Court Simon; Brooking RachelSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. I'm interested if the Minister could just give an explanation of how she sees the powers being used particularly clause 30C Minister for Environment may appoint substitute for local authority". Now the Minister of Local Government already has the power to appoint commissioners to investigate see whether local authorities are fulfilling their obligations under the Local Government Act. But this also allows another Minister—another Cabinet Minister—to appoint a substitute for a local authority. So how is this power to be exercised and balanced against potentially the obligations of a local council to perform its functions duties under the Local Government Act versus what's described here? What could they possibly do which would trigger a Minister to appoint a substitute?I mean it could be Auckland Council. Maybe they decided not to follow the Government's process for changing their plan to allow for three units of three storeys everywhere like that Resource Management (Enabling Housing Supply and Other Matters) Act that was passed by National and Labour unanimously last year—it was only with the objection of ACT to that bill. Maybe Auckland Council in the future doesn't want to adopt the National Planning Framework and all of the instruments that come with it because they feel they've already done their unitary plan. They spent four or five years consulting on the unitary plan. What Auckland Council said when they came to the Environment Committee was "Please don't force us to do a whole other planning exercise. Please don't force us to get involved in these regional planning committees and have iwi co-governance appointees and have to go through the whole process again—it cost us tens of millions of dollars."Auckland Unitary Plan was consulted on. A lot of people were able to make objections. They had an independent hearings panel. The hearings panel recommended that the draft plan be amended and then it was sent to Auckland Council's elected members—the full council—to be voted on. While some people continued to take appeals about particular matters the Auckland Unitary Plan was done at that point and it enabled infrastructure operators if they had the budget to to then work out where to plan transport pipes where to upgrade the waste-water network for example.So I can imagine that if a Minister for Environment who was unhappy with a council that had failed to follow the planning directions set out in this bill—because they might say "Hey we've just spent half a decade doing this and we've only had it operating for six or seven years. Minister would you leave us alone to get on with planning and building our city?" I could see how a Minister who had invested so much in this piece of legislation might actually want to direct them to do it his way.So to the Minister in the chair what is the criteria where a Minister for Environment may appoint a substitute for a local authority? And how does that compare to the criteria that a Minister for Local Government might use?Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Associate Minister for the Environment): Thank you Mr Chair. Well of course that distinction is that it has to relate to this Act. And as for the other points I think the member answered his own question."