Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you for those questions. In respect of the first comments around infrastructure and costs of infrastructure one of the objectives of this reform is to reduce those costs because they are absurdly high in New Zealand. The cost of consenting infrastructure according to the Infrastructure Commission—an organisation that this Government created in the last term—it had an investigation into those costs and they have increased for mid-size infrastructure by 150 percent over about 10 years so those consenting costs are now 250 percent of what they were a decade ago; an absolutely absurd waste of money. One of our objectives is to reduce those costs and we will. How are we going to do that? In a number of ways. The new national planning framework (NPF) will include a development chapter which addresses infrastructure matters and that work is being led by the Infrastructure Commission with assistance from other agencies. It's not being led by the Ministry for the Environment; it's being led by the Infrastructure Commission. That chapter in the national planning framework will be one of the few new chapters in the NPF the rest being transitioned in from existing national directions. Otherwise you just can't land it. The effect of that will be that spatial plans identify routes for for example a new highway or new rail route or they might identify another area; once you have population growth it ought to be opened up to housing and therefore needs roading infrastructure or a school or a hospital or a police station. Those sorts of things will at a high level be identified in a spatial plan under the Spatial Planning Act and they will then flow through into Natural and Built Environments Act plans including designations which can last for longer. And the activity once a trigger is met—it might be population—means that we need a new rail link out to the south of Auckland or something like that that will flow a lot easier and on occasions will be a permitted activity rather than something that requires a complex consent.Now in order to do that some of the complexity that lies in bespoke conditions of an individual consent has to be standardised. So there will be a series of standards that are promulgated for example for sediment control. And there might be a series of standards—there might be standard A for a small project or standard B C or D if it was becoming more complex. The sediment problems in the likes of Transmission Gully would be more complex than in a small subdivision. And so the applicant might say We're proposing standard A." and the council might come back and say "Standard C" but in either case that standard doesn't need to be set out in bespoke detail. In respect of the question about direct referral and the Tauranga example the applicants and the council agreed to refer that directly to the Environment Court. It is a contentious project and it's one that we thought the public should have the opportunity to make a submission upon which they don't get the opportunity to if the fast-track process was used. That was one of the reasons why I as the responsible Minister declined to put that through fast track. One of the problems that they've encountered in that case is a dispute as to who should be notified. Currently under the Resource Management Act those disputes can only be resolved by way of judicial review of the non-notification decision to the High Court. That can slow processes down and add cost and it's being proposed that plans are a lot clearer as to the classes of people that should have to be notified and shouldn't have to be notified. And in the event that there is still doubt—because you can't cover every eventuality in the plan—those disputes will be resolved by the Environment Court rather than judicial review to the High Court. In respect of the questions around wetlands the member is correct that there have been some problems with the definition of "wetlands"; we didn't get that quite right. The member is wrong to suggest that has meant that we can't supply concrete to Auckland as evidenced by the fact that concrete shortages have not been in the news; Gib shortages have been. But we're building twice as many houses as were built when we came to office and we're supplying them all with the concrete that they need. In respect of the changes to the wetland provisions an exposure draft was provided to the industry because there is a lot of important detail in it and we have received feedback on that and we're expecting those changes to be promulgated—is it by October? Yes my officials confirmed by October we're expecting the final document.CHAIRPERSON (Greg O'Connor): Stuart Smith."