SpeechHon NATHAN GUY (National—Ōtaki): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. We find ourselves yet again talking about the Resource Management Act (RMA). It appears that in the last few months we've spent a lot of time talking about this Act and indeed in my time in Government we've spent quite a bit of time talking about the RMA as well. I want to acknowledge the good work that Nick Smith and Amy Adams did as Ministers for the Environment when they were in the John Key - led Government. They made significant changes to the RMA and the one that is dear to my heart is the allowance for Ministers to call in a project to a board of inquiry and they have to conclude their findings within nine months and the reason that that's dear to my heart is the Kāpiti Expressway. That had been talked about for ever and a day. Steven Joyce as the transport Minister came along and said We're going to put four lanes here." As a result that project was called in because of the changes that the National Government made to the RMA and now thousands of motorists—about 24000 vehicle movements a day—are enjoying a road that is safe and high in productivity. It's connected communities and I was talking to someone just yesterday who reminded me that all of the projects—the roads of national significance—have had no fatalities on them since they were built and in my patch unfortunately lives were lost. So thank you to the National Government for getting on and speeding up the process and allowing the roads of national significance to occur. What's happened now? Well look at my patch up there in the Horowhenua the northern end of the lovely Kāpiti coast. The road has been built from Paraparaumu and Raumati up to Peka Peka we're just about to drive on the next section from Peka Peka to Ōtaki and we just need to conclude the next section but what does the Minister of Transport Phil Twyford do? He delays mucks around and unfortunately never gets on and gets it done. But infrastructure now is very topical and that's what's covered in this bill. Suddenly the Government realised that infrastructure needs to occur to ensure that jobs are created through this bill. So that section of the four-lane expressway has stalled and stalled and stalled and it is now back on the drawing board. There would be an opportunity if the Government had a vision to include projects like this in Schedule 2 but unfortunately they haven't. Now I sit on the Environment Committee. We heard from submitters in a very shortened select committee process but we did get some good submissions in and we're interested to see what happens with the retired Court of Appeal judge. In his report through to the Minister Tony Randerson has done a wide-ranging review of the RMA. That now is sitting on the desk of the Minister for the Environment the Hon David Parker and it's just unfortunate that the Government has been very slow to get on and make changes to the RMA. We made changes in another bill recently but they were really full of I guess in my mind sort of going backwards instead of going forward—they were about repealing a lot of good work that was done by the National Government. So we find ourselves in a very unusual situation right now. We've got COVID-19 upon us and as a result Treasury and others are forecasting 140000 jobs could be lost this year which is a very significant number. The Government realises they haven't done the planning and due process to allow projects like the roads of national significance to get on and be built so in a way they are sort of using COVID to look like they're being responsive to try and reduce the number of people that are signing up for the dole queue every day at the Ministry of Social Development. We are supporting this bill because we need to but in my mind it lacks ambition. The projects are all about a couple of cycleways and a little bit of housing development. The project that Erica Stanford raised is one that the committee spent quite a bit of time talking about and deliberating on. That's the one at Kaikohe or as we know it the Ngāwhā water storage project and I've been up there and had a look at it when I was the Minister of Primary Industries. I support it and it's great that the Government has finally come around and wants to work with iwi and get on and build a project that is going to sustain water for those in households those in industry and those involved directly in the agriculture and horticulture space. So we support that project but when we actually started reading this bill—and it's about 80 pages long with 264 clauses—we went through it and we suddenly realised that this is about an earthworks consent to build a dam in Kaikohe the Ngāwhā dam. But hold on where's the water? Where are the consents to fill the dam and actually extract for the dam? They're nowhere to be seen. The reason is that there was a hell of a debate—and my contacts in the Government tell me it was incredibly robust which means it was quite angry—between the Greens and New Zealand First so the reason that the water-take consent is not in here is because the coalition Government is starting to fracture and fall apart.So the select committee—Hon Eugenie Sage: Oh nonsense. Hon NATHAN GUY: Oh yes it is. Just look at—Hon Eugenie Sage: Nonsense. Hon NATHAN GUY: Oh the Minister of Conservation pipes up. She obviously hasn't seen what occurred this week with the Newshub investigation looking at cameras on the commercial fleet and we know what's gone on there because suddenly Minister Nash was recorded and that is now all public. So I think it's wrong for Minister Sage to say that it's all happy behind closed doors with the coalition. The reality is that we know that it's not and that it's falling apart. Just look at Newshub's investigation. Under a National Government those cameras would be in place now. Over a thousand vessels would have them on board and—DEPUTY SPEAKER: And they're not in the bill—they're not in the bill. Hon NATHAN GUY: Thank you. The reason I am saying that is because I was the Minister that changed the law. But coming back to—DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill. Hon NATHAN GUY: —the bill now I want to conclude on a couple of aspects. One is the two-year sunset clause in this bill. It's going to be repealed within two years which means it's going going gone in two years. Now we know that it takes a hell of a lot of time to get infrastructure projects ready to be consented or to be called in and I have a concern that two years is not going to be long enough. So we raised that in the select committee. We got pushback on that. It's included in our minority view. These are big sizable projects—not all of them in here because some of them I think are pitiful—but if the National Party is lucky enough to win the election we would want to ensure that we had decent projects that actually had some asphalt going on the ground to ensure that it connected communities lifted our productivity and improved our safety. So this two-year sunset period that's going to be repealed over that time frame is I think short-sighted. The other project that's listed in here that I do support is the upgrade of the Wellington Metro Rail Network but when I delve into the detail it's really about freight capacity with KiwRail at places in my electorate like Levin. Now Levin has got a massive siding of land and once upon a time it was really busy and productive so that land sits there available. KiwiRail want to make that more of a transport logistics hub and I support that so I think that is a positive part of this bill. The only other comment that I'd like to conclude with is to say that this type of legislation has been done before and it's been proved to be very satisfactory. That was around the Canterbury earthquakes and that's around Kaikōura where we had the earthquake there. Also the one that is quite close to Parliament here is the Arras Tunnel where when the National Government was in power we worked constructively across the Parliament to get that tunnel built. The unfortunate thing is we should have gone further and got the flyover around the Basin Reserve included in that piece of legislation as well but I'll leave that debate for another day. So the National Party supports this bill with some reservations. We look forward to the committee stage where we can really get into some of the detail. Thank you Madam Speaker."