Court Simon; Parker DavidSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. There is a place for codifying establishing standards. The ACT Party believes that for example New Zealand should adopt the building material standards from countries that have complementary conditions like Canada and Japan and California for example when it comes to rainfall and seismic. There is a place to codify the effects on the environment of development and activities.The Infrastructure Commission in their submission to another resource management bill the Natural and Built Environments Bill—they proposed that rather than developers contractors and infrastructure operators having to get consents for everything—that if the effects were well understood because we do this stuff every day then rather than obtaining consents those matters could be codified. But they also pointed out that requires extensive consultation to make sure that the unintended or perverse consequences from hastily thought-out pieces of legislation don't end up causing a whole lot of a fix down the track that impose cost on business and actually reduce the overall welfare of the communities that pieces of legislation are proposing to help. And that's why the medium-density residential standard (MDRS) like many things this Government has promoted is well-intentioned but ultimately doomed to fail. It won't deliver the 100000 homes just like another policy announced by a recent Labour-led Government also failed to deliver 100000 homes.I want to talk a little bit about the medium-density residential standard. The ACT Party does not intend that we take on the role of urban designers or architects. It's actually the Government that's forced us to adopt that role because by including the medium-density residential standard in primary legislation that's the field on which we are forced to engage. So our proposal to instead replace it with what the PricewaterhouseCoopers - Sense Partners cost-benefit analysis demonstrates will be just about as good the Auckland Unitary Plan mixed housing suburban standard. People say Oh but that's only two storeys and what we want is three storeys and three houses on a lot." Well Urban Auckland provided a fantastic submission where they show quite clearly that on a typical section in Auckland 800-odd square metres you can put three homes. You can achieve a couple of fantastic two-storey great lifestyle apartment or terrace units 82 square metres each and a standalone two-storey home with a separate garage 173 square metres. That's a very large home by any standard and that's under the mixed housing suburban standard.So what that demonstrates actually is that the medium-density residential standard—it's not just unnecessary it's not just complex it doesn't just introduce a whole lot of unnecessary impacts on people's lifestyle and wellbeing and ultimate welfare. It doesn't have to force the stripping of all the vegetation and trees as my colleague and the Environment Committee chair the Hon Eugenie Sage pointed out. The mixed housing suburban standard actually allows the retention of significant green spaces and trees and outdoor living sunlight views that the medium density residential standard does not.So that's why ACT advocates to incorporate essentially the Auckland Unitary Plan mixed housing suburban standard in the Schedule 1 to replace the MDRS. And while the ACT Party can't support blanket tree protection we do recognise that there are significant environmental benefits from having a certain amount of permeable surfaces landscaped areas. These things all add to the wellbeing of the people who live in these homes and communities. That is why as a recovering civil engineer I've had to take on the role of urban designer advocate for architects and that's not a role I ever expected or in fact any member of Parliament should have to but that is what the Minister for the Environment is asking from us through this bill. And that is why ACT is advocating very strongly for the mixed housing suburban standards to replace the Government's standard.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I repeat: the reason why we won't be adopting that is it would effectively frustrate the purpose of the bill substantially by reducing the number of building opportunities by more than 30 percent. We think that that would not be as good an outcome."