Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Firstly congratulations Mr Speaker on your appointment to the role. I'd also like to congratulate Prime Minister Chris Luxon ACT leader David Seymour and Winston Peters leader of the New Zealand First Party for putting together a comprehensive coalition agreement that sets out the real change New Zealand has demanded and how we will transform New Zealand over the next three years. I'd also like to congratulate returning ACT members of Parliament and the new ACT members of Parliament who are looking forward to making a productive contribution in this House and in their roles. I'd also like to congratulate members of the Opposition. You are now sitting in the right place according to most New Zealanders. And I'd like to thank the volunteers and the supporters of the ACT Party in West Auckland and central Auckland—where I spent a lot of time during the election campaign—and around the country in those regions which asked for ACT to go to Parliament to deliver real change. Thank you for your support. We could not be here to deliver for you without all of those hours of effort you put in putting up signs and helping us organise events and meetings. Thank you.Now I want to come to the proposals set out in the Speech from the Throne—in particular those which relate to resource management reform and the need to deliver infrastructure in a more coherent and cost-effective way. This Government has made it clear in the coalition agreement we have a plan to do it and we have some specific measures that will deliver that. It's quite different from the incoherent but aspirational Speech from the Throne that I heard in 2020 as a new Member of Parliament delivered by a former Labour Prime Minister. Now in order to reform the system used to fund finance and deliver infrastructure in New Zealand so that Kiwis can receive better infrastructure services we must approach it through a value-for-money lens. We must think about how we actually solve this mushrooming infrastructure-deficit and the eye-watering costs that have been produced to deliver even the most basic things like hospitals and fixing three-waters infrastructure.The last three years we reached peak stupid when it came to infrastructure proposals. We had the $750 million walking and cycling bridge across Auckland Harbour which for that amount of money didn't even include a bus lane. We had plans for Auckland Light Rail and Let's Get Wellington Moving—imagined in a bubble where capital is unconstrained. Projects that are under way now like KiwiRail's Inter-island Resilience Connection terminals in Picton and Wellington have been managed so poorly by the sponsors in the last Government—the former Minister of Finance Grant Robertson the former Minister for State Owned Enterprises Dr Duncan Webb—that this new Government is now potentially on the hook for billions of dollars to rebuild the landside and the coastal structures and to pay for these Interislander ferries.There are good reasons why this Government will soon begin work on a national infrastructure agency one of the measures set down in the coalition agreement and institute long-term city and regional infrastructure-deals allowing public-private partnerships tolling and value capture and other innovative measures to generate revenues to pay for infrastructure. That's because it's not good enough just to pick projects from some ideological bucket and announce them on a campaign trail; you actually have to consider how individual projects and programmes of work deliver economic and social benefits for the regions where they're to be delivered. That's what this coalition Government will do.We'll also introduce commercial rigour in the way that infrastructure projects and programmes are delivered and the way that money is allocated and costs are controlled.Hon Nicola Grigg: What is this innovation that you speak of? SIMON COURT: For example this innovation I speak of means that when proposals are delivered to Government basic questions will be asked: who is this for how much will it cost how certain are you that this cost will land there and the time frames—questions that didn't seem to be asked by our previous Government but that anybody involved in delivering infrastructure projects in the private sector or in the commercial world would always ask the proposers. The coalition Government also intends to introduce financial incentives for councils to enable more housing including considering sharing a proportion of the GST revenue collected on new residential building with councils because local government has all of the costs of delivering local infrastructure but apart from some very basic rating tools does not have the ability to access revenue to deliver those big pieces of bulk infrastructure which are needed to allow cities to grow up as well as out.Now it's not good enough just to reform the funding and financing aspects in order to build the infrastructure so we can build cities; we also need to reform the resource management laws. This is not a new problem. We've had successive governments run into activist judges and poorly thought-out environmental legislation. Think of the Basin Reserve flyover a project proposed almost a decade ago to unlock transport in Wellington; stymied by a heritage grandstand which I promise you if it was knocked down in an earthquake nobody would miss. Think about projects like the Mt Messenger bypass in Taranaki; stymied by objectors who in the end were found to not have a case but who held the project up for years and have cost the Government and taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Or the objectors to seabed mining off the coast of Taranaki who—it turns out all of the environmental considerations were addressed and yet that project is still stuck dealing with the Supreme Court directions to consider tikanga an esoteric concept that cannot be readily defined by applicants or lawyers or the Environment Court. Well I heard for three years sitting on the Environment Committee all kinds of ways the previous Government was going to deal with that. However the former Labour Government's Spatial Planning Act and Natural and Built Environment Act didn't address it. They introduced new novel terms like te oranga o te taiao" which submitters told the Environment Committee could take a decade to litigate to work out what they even meant. How is anybody supposed to get a consent to build infrastructure—roads bridges waste-water treatment plants let alone a housing subdivision anywhere if you don't even know what the terms in the bill mean? Well forcing decision makers to give effect to the Treaty wasn't going to get more housing and infrastructure built but this coalition Government does have a plan. We will repeal those two pieces of legislation—the Spatial Planning and the Natural Built Environment Acts—in the first 100 days. This Government will introduce a fast-track consenting regime to get infrastructure projects built that are currently locked up stuck in consenting and permitting. This Government will amend the Resource Management Act which will be reinstated to make it easier to consent new infrastructure including renewable energy to allow farmers to farm to get more houses built enable aquaculture and other primary industries to get ahead. Then we will replace the Resource Management Act with a new resource management law premised on the enjoyment of property rights as a guiding principle. Imagine that: being able to use your land to build or grow what you want without the risk of having people come out of the woodwork come from far and wide bring their homemade signs to protest and oppose what you want to do with your own land. ACT believes and this coalition Government believes that's one way that we can help Kiwis get ahead: let them use their own land to become more productive. Now there are many more things in this Government's 100-day plan that coalition agreement which will improve the lives of everyday New Zealanders make this country more productive give certainty to businesses and individuals who want to invest in building infrastructure whether it's a culvert or a bridge on a farm or a culvert under a State highway. It's going to take a little bit of time to solve some of these problems but the solutions are clear in the coalition agreement. We've been thinking about this for three years and to those New Zealanders listening or watching at home we are ready to get on with it. Thank you Mr Speaker."