Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6134] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. I would first like to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee which considered 840 submissions on this huge bill. The select committee did a good job on what is a very complex area of law and in a tight time frame. The House should acknowledge the huge number of submissions received and heard by the committee the long hours it worked and the considered way that it dealt with a number of very contentious issues. 
The bill was developed with the assistance of the Resource Management Technical Advisory Group led by practitioner Alan Dormer which I appointed last December. I thank that group for its hard yards I thank the expert panel that was appointed by the committee for its assistance and I thank the officials whose work on drafting the bill was done to a pretty challenging timetable. 
This Government was elected on a platform of reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and specifically on a programme to streamline and simplify the Resource Management Act. Our focus has been on reducing the costs reducing the delays and reducing the uncertainties of the Act without compromising its underlying environmental integrity. This bill is about addressing the vexatious frivolous and anti-competitive objections that can add tens of thousands of dollars to the costs of ratepayers and consent applicants. This bill is about getting a single-step process in place to enable major infrastructure projects to get consent in a more timely way. We want to consign to history the notion that it takes longer to get a resource consent for a piece of infrastructure than it takes to actually build it. This bill is also about speeding up resource consent processing for smaller projects. I do not think there is a member of this House who would not know of a resource management horror story in his or her electorate. The Government wants to give council officials much more discretion when the effects of a resource consent are minor. We want to simplify the decision making but we also want to hold the councils to account for processing consents in a timely way. 
The bill is also about improving the separation of powers that operate within the Act. Politicians nationally and locally make rules and laws but it is for the courts and for independent commissioners to make decisions on individual consents. That is why under this bill applicants and objectors are being given the choice of having independent commissioners and it is why Ministers in future will not be able as we have seen occur in relation to restricted coastal activities to overrule decisions made by independent commissioners or the Environment Court. 
The bill also tackles the arcane bureaucracy of blanket tree protection rules whereby people have to apply for a resource consent to do none other than trim their own tree. The 5000 consents in this area cannot be justified. I am sure that in the Committee stage we will debate those provisions some more but I say that an underlying principle is that before a council restricts what homeowners can do with their own trees the council should consult them and go through a process of listing those trees or groups of trees in a district plan or schedule. 
The bill is also about improving the plan-making process because anyone who works in the area of the Resource Management Act knows that it is only as good as the quality of the local plans. The bill also strengthens compliance with the Resource Management Act by upping the penalties for those who breach the Act. It provides that the Crown can be prosecuted like anybody else and it provides for a wider range of enforcement measures. 
I want to note a number of the changes that were made by the Local Government and Environment Committee. First the committee has dropped the proposal in the original bill to do away with the non-complying activity class. It is my view that our Resource Management Act has too many activity classes and that adds to its complexity and that if we were to start afresh we probably would not have this class. However given that we are 18 years down the track with this Act the select committee had to weigh up the gains of removing that activity class compared with the costs that removing it would impose on the councils. I think the committee has fairly concluded that the provision is not worth its salt. 
The most challenging job for the committee was the issue of plan changes further submissions and appeals. The changes made by the committee reflect just how hard this area of law is. People want their say they want their cross-submission rights and they want their appeal rights but they all agree that the process is too cumbersome and slow. The bill contains some useful amendments which will improve things in this area but we will have to give this issue further consideration as we move into the Government’s second phase of reforms. 
I particularly commend the committee for its work on timely resource consent processing. After the bill was introduced I received and the committee studied the latest report of the Ministry for the Environment on resource consent processing. It shows that in 28 percent of cases consents are not processed on time and worryingly that does not even take into account the 31 percent of consents where the councils grant themselves extensions. What is of concern is that this situation has become worse with every single survey since 2000 and that there has been a ninefold increase—ninefold—in the number of times when councils grant themselves extensions. The select committee’s changes in requiring the councils to report on the processing of consents providing for a nationwide system of financial penalties and restricting the extension of consent processing times are in my view a very strong step forward. I am confident that these changes will result in the more efficient processing of consents. 
I also note the committee’s caution in respect of the changes to designations and notices of requirement and where the decision making lies. This is a complex area and in the second phase of reforms we need to take into account the select committee’s conclusions. 
I conclude by making two points. First the Resource Management Act is by nature a fraught area of law. We all believe we should be able to do whatever we like on our own property but if our neighbour wants to do anything we expect to have a say and to be consulted. This bill is about improving the balance by reducing the bureaucracy in some of the more arcane areas while maintaining the underlying environmental integrity of the Act. This bill will make a positive difference but it is only the first phase of the Government’s changes to the Resource Management Act. We have 10 important work streams going on in water aquaculture infrastructure urban design further work on the Environmental Protection Authority and work on the interaction of the Resource Management Act with forestry with building with conservation and with the Historic Places Act. As well further work is being done on some generic issues that could not be advanced in the time frame required of this first reform bill. 
Again I thank all those involved in the hard yards of progressing the bill through to this point and I look forward to the more detailed debate in the Committee stage. I am pleased to commend the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill to the House.