Sage Eugenie; Parker DavidHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you Madam Chair. The select committee spent some time clarifying the application of the intensification planning instrument which had been through the intensification streamlined planning process which the Minister has just described with the independent hearings panel making recommendations to the council.Can I ask the Minister a couple of things. There was concern amongst some submitters that there is a potential for bottlenecks if the Minister is making a decision—Waipā District Council for example had said that their plan change through the existing streamlined planning process had been somewhat delayed. So what are the processes in place if a number of councils are doing these intensification streamlined instruments at the same time and if there are differences between the council's decision on the recommendations of the hearing panel so they go to the Minister to ensure that there aren't bottlenecks there?And has the Minister in terms of the concern that the Green Party has about the centralisation of power in the Minister's domain—we didn't really get a clear explanation through the select committee process about why we haven't followed in this bill the model with the Auckland Unitary Plan where if there are differences between what the independent hearings panel recommends and the council's decisions if the council doesn't accept all the recommendations there is an ability to appeal to the court because it's our concern that there is a restriction of access to justice because the ability to appeal to the Environment Court does not exist under this streamlined intensification planning instrument process.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): In respect of the first of those issues there is a resource constraint within any ministry if they have too much to do and we expect them to do what they're already doing and pick up an extra job. It's actually one of the reasons why the Government members on the committee didn't agree with the suggestion that private plan changes should be able to go through this process because that would have increased the volume of plan changes that came through in that regard; therefore this process is limited to council plan changes.David Seymour: What? You just said we don't want to build more homes because you'd have to process more applications.Hon DAVID PARKER: W-h-a-t" is what we heard from the ACT leader. If he can't understand simple answers take another call. That's the reason: that private plan changes—it could overwhelm the system.In respect of the question as to whether it should go to the Environment Court or the Minister that's a proper question to ask. The reason why the Government landed on it going to the Minister was that the discretion of the Minister is essentially limited by the two ends of the dispute if you like: what the independent hearings panel thought and what the council thinks. They'll have both put their viewpoints to it the issues will have considerably narrowed and we thought it was appropriate that we just get on with it and implement these upzoning provisions because they're so important. And if we were to put that to the Environment Court we can see that that could add another year perhaps more to the process and we thought that that was inappropriate.At its heart this bill is actually quite simple: it enables three-storey developments at the centre of our largest centres and we need that and we need that not just in the suburbs where you can currently do that in Auckland which are virtually all of West Auckland and South Auckland but we need it in the isthmus because that's where so much of the housing and housebuilding opportunities are and that's of course why the ACT Party opposes it."