Norman Russel William: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Norman Russel William: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6192] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I will speak briefly about notification issues because those are some of the issues in the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. I will talk about a particular example of how the notification processes are already far too weak. The example I wish to address is around a piece of bush that used to exist in the South Taranaki ring plain. It was called the Parihaka bush. This is an example of why the current regime around notification is far too weak and why it is a mistake to weaken it further as the Government proposes to do with this bill. 
Parihaka bush was about 10 hectares of remnant forest and a remnant swamp or wetland and it sat in the South Taranaki ring plain. Members who know the South Taranaki ring plain will know that outside the Taranaki park very little native vegetation is left. According to the ecological assessment done on the area about 1 percent of the original native vegetation is left in the South Taranaki ring plain. Parihaka bush existed previously; it was about 10 hectares. Tawa rewarewa miro pukatea rimu mahoe pigeonwood tree ferns and about 20 30 or 40 different varieties of ferns trees and shrubs existed in this area. It was a very important local piece of vegetation. It also had the Waitotoroa Stream which had water of reasonable quality in it because of the bush that existed around it. 
Parihaka bush was in the middle of a dairy farm—and there is a family story about this. New farmers basically wanted to bowl the bush in order to do a dairy conversion. They wanted to take it out; they wanted to get rid of it. They went to the South Taranaki District Council which told them they would need a resource consent. The farmers being of the same mind as the National Party and the ACT Party thought that that was an outrage. They said something like: “How dare they! It is our land. How dare we have to have a resource consent in order to bowl the last 10 hectares of native bush left in an area where 1 percent of the native vegetation is left? It is our land. How outrageous it is that we should have to have a resource consent in order to bulldoze bush!”. So the farmers started bulldozing it anyway. They said: “Bugger that! We don’t believe in this Resource Management Act stuff. The National Party tells us all the time how bad it is and we subscribe to that so we will get the bulldozer out and start bulldozing the bush.” They started on the bulldozing before someone found out and the council sent someone around to assess what was going on. 
The council intervened and had an ecological assessment done on the bush. It found out that the bush was a 100-year-old piece of bush that was tremendously important in terms of the ecology of the region. One would think that the council at that point would have said the farmers could not bulldoze any more of the bush. In fact one would think that it would fine them for bulldozing the bush without obtaining a resource consent. One would think that would be the logical conclusion. Instead the council looked at the ecological assessment which showed the bush was tremendously important and it obtained a recommendation from council officers who said the council should not give the landowners a resource consent because that would only reward them for bad behaviour and it would be a bad thing to do anyway. The council then said no it would give the farmers a resource consent. Not only did the council say it would give them consent to bowl the rest of the bush but also it said they did not have to notify the proposal. The council decided not to tell anyone about it. The farmers had a non-notified consent for the bowling of the rest of the 10-hectare bush but they left some parts of it. 
This is the current situation. The Resource Management Act is already so weak and unable to protect the last remnants of natural vegetation from dairy conversions that this clearance of the bush went ahead. In the bill before us the Government proposes to weaken the notification provisions further. This is the reality on the ground in New Zealand today. This is what is going on outside this House. We hear the rhetoric from National and ACT about the evil Resource Management Act and how it does terrible things but the truth is that we are losing biodiversity rapidly because the Resource Management Act is too weak. We need provisions to protect biodiversity on private land. That is essential if we are to protect the remnants of biodiversity. There are farmers right across New Zealand who protect biodiversity. They have Queen Elizabeth the Second National Trust covenants put on their land they protect biodiversity and they would be appalled by the actions of these farmers in knocking over this important remnant bush. They do not support that. But in this case the farmers got away with it. They did it and it was not notified and that is why we have to strengthen the notification provisions not weaken them.