Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Mr Speaker. Look the National Party will support this bill to select committee and we do so for a number of reasons but not without some questions that we would like answered as we go through the process. Broadly we think that the process adopted by the Minister is one that is not a bad one but as I say we have got some questions. Essentially this bill follows on from a similar process to ones that were used during the National Party - led Government particularly in response to the Canterbury and Kaikōura earthquakes but earlier a similar process was used for the speeding up of the creation and building of the Pukeahu national memorial and also the construction of the Arras Tunnel. So those processes are actually not completely unique and unusual to this House. I think members would agree that when legislation of this sort has been used in the past it's been used wisely and for good purpose.But we do have some questions about this and the Minister sort of touched on them towards the very end of his speech. That is really a much wider root-and-branch fundamental relook at the whole resource management system the legislative framework upon which it is based and the future direction of it and he's indicated that he's still waiting for the report from retired Court of Appeal Judge Tony Randerson. It seems unusual—notwithstanding the intervention of COVID—that someone of the standing of Tony Randerson QC would not have delivered his report in time and in full to the Minister and it's hard to believe that actually that work has not yet been completed. Why is there delay on that process because actually that goes to the core of what this is all about? So we would say that if the Government and the Labour Party actually do support significant and substantial Resource Management Act (RMA) reform then why not use this opportunity to deliver lasting change right now when it's needed as it has never been needed before?The Minister's gone through quite a bit of the detail of the bill and of course he's had the opportunity to work through that bill over several months now in detail which the Opposition has not been able to do. We received notice of this bill this afternoon. At 1.20 p.m. the Leader of the Opposition and myself received the email and a copy of the bill. The bill runs to some 80-odd pages. It's a detailed piece of legislation and I won't kid the House: I have not read the full detail of this bill as such at this time. So when we get it to select committee we will want to investigate the levers and the measures that are put in place under the bill in some detail and we are hopeful that the Minister will allocate sufficient time for the select committee to actually do its work in a thorough and diligent way.Yesterday when the 11 projects were announced it became clear actually that the 11 projects are something of a compromise—in fact quite a big compromise. That's now clear to those of us who have been waiting and looking forward to this legislation as I say for some considerable time because it was back in early May that the Minister wrote to my colleague Judith Collins who was at that stage our party spokesperson on RMA reform and planning and promised that a copy of the bill would be available as soon as it had been drafted and yet we only received it at 1.20 p.m. this afternoon which indicates that either there were enormous problems with the drafting or there were incredible difficulties within the coalition negotiations of the Government parties. And the Minister probably needs to answer which one it is: was it a drafting issue or was it a coalition negotiation issue because the sense that we get on this side of the House is that it's been another example of the poor old Greens having to swallow a big fat dead rat—another big fat dead rat and the issues—Hon Nathan Guy: No they've swallowed asphalt. Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well they're probably getting used to digesting them because they've had to swallow so many. It seems that they've long since forgotten the party of principle that they used to be. Where's Catherine Delahunty these days? Where's Sue Bradford? Where are those people that used to stand on the Opposition benches and talk about their undisputed faith and commitment to principle? Actually we find that as soon as they get into Government and even close to being in decision making the principles go out the door.So the 11 projects that the Minister has highlighted appear to be compromise projects. All of them have been previously announced. There's not a single new project there. At a time when unemployment is at its highest level in recorded history in our nation when something like 40000 jobs were lost in the last month it seems strange that a piece of legislation designed like this piece of legislation is to create jobs to create momentum to help with a post-COVID recovery is only going to on the face of it produce 1200-odd jobs and even then we're not sure how long that will take to get ready. The term shovel ready" is often used but we heard in question time today that shovel ready actually probably means not a single spade in the ground even remotely close to before we go to the polls in September of this year. So we've got some really big questions to ask about this. What about the New Zealand Infrastructure Commission that the Government went to such an extraordinary length to set up to create to establish and has completely bypassed in this process? Surely it seems sensible to have engaged with the Infrastructure Commission as part of this process.Another area that concerns us—and if the Government was really keen on achieving cross-party support for this exercise it would maybe invite the Leader of the Opposition to be part of that process—SPEAKER: Order! Order! I apologise for interrupting the member—it's kai time. I will resume the chair at 7.30.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Well thank you very much Mr Speaker. And yes I was talking before the dinner break about the potential role for the Leader of the Opposition for selecting projects that are going to be part of this amended RMA quick process—the fast-track process. The Minister in his first reading speech made it clear that he was hoping that there would be cross-party support for this bill across the Parliament and we have indicated that we are prepared to support the bill at its first reading through to select committee and that we want to have an opportunity to scrutinise it. It's a bill of some 80-several pages that was received by the Opposition as late as 1.20 p.m. this afternoon—Hon Member: What time?Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: At 1.20 p.m. this afternoon and not actually presented on the Table of the Parliament until after the urgency motion had been prepared. So there's been almost no opportunity for the Opposition to scrutinise it. Of course the Government member introducing the bill David Parker has had an opportunity to spend a lot of time looking at it because he's had to negotiate his way through the very delicate machinations of New Zealand First and Green Party politics. What we do know is that this bill in terms of the 11 projects indicated so far has been an utter compromise and these are very cold stale projects. Every single one of the 11 has been previously announced. What we do know is that they have probably been scrutinised to the point where the Green Party has had to eat another big fat dead rat in order to provide support for this bill.We are going to support it but we have got some questions. We want to know why the Infrastructure Commission wasn't involved in this process and why wouldn't the Government want to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the Infrastructure Commission that they have set up that they created only a few months ago? Wouldn't this be the logical sort of bill for them to be involved with? We also are keenly awaiting the Tony Randerson report—the review of the RMA process. We can't understand why the Minister is delaying the release of that report. He indicated that it would be another month or two before that report is made public. We think that's terribly convenient as we run into the election on 19 September.I just want to conclude my comments on this bill by referencing a press release that Alan McDonald from the Employers and Manufacturers Association has released after yesterday's announcement of the 11 significant infrastructure projects. He says "However this is yet another workaround for the problematic Resource Management Act highlighting once again that the Act is now no longer fit for purpose and needs to be replaced to create new fit for purpose legislation that enables growth and protects the environment." He says the current Act fails on both of these tests. Our suggestion to the Minister is if this bill is a good bill—and we think that it has some merit at least; we'd like to scrutinise it further—then why not make it permanent? Why not make it easier for all projects to be consented in a way that is going to fast track every single RMA consent?"