Robertson Grant: Resource Management Reform Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robertson Grant: Resource Management Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7332. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 Earlier in question time today the Prime Minister was reflecting on some of his upbringing. One of the things he did not discuss during that speech was the person whom he named as a child and then later in life as his political hero. That person was Sir Robert Muldoon. This legislation that is in front of us today owes an awful lot to Sir Robert Muldoon. It actually says in the regulatory impact statement for the Resource Management Reform Bill that the goal of this legislation is to provide “greater central government direction on resource management …”—greater central government direction on resource management. This is a continuation of this Government’s centralisation of power and taking away of decision-making rights from local communities. It fits right alongside the Local Government Act changes that were before this House that centralised power. It says—and Sir Robert Muldoon would be proud—that this National Government knows best. It knows better than local communities about how they should look after their resources. 
We saw it with the Local Government Act we have seen it with Environment Canterbury we have seen it with decisions about transport and here in the Resource Management Reform Bill we once again see a Government determined to take power away from local communities— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: How does it do that? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —and bring it back to itself. Dr Smith asks me how it does that. Well let us just have a look at that shall we? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Why is 6 months too long? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: Let us just have a look at that shall we? Let us have a look at clause 13 of the bill which introduces an investment threshold. If a project or a consent is above a certain investment threshold that will be directly referred to the Environment Court. Who is going to set that? Who is going to set the regulations for that? It is Ministers. Ministers will set the regulations. They will say what the level of an investment threshold is. It is not going to have anything to do with the local community and what it may want. That will come directly from Ministers. This investment threshold is an interesting one because not only will it be set by regulation by Ministers but there is no attempt here to set any other kind of threshold. I do not know; in a Resource Management Act perhaps we might see a threshold of environmental impact that could be used. But no we do not have that; we simply have an investment threshold. 
 It is very interesting to look at the regulatory impact statement’s comments around this proposal when it discussed the consultation on that. This is what the regulatory impact statement says: “There has been no departmental stakeholder or public consultation on the proposals outlined in this RIS. Most critically there has been no consultation with the Courts to ensure that there is adequate capacity to deal with an increase in direct referrals. Inadequate Court capacity is a risk that would potentially mean that the proposal would not achieve its objective. … Without consultation”— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Potentially. Maybe. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —without consultation Dr Smith—“it is difficult to provide robust advice on the costs benefits and risks of the two options.” So Government members come to this House with a proposal that they have not even consulted on as to whether it is a good idea. They do not know whether the courts have got the capacity to do it and they think it is fine just to take that power away from communities. 
I want to mention the changes that Amy Adams glossed over and these are the changes in clause 12 which amends section 76(4A)(a) which will prevent councils from protecting groups of trees. I find myself asking what the National Party has against trees. What brings those members to this House to separate trees out from any other kind of natural resource and say that local communities do not get to control what happens there? 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Yes they do. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: No they do not Dr Smith. What this does is it says to local communities that if they want to protect trees it will be an individual tree notified in a plan—an individual tree notified in a plan. That is as good as it gets— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Or group. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —or group says Dr Smith interjecting standing up when he should not be. A group of trees actually in this definition is a line or a grove of trees in an adjacent area. Well Dr Smith may or may not know it but when councils and communities are looking at the protection of trees they are actually looking beyond a line of trees adjacent to each other or an individual tree. What they are looking at is an overall plan for the kinds of trees and bush life that they want in their communities. Why should councils and local communities not be able to decide that a particular species of tree or a particular type of tree or trees of a certain height should be able to be protected? It is ridiculous. It will create a bureaucratic nightmare for councils and that is deliberate. It is deliberately designed to make it more difficult to protect trees and easier to fell trees. That is the purpose of this. It goes directly against the Environment Court’s ruling on this matter and it once again is this National Government saying to local communities that “We know better than you do about the protection of trees. We know better than you do in your local community about how to manage your resources.” It is once again Muldoonism on its way through. 
I also want to mention a couple of other matters where the Government has done this and one of these is the changes around section 32 of the Act. Under section 32 as it currently is in the Act an evaluation of a council’s plan has to be undertaken. Well the Government has now decided that that evaluation should focus on economic growth. That is what the Government has decided. That unbalances the inherent balance within the Act for sustainable development. It takes it away from sustainable development and says “We will prioritise economic development within sustainable development.” That is the purpose of the Act—sustainable development—and this fundamentally unbalances that. But once again look at what the Government has brought to the House. The regulatory impact statement tells us that under the section 32 changes costs will be high because a lack of experience with cost-benefit methodology exists in councils. It then goes on to benefits where it says the benefits would be medium and that they are not quantifiable benefits anyway. Then it goes on to say that there are high risks associated with these changes. Once again the Government comes to this House with a proposal where the costs are going to be higher where it cannot quantify the benefits and where the risks are high and it expects this House to vote for that kind of change when we do not even know whether it will benefit the kinds of things the Minster for the Environment said she was interested in. 
There is a range of other clauses that the Labour Party has concerns about. Clause 11 amends section 53 of the Act to allow the Minister to make changes to national policy statements without following the consultation process. Once again there is one set of rules for the Government and one set of rules for everybody else. The Government is making changes because it thinks it knows what is right rather than in a manner that is consistent with this particular piece of legislation. The other aspects of this bill my colleagues will cover in some more detail but one in particular is the question around the fast-tracking process for the Auckland Unitary Plan. In principle the Labour Party is happy to see a process where we get through the Auckland Unitary Plan in a quicker and more efficient way— 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Oh that’s not Muldoonist? 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: —but what is Muldoonist Dr Smith is that this Government the National Government is going to decide who is on the panel that hears this. Well I have some suggestions. We have had leaked from the National Party the memo with the four people who are likely to be on that panel. It is going to be chaired by Paula Rebstock obviously—I mean there is nobody else is there? I think Tony O’Brien is there Peter Kiely is there and Stephen McElrea is there. That is what we have come to expect from this National Government. It puts the cronies in place to oversee something like this. So it is all very well to say that yes the Government will fast-track this Auckland Unitary Plan but it is going to be controlled once again by Ministers. 
The Labour Party understands that there is room for more efficient and effective processes within resource management but this bill is not that. This bill is once again a power grab by this Government. It is taking away the rights from local communities to make decisions that affect them. It is putting in place unbelievably silly rules around things like trees and separating them out and once again trying to avoid the public having a fair say in all the consents that affect them. We would like to support a bill that reforms the Resource Management Act to make it more effective and more efficient. Unfortunately we cannot support this bill because it does not do that in a way that retains community representation or in a way that gives local communities the ability to make decisions about their own resources.