Burns Brendon: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
Burns Brendon: Environmental Protection Authority Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:672;Page:18510] 
BRENDON BURNS (Labour—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I thank the Minister for the Environment but of course it is a different complexion of Government in charge at the moment so I still have some fears in respect of these clauses and how they might be applied. There is a different agenda. There is definitely a growth agenda in Cabinet at the moment. 
I refer to the article that Colin James wrote in January of this year about the Minister wishing to influence better environmental outcomes but as Colin James reported being in the grip of an economic growth cabal. There is no doubt as we stand and look across the Chamber where the power is based. It is certainly not in the environment portfolio and it is certainly not in the broadcasting portfolio. We could go down a number of other portfolios where the power and weight are minimal compared with a clutch at the top that certainly have a very fixed agenda and that is why Part 6 provides a very very wide-ranging opportunity for intervention. It was used on occasions by the last Government. I remember my friend and former colleague Marian Hobbs using it in respect of Project Aqua and that was an appropriate intervention. But the concerns we have—and why I want reassurance from the Minister—are in respect of the capacity for the 10-part section 142(3)(a) in clause 82(1) to be used to evoke a very rapid set of interventions driven by that growth agenda. 
Coming back to the concern I have about this kind of power in the mid-1990s I was the editor of the newspaper in Marlborough at the time the fast ferries began. Two or three groups sprang up in opposition to the wake that was being effected by two fast ferry operations. It was not a situation where the proposal of national significance provision was used but the power of those companies was sufficient to bring charges against those two or three small groups and whack them with very considerable costs. That is the imbalance that can be created when legislation allows a big entity—that is the Government—to take on a small entity a small ratepayer-based or community-based group that wants to challenge the power of the Crown or a major corporate. The imbalance that can be created can be monstrously unfair. The irony of that situation was that the then Minister of Conservation one Denis Marshall was one of those who had costs awarded against him along with two Marlborough Sounds - based community groups. 
Of course that issue is rapidly coming back into sight at the moment as in the last 48 hours we have seen our rail company indicating with the support of the Minister of Transport a wish to rapidly reconsider the option for a new port at Lake Grassmere to replace Picton as the main port at the top of the South Island for rail-ferry traffic. That proposal deserves to be considered on its merits. It is an issue that will divide the Marlborough community which I still have strong connections to. Already the people of Picton are expressing some very real fears about the impact of that project. I would like to know from the Minister whether that is the sort of project he envisages would be taken in under clause 82 with its 10 wide-ranging provisions with enormous power for call-in. I think the people of Marlborough would welcome such an assurance from him tonight and perhaps the member for Kaikoura might be willing to take a call on behalf of his constituents in respect of that particular application of Part 6.