Wagner Nicky: Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wagner Nicky: Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4903. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
NICKY WAGNER (National—Christchurch Central) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill a bill in the name of Catherine Delahunty. Thank you Catherine for bringing it to the House and thank you for speaking so passionately about it. The purpose of this bill is to limit the time period for which a discharge permit or coastal permit may be issued to 5 years and that is when that permit has been issued under exceptional circumstances. I have to say that on face value that seems like a sensible idea and it is attractive. 
I had an open mind when I first had a look at this bill particularly in reflection on what Catherine said about the Tarawera River. But there are actually a variety of good reasons why under section 107(2)(a) the Resource Management Act provides temporary consents and in some cases—not necessarily in this one but in some cases—the 5-year limit may actually increase the adverse environmental and economic impacts. 
We heard from Catherine about her concerns about the consent issues for the Kawerau pulp and paper Mills and about the discharge consent that has been granted and the length of time that is has been granted for which is another 22 years I think. I do respect her concerns and certainly we want to clean up our rivers. After listening to the description and hearing about the people who were so concerned about the river it sounds like we need to do something about that. In actual fact there has been some improvement and she certainly also noted that because when the consent was last renewed it reduced the discharge significantly. The amount of the discharge actually reduces during the time of that consent so it is a downward spiral. Already the mill is discharging 33 percent less now than the consent actually allows for with that continuous improvement. 
I also note that this consent and others sought under this provision have been appealed to the Environment Court. In each case the Environment Court has applied a pretty rigorous test to validate the exceptional circumstances and it has reaffirmed the conditions of the permit issued to minimise environmental effects. This indicates that in fact the process is pretty carefully considered and is used only where appropriate. It shows that the section is doing exactly what Parliament envisaged when we wrote the legislation: allowing time to find ways to clean up discharges in the cases of exceptional circumstances. 
It is now more than 20 years since the Resource Management Act was introduced so it is time to look closely at that legislation. National is committed to updating to streamlining and to simplifying the legislation and to making sure that it adequately manages contemporary issues. But I do not actually think that this bill will improve the legislation. Section 107(2)(a) which this bill seeks to amend is very rarely applied and there is no evidence except perhaps in the case of Tarawera that it has been misused. Section 107(2)(a) affects only a very small number of relevant consents because “exceptional circumstances” are indeed exceptional. Any change to the law would not affect any of the existing consents—and Catherine Delahunty has actually said that tonight—such as Kawerau and we do not expect many to be granted under this in the future either. 
So because this section of the Resource Management Act has a very limited use because when it has been used it has been validated by the Environment Court because there is very little evidence of abuse of the section and because it is used in only exceptional circumstances I am afraid National will not be supporting the bill.