Tisch Lindsay: Resource Management (Security for Costs)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Tisch Lindsay: Resource Management (Security for Costs)  Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:631;Page:3598] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to take a call to speak on very important legislation—an important bill that my colleague Kate Wilkinson has introduced. National is concerned about the impacts of the Resource Management Act. My colleague Dr Nick Smith today sought to table recommendations on the Resource Management Act during question time on the seriousness and the importance of this legislation in relation to the development and progress we try to achieve for our economic growth in the country. 
Kate Wilkinson as a lawyer experienced in these matters has determined that security of costs are available through the District Courts the High Court and the Employment Court but not the Environment Court. So one needs to ask why we have an exemption for the Environment Court when other courts allow for security of costs. Kate Wilkinson has come forward with a solution which actually is fair. It is fair and equitable for developers for those people who seek a resource consent through the Resource Management Act and it stops those people who for frivolous and vexatious reasons will try to deny progress and will use any tactics necessary because the situation is not to their liking. 
There are numerous examples where vexatious and frivolous objections have taken place. It is well-known and has been mentioned many times in this House that it takes longer sometimes to get a resource consent to build a road than it does to construct a road. Why would that be? It is because so many people at the eleventh hour decide they want to object to a process taking place. 
My colleague Dr Smith and I were involved with the Whitianga waterways project where special legislation was passed. It is a huge development—a multimillion-dollar development over 20 years—where the developers had spent in excess of $5 million on resource consents and where everybody had agreed and it had gone through the court. Local iwi were supportive of it yet at the eleventh hour someone objected—in fact two iwi who did not even live in the area objected. Special legislation was passed. The hold-up of a multi-million dollar development which that community actually wanted at the time—and which local iwi in particular certainly wanted—was an exercise in futility. It took people like Dr Smith and the National Party to put pressure on the Government at that time to pass legislation that affected that huge development in that region. 
In a newsletter that went out to its clients on 23 May 2001 Chapman Tripp stated under “Security for Costs”: “The Select Committee Report recommends that the Environment Court’s power to award security for costs be taken away.” That is where it all started. “Currently the resource consent applicants can ask the Court to require appellants to provide security so that if the appeal is not successful and is found to be of sufficiently low merit as to warrant an award of costs against the appellant the court is sure that the appellant is able to pay those costs.” 
This is important legislation that my colleague Kate Wilkinson is promoting. It is worthy and has the merit to go to the select committee so the committee can determine the merits of it and we can call for submissions on this very important bill. We know that the infrastructural challenges facing New Zealand—be they in energy or be they in roading—are held up in many cases by the Resource Management Act. We support the Resource Management Act but we want legislation that is fair and equitable to maintain those high environmental standards and at the same time make sure people cannot come in and stop something just for the sake of stopping it when there is no due reason or cause for them to do so. National supports this legislation and we trust that other parties in this Parliament will allow it to go through to the select committee.