Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:645;Page:14877] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 National vigorously opposes this bill for four key reasons. The first is that it is about more bureaucracy when New Zealand desperately needs less. This bill creates more fuzzy law in the area of resource management when there is a pleading from New Zealanders and those who work in this area for Parliament to provide greater clarity. We already have three tiers of wordy documents plus dozens and dozens of pages of law. We do not need another 40 pages of wordy mush as well as another tier of planning documents. 
I put it simply: when a person in the Waitakere Ranges applies for resource consent the decision makers currently have to take into account the Resource Management Act. They have to take into account national policy plans like the national Coastal Policy Statement. They have to take into account regional policy statements from the Auckland Regional Council. They have to take into account district policy statements. Do they also need to take into account local plans and this additional bill? National argues that everything one would want to achieve in terms of protection of the Waitakere Ranges can be done by using those other instruments not creating more law. 
I go back to the introductory speech made by Sir Geoffrey Palmer in relation to the Resource Management Act. The legislation repealed 84 messy little statutes just of this sort. He argued very passionately for the Labour Party that it was time we had good-quality single-statute law and not piecemeal law. The Labour Party has gone backwards from that sort of view. I ask the Labour Party whether it believes that the Waitakere Ranges are somehow different in relation to the need to protect them from the beautiful coastline of Golden Bay from the issues in Queenstown and that magnificent area of the lakes district from the beautiful area of the Bay of Islands represented by John Carter or any of the other areas in New Zealand that we feel passionate about protecting. If Labour really does believe that the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill is the key to protecting the Waitakere Ranges and that the Resource Management Act cannot do it then it should be introducing bills just like this bill in every one of those areas unless it genuinely believes that those areas are not worthy of protection. 
The third problem with this bill is that it treats councils as idiots. The member in the chair Lynne Pillay says that we need this bill to provide guidance for the councils. This is like the Government telling our schools what to have in their tuck shops. It is like the Government telling parents how to raise their kids. Why does the member in the chair think we have so much wisdom in this Parliament that our councils are so dumb and that their elected representatives are so stupid that they have to have another 40 pages of law for them to be able to do their job and to make the right calls about what is and what is not inappropriate and appropriate development in the Waitakere Ranges? 
The fourth thing about this bill is just so typical of where this Government has got to. During the last 18 months we have seen that this Government’s agenda is that everything is about the Labour Party— 
Taito Phillip Field 
: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. We do not expect a political speech on a campaign trail at this point of the debate. The member is wide of the mark. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Marian Hobbs) 
: I am sorry Taito Phillip Field but clauses 1 and 2 are summary clauses in a sense. A debate on this is a summary of the legislation. It is a slight change in the Standing Orders. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: What I say to that member and to other members opposite is that the problem is that this is all about politics and not about good law for New Zealand. We know—and I am sure that the Labour Party’s polling says the same as ours—that Labour is in serious trouble in west Auckland. 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Ha ha! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: It is not just Hawke’s Bay. I will show the Minister our poll results if he will show us theirs. The problem with Labour is that everything it is doing today—from sacking the Hawke’s Bay District Health Board to the Auckland airport fiasco or in terms of the Electoral Finance Bill—is all about protecting Labour’s interests not New Zealand’s interests. I say to members opposite that they have made a mess of the environment. In relation to climate change and whether it is water quality or soil quality this Government has not performed. So it believes that with a mushy bill of this sort it can somehow save its bacon. It is mistaken. This sort of mushy law will do nothing for the environment and it will do even less for its electoral prospects. As John Key so effectively communicated today mush is out certainty is in.