Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. It is a great pleasure to speak on the Spatial Planning Bill. I want to take up a couple of points that were just raised by Dan Rosewarne the list member from Waimakariri right on the southern border of my electorate. It's only a 3½ hour drive from my house to that end of the electorate and I'm not at the top of my own.I take his point about dark sky reserves and spatial planning. Actually Kaikōura is seeking a dark sky reserve because the Hutton's shearwater doesn't like lights at night and they fly into them and it causes all sorts of problems. All of those things were never thought of of course when lights or street lights were put in—and still not even thought about today. KiwiRail has put in some lights that are quite disruptive to the Hutton's shearwater. They didn't do this deliberately of course; it's just that no one knows unless they're told do they? The Hutton's shearwater only need them at a certain time of the year when they try to leave after breeding and their chicks have fledged. They head off out to sea. And that is the point I guess of spatial planning—to get those things right at the beginning. But unfortunately things change over time and people aren't aware of those things initially.I think one of the great examples of spatial planning gone wrong is actually what happened with the red zones in Christchurch where land was built on that probably never should have been and in fact developers often pestered the council when the council really didn't want them to be built there. But the legal mechanisms to stop that were not available to them and we ended up with whole lot of housing and we know what happened in that area when the earthquake struck.In my own electorate we had similar issues with people under terraces and banks where the ground opened up rocks came down and those houses were then deemed to be uninhabitable even though they weren't damaged. So getting the spatial planning aspect of our Resource Management Act type of legislation is absolutely essential. However it's not that simple and I think while we don't violently disagree with this bill we're not very happy. Of course as you've all heard on the previous bill the Natural and Built Environment bill they do go together and we do have to have spatial planning legislation. But there are concepts in there as my learned friend Tama Potaka alluded to in a far more learned way than I could appreciate about the different terms used in both of those bills and that they are not actually clear at all and open us up for perhaps what could be endless litigation.I think we have to be careful when we put words into legislation that it's actually the words that are needed to make the legislation and get the outcomes that we need not just paying lip service to them by adding them in. Now an adaptation bill will come but spatial planning will be a part of that. We've got areas in New Zealand that are susceptible to sea-level rise or in my case in my electorate actually in most of the Kaikōura Coast went up recently although some small parts of it went down.We have the oldest site of known human habitation in New Zealand on the Wairau Bar—1280 AD it's estimated for the remains that were found on the Wairau Bar. That bar is a gravel bar with fish traps that were circular and at high tide the water and the fish would flow and they close off the traps and then the tide would go out and they'd go and catch the fish. Those traps are above sea level today or round about the level that they could have been useful 800-odd years ago. So we are in a situation where we don't know exactly what's happening in New Zealand with such a dynamic coastline because of the tectonic forces that are at play there.So exactly how we deal with those particular issues—we won't solve them all. We will find out that areas that we didn't think were susceptible to sea-level rise will be because of earthquakes or those that we think that will might not be because the earthquakes may lift that land up. We certainly know that that the Hikurangi subduction zone is likely to go at any point and there's potentially a magnitude 9 earthquake along that point and it will push the land up because it's been dragged down at the moment. So we know that the sea level will change but this piece of legislation doesn't necessarily make that a better situation.The regional planning committees—I think that's one of the real bones of contention that we have on the National Party and we do stand for one person one vote. We believe that all those people that represent us have to answer to us—that is the ratepayers and the voters in New Zealand. There is a move to lower the voting age to 16. Well that's going to be of little used to the 16-year-olds when they don't have the vote for the people on those planning committees that will have an effect on their lives and the environment that they live in and they're going to be living in that environment for much longer than any of us in this House. So what's the point of having regional planning committees with appointments that are not voted on? That does not stand up to the test of democracy We have to remember that going back for decades over 100 years people have fought and died for the right to protect our democracy for freedom of speech for freedom of expression and for the right to vote—one person one vote. These planning committees do not meet that test. Why should we accept that? There may be a good rationale in the mind of the person who put this forward but it does not mean the one person one vote principle the level of democracy that we have all benefited from. And while people might argue and they often do about members of Parliament and their councillors as to how good they are or not they have an opportunity to make a decision to get rid of us or support us and that's coming up on 14 October. We know we're all looking forward to that in this House. Yes Shanan I'm looking forward to it too and we just wonder how many people are going to be back here. I'm certainly looking forward to 14 October.But when are the planning committees going to stand up for their opportunity? That is the ultimate test. We get the ultimate in a performance review every three years. We're not getting that with these planning committees. We have to sit up for that test and so we should. I think every one of us in this House accepts that test. That's what we come here for. So why should we put in place a piece of legislation taking away the right for New Zealanders to judge the people that make the decisions on their behalf?So I think that's a really poor part of this legislation and that is one of the reasons why we oppose this bill. As I said it's not as bad as the Natural and Built Environment Bill but it is bad. That said I would like to acknowledge as I did on the previous bill the Hon Eugenie Sage who chaired that select committee and has done a fantastic job. I thank the permanent members on the select committee for the work that they did. I came and went on that select committee. I had little to do with the Spatial Planning Bill but I do accept and respect the work that the committee members did. I'd also like to thank all the submitters that gave up their time to come along and submit on this very important bill. So while this bill is a good attempt I do not support it.