Genter Julie AnneHon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green—Rongotai): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. We have so many opportunities to do things better. We have so many opportunities in Aotearoa to live more in harmony with nature—to use energy more efficiently to produce more green fully renewable electricity that is low cost and to ensure that our towns and cities are places where people love to live; where our children have the freedom to get around under their own steam to get to school by walking or cycling or scootering if that's what they wish. That benefits everyone.They could have the freedom to do this but it requires doing things differently. And for many decades we had harmful planning rules that came in after the Town and Country Planning Act that made it more difficult for our kids to walk and cycle to school. So in the last 30 to 40 years kids stopped walking and cycling to school. Parents rightly are concerned about the safety of their kids when there's fast-moving vehicles larger vehicles big SUVs and utes. And then when parents have to drive their kids everywhere that actually reduces the freedom and independence the kids have but it also makes traffic worse. It makes our transport costs higher.It's not just pollution. I mean people do have a right to live free from pollution but it's not just climate change that's the issue. Fundamentally our transport system is inefficient and it limits the freedom and ability of people to move around.We have the ability and the responsibility to do the right thing to do things better. Our planning rules aren't just around urban development—that's my big focus: the opportunity to do urban development better—it's also about environmental bottom lines. I have had many colleagues speak in this debate on this bill during the committee of the whole House stage and during the prior stages of this debate. Lan Pham freshwater ecologist and two-term regional councillor spoke to the absolute passion communities have had and the evidence that supports it with over 50 experts to have clean water. We could have clean healthy water and we don't have it now.My colleague Steve Abel was talking about tree protection. Urban trees make so much sense. They reduce the pressure on our reticulated water system they make our towns and cities healthier and happier places to be and they're just so vitally important. But if we don't have blanket tree protection then what happens is we lose that tree cover and with it we lose the water management that it brings we lose the native birds we lose the shade and the climate control—we lose all of that. That's why tree protection is so important. Scott Willis who for many years worked in renewable electricity and tried to get a community wind farm up and faced the barriers—I know the old planning regime to get renewable electricity up at a community scale. So the Green Party is full of people who have been passionately working to solve some of these problems to deliver better outcomes for the community and to be responsible.The legislation that's being repealed today wasn't perfect but it went through an incredibly thorough process with two select committees. That second one attracted 3000 submissions. Now I heard the Minister—I asked this question to the Minister during the committee of the whole House stage: I asked what experts said that this Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act were worse than going back to the Resource Management Act and he couldn't name a single person. He referred to the select committee process where there were literally thousands of submissions. One of the most disturbing things—to me I think—was that he didn't seem to understand that when people came to the select committee process and raised their issues the Government then responded and there were further stages of the bill before it was passed through to being an Act. I spoke to some of the people who were concerned about things that were in the bill at select committee like Manawa Energy like people who were concerned about Te Mana o te Wai. Well the Government actually responded to all of those concerns and so the final Act didn't represent what was at the select committee. So all of this really just exposes how shallow the people in the new Government are how shallow their knowledge is how poor their respect is for the democratic process. They went out there didn't pay much attention to what was actually happening or any constructive improvements to it; instead they mindlessly opposed in Opposition everything the Government was doing.They have no clue. The Minister doesn't even understand the difference between the Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act. He's repealing both of them even though the Spatial Planning Act is fundamentally a different piece of legislation that was making improvements. But he doesn't know because he didn't do the work in Opposition. All they did was shallowly oppose everything in a bid to get more votes in a bid to get into Government. But I think the people of New Zealand would have reasonably expected people elected to Government to take a fulsome approach a robust approach and not to throw everything out when a bunch of it was actually really useful—a bunch of it was actually useful.So here we are: the one thing being kept is fast-tracked consenting. Now that's not really a surprise. The truth is that the current people who are in Government who found themselves in a position of responsibility are not going to exercise that responsibility on behalf of all the people of New Zealand our future generations or our environment. Oh no no no no—they are here to represent the existing power structure of people who currently have all the money and power and they're going to maintain that and make sure that they can make more money that they can continue to exploit workers and our environment.Now I don't doubt that there are some people sitting over there who don't realise that that's what their Government is doing—they truly think they believe in efficiency and better outcomes and good value for money and protecting the environment in a responsible way. But when you look at the reality of what is in this bill there was an alternative scenario. The Minister Chris Bishop could have not rushed through urgency to repeal six years of work where thousands of people submitted where we spent a quarter of a billion dollars getting the advice and doing the work to come up with a new system. We could see how it was working and make adjustments to it. But instead they've decided to repeal it all within three weeks of Parliament starting—throw out all of that effort.Personally I hate waste. And what breaks my heart is coming to this House and seeing the wasted time and effort that could have gone into good legislation that could have produced better outcomes for our people for our planet. The current Government throws it all away because they haven't bothered to try and understand. They don't actually believe in democracy—they're here to preserve the existing power structure. The people with the most power and money want to keep on exploiting the environment want to keep on exploiting workers and it suits those people.They need to think long and hard: if you came to this place because you truly believe in solutions how do the people sitting opposite feel about watching such a shoddy approach to lawmaking to watching $250 million of taxpayers' resources public resources being wasted and thrown down the drain? And how do they feel—how do they feel—about knowing that over 50 percent of our freshwater waterways are at threat? What is their answer? What is their constructive solution? Why are they delaying the clear national direction that is needed for regional councils to be able to bring in the rules that will actually protect our fresh waterways now and into the future? Because if we don't act very soon extinction is for ever—extinction is for ever.The members opposite clearly believe that they're in the born to rule class that they're the responsible ones that they're somehow going to come up with solutions that are going to look after not just the people who are currently the most powerful but the long-term benefit of our natural environment. Because what is happening today is a mindless oppositional repeal from a Minister who's not across the detail who doesn't actually know what's being repealed and is going to have to start over the work from scratch. But what they are going to do and I have no doubt about this—and people watching at home need to know this—is they're going to use this fast-track consenting to ride roughshod over environmental bottom lines and communities in order to help vested interests achieve the outcomes they want and ultimately it's all about conserving the status quo: doing more of what we already know.You know the definition of insanity—we've heard it many times—is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. When it comes to protecting our natural environment when it comes to futureproofing climate-resilient communities and building cities that welcome and work with nature that enable freedom and a future for our children the current National - New Zealand First - ACT Government has no vision they have no ideas and they're going to be here to maintain the status quo and the existing power structure. The Green Party will continue putting up positive solutions—this bill is not one.