Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I welcome the opportunity to respond to some of the challenges that have been made by the Rt Hon Winston Peters. Firstly I want to note that during the Northland by-election Mr Peters said that he would support Resource Management Act (RMA) reform. So my question for—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. I am not going to stand by while a matter that was very clear—I remember Michelle Boag making that claim and I said—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No—[Interruption] No. The member will sit. These are debating points. The member will sit.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I contrast that. This bill is going to reduce the bureaucracy by tens of thousands of pages. It is going to give the council the opportunity to exempt consents. It is going to enable farmers in Northland not to require the bureaucracy of getting a resource consent for their stock drinking water. It is going to provide for a reduced number of appeals simpler processes and yet on every one of those provisions—and I am not sure whether Winston has read it. The New Zealand First select committee report—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. My name is either the MP for Northland" or "the honourable member" but it is certainly not "Winston". When he speaks to me in that way he should call me "Sir".The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Thank you. That is not a point of order.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The New Zealand First minority report on this bill says that it opposes every single provision in the bill—every single provision in the bill. So it is simply not credible for that member to say: "Hey if National had only talked to New Zealand First you would have got a much better bill." It is opposing every single sensible reform.I do want to challenge the member on his extravagant claims about the iwi participation agreements. I have got a simple question for him. Why did he vote—given that speech—for the joint management agreements in the RMA? They provide for iwi authorities to have the power to be able to grant consents. Under the existing RMA that member voted for provisions that provide for all sorts of powers for iwi that go far further than the iwi participation agreements in this bill—Rt Hon Winston Peters: What year was that?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Sorry?Rt Hon Winston Peters: What year was that? 1991.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No come back to the bill.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: In 2005 that member—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! This is a debate on this piece of legislation—[Interruption] Order! Although one can refer back to previous legislation the substantive nature of this debate is on this one. So come back to this bill.Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The iwi participation arrangements in this bill do not give iwi the power to grant consents. They do not give the power for iwi to write plans. What they do do is provide at the front end of the process for iwi to be able to have input into plans. That is something that we explicitly campaigned on in 2014 because it will provide for a better way of dealing with the existing sections 6 7 and 8 obligations for iwi to be involved in the process. Winston Peters is doing what he does best—playing politics. Winston Peters offers absolutely nothing to Northland or to New Zealand. These are the practical changes that are required to the Resource Management Act so that we can have more houses so that we can have more jobs so that we can have less bureaucracy and so that we can have a stronger economy."