Bishop Chris; Parker DavidCHRIS BISHOP (National): Madam Chair I was indicating interest but I thought you were going to call my colleague but I'll just make a brief contribution. The first point is to say—well we welcome the Minister's reassurance that Lake Onslow is not going to go through the fast track. [Interruption] Well the Minister's saying we can't. I think the key point is it will never get consented Minister. There's not a person in the country who thinks Lake Onslow is consentable other than maybe Megan Woods I think. No the Minister doesn't think it's contestable. Oh David Parker is saying he thinks it's consentable. Having railed against the Clyde Dam and having spent—and I've heard the Minister waxing lyrical on many occasions about the injustice of the empowering Act and the constitutional outrage and the environmental effects and all the rest of with some degree of justification and having spent a fair degree of his political career raging against that he's now saying to the House alongside Megan Woods that Lake Onslow the biggest white elephant boondoggle ever known in New Zealand political history is consentable. I think that's fanciful. The reality is the project will never happen. It will never happen. It is never going to get built and if it does happen it will have to be direct-legislated by Parliament. Anyway that's not really the point.The point I wanted to make—Dr Tracey McLellan: Yeah find a point.CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah well it's important. You are going to spend 30 billion bucks apparently so let's maybe have a few minutes' discussion around it.The point I wanted to make was in relation to the national significance pathway. Has the Government considered giving the power to call in matters that are part of national proposal or referring the matters to a court of inquiry—the Environment Court? Has the Government considered making the Minister for Infrastructure the relevant Minister for proposals? I think people are worried that the Minister for the Environment is conflicted and look this is a debate that could go both ways. But I just want to know from the Minister what advice or consideration the Government gave to making the Minister for Infrastructure or potentially in some cases the Minister of Transport actually the relevant Minister for that decision-making.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Although it hasn't been reconsidered recently in respect of the Natural and Built Environment Bill we did actually consider who should be the relevant Minister when the original COVID powers fast-tracked legislation was passed—the COVID response fast track. We also considered whether it should be Cabinet and in the end Cabinet thought that you need to give it to a Minister who will do it efficiently and the Minister for the Environment supported by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and the Ministry for the Environment I think has done that efficiently. If you gave it across to another ministry you'd have multiple ministries having responsibilities for these things to administer it. Actually it's worked well with the Ministry for the Environment and the EPA and in future the EPA doing this. The process already requires other Ministers' opinions to be sought as to whether it should go fast track so those opinions aren't brought to bear and are outed and the record is also clear in the Cabinet paper that as associated at least under the current process with an Order in Council those matters are clear from the public record and so there's political accountability. So I would recommend against having more than one department or agency responsible for fast track although obviously more than one Minister or ministry has an interest in decisions made pursuant to that pathway.