Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe. Thank you. I'm really pleased to take a call on the Spatial Planning Bill and I think this bill has got huge potential to improve the way we plan in Aotearoa and the way we develop new urban areas our towns expand where we put infrastructure how we look after nature our rivers and our coast and how we respond to climate change rising sea levels and increased flood hazard events.We are very fortunate that the Parliamentary Counsel Office is very skilled at drafting law in plain English. So this is a more manageable bill as I've said before than the Natural and Built Environment Bill partly because it's a lot shorter but it's also very easy to read. The purpose of it is to get these regional spatial strategies which will have a life of planning for up to 30 years and longer and to ensure that there's more strategic direction to how we manage nature and how we develop and how we use natural resources. It is about being strategic and it is about integrating with the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the outcomes in that bill. It's about having these strategies developed in a slightly different way from the way we've done planning to date in terms of having a very sort of staged process of everybody putting in submissions going to a hearing then potentially going to appeal after decisions have been released. There is a strong thrust in the legislation that the regional planning committees will run a really good and solid engagement process to really get the public's ideas about how do they see the region developing what are the areas of nature that really need to be protected and how should we respond to things like rising seas.So as other members have noted the fact is that we are now putting into law a requirement for spatial planning. Councils working together have endeavoured to do it but they've had to develop their own governance arrangements. It has often relied on the initiatives and the personalities of particular councils lucking on a good independent facilitator or chair. Now this bill is requiring it except in the Chatham Islands where it's optional because of the size of that area. So I think and I hope that with regard to the practice that's developed under the Resource Management Act regime people can draw on what's been best in that and put it into effect as the bill gets becomes law and is implemented.One of the key changes as the Hon Rachel Brooking has noted is that there will have to be a central government representative on the committee that develops the spatial strategy. Now ACT has thundered against that and ACT's comments fail to recognise that you have one person there but you can't have them making all the decisions just in the room. But they are the connector to ensure that if Waka Kotahi funding is needed for roads there is a link-in with the planning that is happening around where the urban development and subdivision is to be where we need new busways and that that's integrated into that new cycleways—that the funding then gets bid for in the Budget process so you get an integration which is not always obvious to date.The bill sets out the key outcomes for and contents of the strategies in clauses 16 and 17 the key matters that they have to deal with. There were quite a few changes that the select committee made here. There was a strong push by Horticulture New Zealand and others for stronger protection of highly productive land and that is one of the changes that we made because we do not want urban sprawl to compromise soils that are valuable for food growing. Sprawl despite what the ACT Party says around plan changes also leads to transport systems that are not nearly as efficient and are much more expensive and infrastructure that is more expensive. So taking that long-term view of 30 years or more as councils do with their asset management plans is about being strategic.I guess I'm a little frustrated because what I heard from the National Party was some very measured contributions and I think Chris Bishop said National was opposed with less hostility to this than the Natural and Built Environment Bill—everyone is in favour of fewer plans. So it is a tragedy that the select committee process was not used by National to highlight the things that they saw as needing change in this bill because everyone agrees about the need to plan well and so there was the potential for there to be cross-party agreement on that. But once again there's been a political position taken at the very outset which has prevented that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Oh well that's unreasonable.Hon EUGENIE SAGE: So—sorry Mr Brownlee I didn't hear that.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yeah it's very unreasonable. Hon EUGENIE SAGE: So we do want this to work well. I'm looking forward to the guidance that the Ministry for the Environment provides to the regional planning committees in terms of how to implement it but I would really encourage the public and others to actually read the bill because it is very readable.I guess the other thing is in terms of the key matters that are to be included in these regional spatial strategies it's also areas of cultural heritage and areas with resources that are important to Māori. We haven't had that in our planning law. This means that mahinga kai for example will get flagged and protected through the planning process. It's taking planning to a new level so I am very supportive of the bill and commend it to the House.