Ardern Shane: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5591] 
SHANE ARDERN (NZ National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the schedules for this reason: hundreds of people have spoken to this Minister—I will not exaggerate; I suspect that it may be thousands—about the concerns they have with the way this process has been handled. Yet here we are debating the schedules today after having all of those submissions made to the Minister and the Minister doing nothing about it. 
I want to remind the Minister of some of the statements she has made during the period that this submission process has gone on. She said: “I don’t think the Resource Management Act is a particularly friendly Act to the average New Zealander.” She is right. She also said that the Resource Management Act is a beautifully written and beautifully balanced piece of legislation. I know that in her former occupation the Minister was a teacher. Perhaps she could take a call and explain to me what the term “oxymoron” means because I believe that those two statements are an oxymoron. They are in direct contrast with each other absolutely and I am astounded by that. 
When we look through the schedules we wonder how those two statements can stand without their beingin contrast with each other. I would really enjoy a call from the Minister on that topic because I am absolutely perplexed about how that could not be so. “Increased flexibility for business and more opportunity for public participation have been major aims of the RMA. Responsible businesses have embraced those opportunities finding that doing their homework and getting their neighbours on board has let a smooth process and good outcomes go and not just for business but also for the environment.” That is another quote from the Minister. Well! I just need to remind the Minister of that when we look at things like wahi tapu. 
I absolutely share the concerns of my colleague John Carter when he spoke earlier on. He represents a large Maori population in his electorate and so do I—23 percent of my electorate are Maori and I do understand the concerns of Maoridom. But I also feel that putting in legislation the opportunity for racial divide such as we are putting in this bill will not be a positive thing for New Zealand. I honestly and sincerely believe that what we are putting in this bill will not be a positive thing for New Zealand. I honestly and sincerely believe that and like John Carter I am pleased to have those words recorded in  
Hansard 
 so that in time when that comes to be the case we can go back and say that we did forecast that that would be an issue. 
The Minister does have at this “eleventh and a half” hour an opportunity to amend some of that. She still has that opportunity before this bill is passed today or whenever it will be and receives its royal assent. 
The removal of the Environment Court’s power to give security across cost particularly in the schedules when it comes to vexatious claims using the Resource Management Act will be a major issue going forward not only for big business but for the ordinary mum dad “Joe Hardworker” or mother of seven from Glenfield as my colleague Maurice Williamson often quotes. Those people will pay the price for this legislation. There are many examples here where various developers and city councils and the like have talked about the likely impact on the cost of the ordinary section subdivision and development as a result of the passage of this bill—not of any other legislation. The United Future party which campaigned up and down the country on family values and common sense cannot have overlooked that. I do not believe that its members are so naïve in their entry to Parliament that they will not have had that pointed out to them and totally overlooked it. So one can only conclude that they have decidedthey will roll over. They will not stand up for those principles. They are the two things that actually got them into Parliament in the first place—common sense and family values—and they will not stand firm on them. They will roll over. 
What we are doing here will affect mum dad and “Joe Hardworker” out there when it comes to the price of their small business the price of their section the price of any subdivision or extension they want to put on to the house as the family grows or any other minor development—that is a key point here: it is a minor insignificant development.