Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I do just want to respond to the previous member's comments about the roads of national significance (RONS). I want to assure the House that when the National Party wins the election on 19 September the RONS are coming back.It always amazes me that the Green Party decries the roads of national significance because Julie Anne Genter who's the associate transport Minister and also the Green Party transport spokesperson depending on which hat she's wearing or which website she's writing for—or actually frankly which question time she's appearing in—likes to talk about road safety a lot. They're the safest roads in the country. One person has died on a road of national significance. Nathan Guy said it was zero; it's actually one—one person only. Kāpiti Expressway; Transmission Gully when we eventually get it open; Waterview; Victoria Park Tunnel; the Canterbury roading projects down on Andrew Falloon's patch or close to there—one person has died. They're the safest roads in the country.And they talk about housing. Eugenie Sage just talked about—Hon Julie Anne Genter: Pūhoi to Warkworth—do you know how many people died because your party didn't improve the safety of that road?CHRIS BISHOP: OK. Well you can get upset if you like but one person has died on a road of national significance. They're the safest roads and they expand housing growth.I want to comment on what Eugenie Sage said about housing because it always amazes me that roads that connect our regions that connect greenfield housing developments like the road that the Government is building in the South the expansion of State Highway 1 further south that opens up greenfields housing developments—that contributes to housing supply. You've got to build the infrastructure to connect the housing and actually the roads of national significance four-lane expressways—beautiful things—they actually connect into housing. It always amazes me that the Greens don't support that. So even on the grounds that they like to talk about being important in transport they should support the RONS.I want to thank the Environment Committee for the hard work they have done on this bill and particularly Erica Stanford and the team on the committee. They have done a great job. I couldn't sit on the committee for the bill but I know they were sitting at all hours—8 o'clock on a Saturday morning; particularly can I say with the weather that Wellington has had and I want to apologise sort of to the House for the Wellington weather over the last couple of weeks. What a shocker. I know many of you will not have enjoyed that. So sorry about that!Look this bill is a good bill as far as it goes right? But it's really an admission that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is broken. And actually we've been saying that in the National Party for at least a decade nigh on 20 years. The fact that we're having to sit—Chlöe Swarbrick: How long were you in Government Chris?CHRIS BISHOP: Well I know the point you're making. We could never assemble the numbers to reform it properly. And actually you know if we'd had the chance we would have done it properly. We could never assemble the numbers. And actually the fact that we're sitting here today on the cusp of an election in urgency on Thursday afternoon putting through a bill to get on with 11 projects worthy as they are—well contemporaneously there's this reform process going through led by Judge Randerson which the Minister has kicked off for yet another reform of the RMA yet another consultation yet another stakeholder advisory process and reference groups and getting everyone into a room to agree on the best way forward. All that stuff. That's happening contemporaneously with this. Doesn't that just indicate to you that the whole fundamental model is broken? It really is.Everyone agrees that we need to get on with infrastructure projects in New Zealand. There's not a person in the Parliament who wouldn't say that we have under-invested in infrastructure probably for the last 15 or 20 years. No one would really disagree with that and yet we have put in place barriers self-made barriers through the Resource Management Act since 1990 to actually building that infrastructure. I've just been corresponding with someone online about the Pētone to Ngauranga cycle trail which everyone in Wellington and Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt agrees we need because you drive down State Highway 2 into town from Lower Hutt into Wellington and there's a tiny little track next to the railway line in between the motorway and it's filthy and it's filled with potholes and it's got nails along it. It's a rubbish piece of infrastructure and if Julie Anne Genter was here she would I know agree with me on this. She would say that that should be the jewel in the crown of Wellington. It should be a beautiful vista that people ride along on their e-bikes which I know a lot of people are taking up. People could run and walk along it into Wellington.Well we're now in 2020. That project has been talked about for 50 years. We talked about it in Government in 2014 six years ago and we're now in 2020 and it's going to be one of the projects brought forward to be fast-tracked. And the reason that has to be done is because I'm told under the current Resource Management Act structures that would take four years to consent—four years for a project that pretty much everyone agrees we want. Everyone in Wellington agrees it's desired. The current cycleway is unsafe it's dangerous and it should be the jewel in the crown of Wellington. It should be a tourist attraction. It should incentivise people to get out of their cars get on to their bikes or on to their e-bikes and cycle into town from Lower Hutt or Upper Hutt or from Pētone or for families to walk along the harbour on a nice summery day. Not right now; you probably wouldn't do it on a day like today or any of the last month but you'd do it on a nice summery day. And it takes four years to consent? It's ridiculous. Everyone agrees it's ridiculous. So we're going to have to put it through in this bill alongside a bunch of other projects like the papakāinga network development Britomart East upgrade to the City Rail Link project. I mean again there would be no one in Parliament who'd think that was a bad idea. We need to do it. So let's just do it. Papakura to Pukekohe electrification—that's been talked about for five years. We campaigned in the 2017 election on it and the Labour Party campaigned on it as well and we're here in 2020—a railway line extension to Pukekohe to better cater to the fast-growing area of the south of Auckland and the Waikato to allow people to get on a train from Pukekohe straight into Britomart and not have to get off at Papakura and then get on another train. Obviously that disincentivises people to get on the train in Pukekohe because they've got to get off at Papakura get off their diesel train and get on an electric train. Obviously fewer people want to do that so of course electrification makes sense. We've been talking about it for five or six years but consenting takes for ever.The Resource Management Act is a self-made blockage against housing against rail projects that make sense against roading projects that unlock our greenfields development or help deal with congestion or improve safety which everyone agrees we need to improve. So I just think symbolically the fact that we are here doing this just epitomises the failure of Parliament over the last 20 years really to deal with the Resource Management Act. And I have to say that frankly the Greens—there is some deep irony in the Greens supporting this bill because the Greens have been the biggest barrier in the last 20 years to the Resource Management Act. Simple changes minor changes to reduce the interminable consultation to speed up the process—all of those changes have been opposed by the Green Party; not just opposed and they vote against them and go through the motions but vociferously and voluminously. They've run petitions against any changes to the Resource Management Act and they've had their fellow travellers in the wider environmental movements telling us that the end of the world is nigh. We've had Geoffrey Palmer telling us that the model is fine and we've had endless opinion pieces from Sir Geoffrey and legal opinions about how everyone is wrong on the Resource Management Act other than him. Well he's the guy who wrote it so I think there may be a slight vested interest there and conflict of interest in relation to it.The simple reality is that if you look back over the last 20 years of New Zealand—or the last 30 years actually—some of the biggest problems we're dealing with in New Zealand today the legacy of those problems can be sheeted back to the Resource Management Act: under-investment in infrastructure not just roads. We are keen on roads in the National Party; not just roads but rail public transport improvements busways cycle tracks shared paths—we've under-invested in all of them and the Resource Management Act bears a lot of the blame for it. Housing—the average house in Auckland is a million dollars; ten times average median income. That's wrong and the Resource Management Act bears a lot of the responsibility for that because we have made it impossible in this country or nearly impossible to get on and build housing. That's not the sole cause of the housing problems in New Zealand but it's a major contributing factor. Just building stuff just living your life in your own home on your own property—we have made it near impossible to do things. And again the Resource Management Act bears a lot of the blame for that.So yes we support this bill. Obviously we support it. Yes we want things added to it. But it is really symbolic and emblematic of the Resource Management Act being a major millstone around the neck of Governments of both stripes over the last 20 to 30 years. We need wholesale reform. That will come after 19 September. Thank you.