Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Minister for Land Information): Tēnā koe Mr Speaker. The Green Party is supporting the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill to select committee and speakers from the Opposition have queried the role that the different parties in Government have played. That seems to be ignoring the way in which MMP operates and the benefit for New Zealand of having three parties in the Government bringing different perspectives and making changes to a bill before it goes into Parliament to actually improve that bill. So I'm very proud of the work that the Green Party has done and acknowledge Minister Parker in being able to engage in that dialogue to actually strengthen the bill.This bill is needed because of the huge social and economic disruption which COVID has caused and this Government—in terms of ensuring that the team of 5 million moves into that recovery phase—is investing in infrastructure and it's investing in nature-based jobs. I was up at the Craigieburn Range just last week talking there to some folk who'd been guides down at Franz Josef were made redundant by their guiding company and were now working to control wilding conifers; $1.1 billion in the COVID recovery package in the Budget is going into nature-based projects.Hon Dr Nick Smith: That's not in the bill.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: No it's not in the bill Dr Smith but why I'm talking about it is because this Government has an integrated response to economic recovery and to the disruption caused by the pandemic. So the Green Party recognises that this bill which will have a two-year life which will self-repeal after two years is necessary to ensure that some of those infrastructure projects which have a public benefit can get going more quickly than they would if they went through under the Resource Management Act (RMA). So yes it does fast track development but as previous speakers have noted there are some infrastructure projects which are listed in the bill and some of these like the SkyPath which will enable cyclists and walkers to get to and from the North Shore in Auckland are projects that the Green Party has strongly supported—similarly with the Britomart station project which will enable the City Rail Link to work much more efficiently when it starts operating its services. That's another one of the projects that is listed to go through the fast-track process and it will provide at least 40 jobs just through that Britomart project.Some members of the Opposition have queried why there's just a shorter list in the bill. The bill provides for the ability for the Minister for the Environment to recommend an Order in Council to accept applications for other projects to go on the fast track to be considered by an expert consenting panel and to have decisions made within about 50 days for some of the larger projects.So the Green Party here was concerned about the safeguards for that decision to recommend an infrastructure project to go on the fast track and so this bill is very different from some of the proposals we saw under the previous Government for fast tracking which would have allowed the Hon Dr Nick Smith to make the recommendations himself. With this bill before the Minister for the Environment can make that recommendation for an Order in Council the Minister must have considered the application under a number of criteria which I think are in clause 19—whether there are economic benefits for communities or industries affected by COVID the social and cultural wellbeing of current and future generations whether the project would be likely to progress significantly faster by using the fast-track process whether the project is going to have a significant public benefit like generating employment increasing housing supply contributing to a well-functioning urban environment and providing infrastructure to improve economic employment and environmental outcomes and to increase productivity.One of the other criteria is that it could promote the protection of historic heritage or could strengthen our environmental economic and social resilience including to natural hazards and including to the impact of climate change. So there are some safeguards built into the decision by the Minister to recommend an Order in Council that a further infrastructure project beyond those that are listed in the bill could go on that fast-track process.And the Green Party will be very interested in submissions by the public to the Environment Committee ably chaired by Dr Duncan Webb as to whether those criteria and other safeguards are adequate because we do have a fundamental concern that this bill in order to ensure that decisions are made more quickly does not enable individuals to make submissions in the same way that they are able to on any resource consent which is publicly notified by a council. But there is an ability for the Minister for the Environment when he or she is making recommendations for an Order in Council to nominate organisations and specific individuals whom the expert consenting panel should invite to make submissions. It's recognised that national organisations—environmental NGOs for example like the Environmental Defence Society or Forest & Bird—may well be amongst those organisations which are invited to make submissions on behalf of a wider group of stakeholders.So again it's safeguards like this safeguards like the fact that the expert consenting panel—which stands instead of a council in making a decision on an application—must take into account and consider matters under Part 2 of the RMA. That's all of the issues of national importance in section 6 other matters in section 7 and the Treaty provisions in section 8 and everyone exercising any decision-making power under the bill must ensure that they act in a way that is consistent with the Treaty of Waitangi and with Treaty settlements. So that means that the panel must have decisions on these projects which are consistent with Te Tiriti. So that's an important safeguard as are the other provisions around consultation with iwi authorities. So here the Greens will be very interested in public submissions to the select committee on whether iwi and hapū think those Treaty provisions are adequate and whether the references to Part 2 are also adequate. The bill does make some changes to information which needs to be provided in an effects assessment in the schedule to the current RMA but again a lot of the issues that those effects assessments cover are set out in the bill. But is that an adequate safeguard?So we do have some concerns particularly over public participation and the restrictions on that but we recognise that for some of these really important infrastructure projects to get under way where they have significant public benefits and where they can create more jobs to assist our team of 5 million in getting on that recovery track to ensure that those who have been made redundant are able to find new jobs there is a value in having projects being considered more quickly subject to adequate safeguards.So the other change here compared to the RMA is that there's no access to the Environment Court but there are still appeals on points of law against the panel's decision which can be made to the High Court and the Court of Appeal. So it is a truncated period for submissions but we'll be very interested in the recommendations of the select committee. Thank you.