Potaka Tama; Parker DavidTAMA POTAKA (National—Hamilton West): Kia ora tātou. I'd like to echo the concerns of my knowledgeable erudite colleagues sitting on this side of the Chamber especially our infrastructure sentinel here young Chris Bishop.The purpose of the Act te Oranga o te Taiao—I would call it the description rather than the definition that's been attached to it—is very very curious; curious. The phrase for someone who's been brought up in tikanga and kawa and mātauranga Māori for the last 47 years—47½ actually—and a lawyer managing a Resource Management Act (RMA) team te Oranga o te Taiao is a completely new phrase to me. It makes me very curious—never heard of it before. What I have heard of is mauri and Te Mana o te Wai and other concepts like kaitiakitanga which have all given rise to an evolving jurisprudence within the courts and some workability and some commonality some universality across different RMA practitioners and lawyers. Those interpretations have been built over decades but now we've been launched with something called te Oranga o te Taiao which once you take it to its extremes means that none of us is here any more. We're on a spaceship to Mars! Te Oranga o te Taiao at its extreme means that there are no people on the planet.The introduction of this phrase to legislation whilst it may have been well meaning creates a lot of amorphous and unusual and uncertain circumstances. In fact it gives me the impression of putting a pounamu on a white horse. The depth and the breadth of that phrase is something that I don't think has been very well manicured in this proposed legislation. And to that end I think we need to get some context and guidance of what te Oranga o te Taiao means in terms of the health and wellbeing models that are very well known in te ao Māori and how those have informed if at all the meaning of te Oranga o te Taiao. Can I start with the Atua Matua model of Dr Ihirangi Heke or the Tapa Whā model? Taha hinengaro taha wairua taha whānau taha tinana [The intellectual aspect the spiritual aspect the family aspect and the physical/body aspect] of Sir Mason Durie? Or was it the Te Wheke model of Rangimārie Rose Pere or the cultural health index?Shanan Halbert: All the models.TAMA POTAKA: Or was it all of the models? Then it's none of the models. Te Oranga o te Taiao must have been informed by something or some sort of kaupapa Māori model that helps us better locate ourselves in this discussion and it certainly would help the judiciary to locate themselves in any interpretation of this phrase. What is the context or what is the guidance we get from Māori health models? That's number one.Number two is that the hierarchy or the weighting across the various subclauses (a) through (e) is again very uncertain particularly when they lean heavily into the protection dynamic of our planning system rather than a more balanced and fair and objective protection and development twin objectives which is what I understood the planning legislation sought to achieve. So again the hierarchy or the weighting across each of those subclauses is something that we would like to get a little bit more colour around because at the moment it looks very short-sighted and possibly myopic to say that it's 20 percent for each of them.Finally further on in Part 1—we're only up to clause 3—there is a mention of kawa within clause 5 and clause 6 and I would like to know given that it is not defined in this legislation what the Minister's interpretation or definition of kawa actually is because I do not know what it is looking through the 1270 pages of this document. Kia ora tātou.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I've already on a number of occasions—at great length actually—gone through the whole of the definition of te Oranga o te Taiao which is a phrase which is defined in the ways in which I have previously explained and I won't go into that again. I explained the history of it—te Mana o te Taiao. I explained how it had come through the Randerson panel. I explained how the select committee inquiry had come out with te Oranga o te Taiao on the basis of submissions and I explained to the House how that had been tightened up in the latest select committee consideration of the bill that went out for public submissions. So I am not going to repeat that.I will in respect of system outcomes because there is some concern obviously from members of the Opposition that this is going to tie up the system and we're not going to be able to do anything. Well the outcomes—Tama Potaka: The Chief Justice is concerned too.Hon DAVID PARKER: No actually the Chief Justice's principal concern was that the way in which the Environment Court was constituted was subject to the Treaty clause. Interestingly the Environment Court which is constituted under the Resource Management Act is actually constituted subject to the Treaty clause. No one thought of that at the time—or if they did I'm not aware that they did—and no one thought of the effect that changing the Treaty clause would have in emphasising the giving effect to the principles of the Treaty applying to all decision makers including the Environment Court constituted under the Natural and Built Environment Act. The Chief Justice was correct that that wasn't the intention of the legislation and the select committee corrected that so as to make it clear that although the Environment Court when it is considering decisions made by people under the new Act has to give effect to the principles of the Treaty the court itself is not constituted pursuant to those principles; it just has to apply the law which includes those principles. That was the main point of the Chief Justice's submission and I'm very glad she made it because otherwise that mistake could have been made because no one officials and I myself and others had thought of it.In respect of the outcomes returning to what Simon Court was referring to earlier system outcomes include at clause 5(7) that there be well-functioning urban and rural areas"—which includes the "use and development of land for a variety of activities including for housing business use and primary production … development capacity in relation to housing and business land being available well ahead of expected demand"—it's a current problem that we have in the system that we're fixing through this legislation—and that we have "adaptable and resilient urban forms". I'm sure that if there are other points that members want to reinforce with me I can take a later call."