Beaumont Carol: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Beaumont Carol: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6213] 
CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour) 
: 
 I rise as an Auckland MP to speak against clause 52 of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill and to speak in support of my colleague Phil Twyford’s Supplementary Order Paper 40 on this matter. I think it is really important for particularly the Auckland MPs across the Chamber to think very very carefully about what they are doing here. An overwhelming number of the people in the city in which we live oppose clause 52 and they do so not because they are silly and are subject to scaremongering; they oppose it because they have very genuine concerns that the removal of the blanket protection will see the removal of large numbers of trees from Auckland. 
In the area in which I live if one climbs up Maungakiekie and looks out one sees a large number of trees. It is a very green and beautiful part of Auckland. That has not always been the case. Recently I was in the Onehunga Community House where there are some old photos of that suburb. There was a period of time in the 1930s 1940s 1950s and even the 1960s when it did not look like that. More recently we have added trees back into our urban environments and that makes a very real difference to all of us. It makes a difference in terms of what our environment looks like and it makes a difference in terms of the quality of our standard of living. There are native birds back in our cities. That may sound corny but I know that in the street I live in there are now many tuis that were not there 15 years ago or even 10 years ago. 
Large numbers of trees could be removed. That is the risk the Government is taking. The Government is trying to assure us that it will not happen but it is very interesting to note that the  
New Zealand Herald  
environment reporter yesterday talked about what might happen to protect trees. Her view is that Auckland City is clearly saying that it will not go through a complicated process of listing all of the large trees that are currently protected and that it will be up to individual landowners. The property on which I live has many large trees and as it happens I would want to protect them but not everybody will have that attitude. It could be that we sold our property and that the next people who came there felt that they should cut those trees down. Are we prepared to take those risks? I think the Auckland members of Parliament opposite need to think about this very very seriously because if that is the result they will be blamed. 
As I said before the people who are saying these things are not scaremongering. They are not fools. I will quote members another North Shore example. Adrienne Grace says that many trees will be cut down as soon as this bill becomes law. The reason she says that is she knows as do many Aucklanders that there is very real pressure from developers. Developers will be able to clear-fell a site and they will not have to replace any lost trees through replanting. If my own property were bought by developers they would want to knock down the trees so that they could put more buildings on it. Adrienne Grace says that the development pressure is so great in the Auckland region that there will be increasing numbers of sites with little or no tree cover for shade screening or visual amenity. Any trees planted will be of a size that it will take decades for them to provide the functions provided by the trees we have now. As a result New Zealand risks losing the international clean green image it has worked so hard to promote and tourism could be negatively affected. 
As Adrienne Grace said and as the  
New Zealand Herald  
environment reporter said yesterday listing or scheduling trees in the district plan which is the only permissible means of protecting trees is costly time consuming very limited and insufficient. Along with many Aucklanders she is very apprehensive about this. What that says is that the Government is pushing this measure through without listening to the people of Auckland. The current provision has worked well. The fact is that six out of the seven local authorities are quite happy with it. It is clear that some things could be fixed. A very real compromise has been put on the table by Jeanette Fitzsimons. That is what we should be looking at so that the people of Auckland have some assurance that we are not going to see the wholesale destruction of trees.