both rubbish and that is where they both belong. 
This bill could have many particular titles and we have talked about them this afternoon. I would like to talk about a new title. What about the “Cunliffe Bill”? Let us call it the “Cunliffe Bill”; it is all promise and no action. I think that I could probably move a non-controversial motion of support for that name. I think that my parliamentary colleagues in all parties and particularly in Labour would probably agree with that. This is the “all promise no action” bill. Minister John Tamihere is very positive about that one and I thank him. 
I take resource management issues very seriously as the MP for the great electorate of Clevedon. Just recently on Monday I held meetings with Auckland business people. A lot of those people were either developers of properties or businesses or lawyers involved in working for thoe people. The No. 1 issue that they wanted to speak about after the Privy Council and the denigration of this country’s rule of law was the Resource Management Act. This bill will not address their issues. 
I would like the Minister to take a call but particularly I would like to hear from Jill Pettis the MP for Whanganui who I know always wants to be included in the debate and never gets a chance. That is just not fair because she is a good member I am sure—but probably not for Wanganui. That particular member should get a chance to address the title. 
I will come back to the point. This bill named the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) will not address the issues of the developers and it will not address the issues of the environmentalists who were also at my meeting. This is a patsy bill. It is a “Cunliffe Bill”. It will not achieve anything. Nowhere in this bill does it state that objectors will not be able to hold developers to ransom or that a developer on one particular site will be unable to demand money from the developer of another site just to go away. That is what happens all the time in Auckland and everywhere else. We all know of instances in Auckland in particular where that has happened and a developer on one side of the street turns round and is paid—sometimes up to $1 million—to go away and not object to the building that another developer wants to build. 
The people who lose as a result of that are the ordinary people of New Zealand who have to pay higher prices. So this bill could be named the “Higher Price Bill” or the “Bureaucracy Bill”. The ordinary people of New Zealand the Joe and Janet Bloggs of New Zealand are the ones who have to pay more. They have to pay more in rent more for services and more for their rates—more for everything. It is the farmers too who miss out—the farmers of Clevedon—and the people who own property. Why should they not be able to put up a chicken coop on their property without a namby-pamby wimpy white liberal from the local council or from the Labour Government telling them what they can do on their own land? For goodness’ sake! 
This bill should address people’s property rights. It should state that people are able to do pretty much what they need to do on their property as long as it does not harm or affect badly either the environment or other people. But this bill does nothing to address that issue. This is a nonsense bill.