Twyford PhilPHIL TWYFORD (Labour—Te Atatū): I want to make some comments in my final contribution on this part on the part of the bill that revokes the Reserves Act. In Part 2 it is clause 6(1)(b) that basically revokes the reserve status of the land under the Reserves Act. I make the point that in cutting across the Reserves Act what this bill does is basically circumvent an established democratic process that is written into the legislation that is there precisely for the purpose of dealing with a situation where the Government wants to repurpose some reserve land in the way that the Government has the intent of here. The point I want to make is that it is unnecessary—the bill is unnecessary—given that that democratic process already exists. By cutting across those rights that are enshrined in our legal system it undermines the rule of law and confidence in the legal and the planning system and that is very unfortunate.So what is the existing statutory process? Well it exists under the Reserves Act 1977. All it requires is for the Minister to undertake consultation with the administering body—that would be Auckland Council—and the public before issuing a Gazette notice advising that the reserve status will be revoked. Affected parties have the right to object to the revocation and decisions of the Minister may be judicially reviewed. Well if the Government is so sure of itself that this is a good thing to do with this particular bit of land if it is so convinced that the public policy purposes stack up and if it is so convinced that it is going to be socially and environmentally the right thing to do for the community then why will the Government not subject this proposal to the normal statutory process that exists under the law?The next thing I want to do is talk about the cutting across of the Resource Management Act (RMA) in this proposal and the provision in the bill that essentially changes the zoning. From the commencement date it changes the zoning from public open space to mixed urban housing—it just cuts right through the provisions of the RMA. So what is the existing process to do that? Well what would happen normally is that a developer would request that the Auckland Council makes a plan change under Part 2 of schedule 1 of the RMA and that plan change would have to consider a number of factors: the effects on the neighbourhood and the wider community; the physical effects on the locality including the landscape and visual effects; the effects on the ecosystems; the effects on natural and physical resources; and a description of the mitigation measures to prevent or reduce those effects. Would you not think that was a good thing? Would you not think that all of those factors which are enshrined in the RMA and the established democratic processes for a proposal of this sort were good things to be considered? I would.I want to quote from a submission to the Local Government and Environment Committee by Jen Vella who is a resident of Point England. She lives there with her family. She is a resource management lawyer with over 15 years' experience. She told the select committee that there are existing processes available to achieve all of these outcomes. They would ensure a robust assessment of this proposal but the bill and the select committee process have done none of those things. There was no robust consideration of the evidence on all of those factors that I have just set out. She makes the point that overriding the normal established processes to achieve the Government's objectives in this case undermines the rule of law and undermines public confidence in the Resource Management Act.Finally in this contribution I want to acknowledge Shaun Lee who made a number of submissions to the select committee on the environmental consequences and the effect of this bill on the breeding habitat of one of New Zealand's most endangered species the northern New Zealand dotterel. There are only 2000-odd of these birds left on the planet and actually about 20-something of these birds live and nest on the land at Point England. The development that this bill will enable will destroy 50 percent of their breeding habitat. There has been no consideration of the environmental consequences of this bill.