Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6232] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. The passing of this bill delivers on an important commitment made by John Key and National to the public of New Zealand. It reflects on the blue-green view that inefficient bureaucracy does nothing for the environment and in fact often harms it. This bill makes no changes to the purposes of the Resource Management Act but is instead very focused on far better processes to get good-quality decisions in a more timely way. I want to acknowledge all members of the House who contributed to the pretty robust debate during the Committee stage. 
It is important at the third reading to know what the bill is attempting to achieve. I note in the first instance that there has been an ever-increasing trend of resource consents not being processed in a timely way. Every one of the Ministry for the Environment surveys over the last decade has shown an increase in the number of resource consents—up last year to 14000—not being processed on time. This bill puts in place a number of measures to address that issue and a key test that it is meeting its objectives is to see a significant improvement in those statistics. 
The second area that this bill attempts to address is the frustration of so many New Zealanders who are attempting to do small projects and get caught up in the labyrinth of the Resource Management Act. That is why we are making changes around the issues of notification that is why we are making changes in areas like security of costs and that is why we making changes in process. We are trying to reduce the frustration that genuine New Zealanders have in applying for relatively small consents. 
This bill also seeks to tackle abuse of the Resource Management Act by commercial competitors. We have all witnessed the supermarket circuses where the Resource Management Act has been used in some communities like the North Shore to delay a new supermarket for as long as 8 or 10 years for which the community has paid a price by not actually getting a choice as to where they might purchase the most basic of items. This legislation is intended to constrain those abuses. 
The bill is also about providing for a better process for processing major consents. It is a matter of national embarrassment that it takes longer to get a resource consent for significant pieces of infrastructure projects than it actually takes to build them. That is a nonsense and a further motivation for the Government to advance these changes. 
There has been significant debate around the issues of public participation. I want to make it plain that National remains of the view as we did when we supported the initial Resource Management Act that New Zealanders have a right to participate in the resource consent process and decision making around the environment. But that is not an unconstrained right and we as a Parliament need to carefully balance that right of participation in the decision-making process with the need for us to get timely decisions and to do so in an efficient way. 
There are a number of changes in the bill that address that very point. The changes in respect of giving the Environment Court the power to award security for costs are to address the very real problem when groups that organise themselves as an incorporated society and who become passionately opposed to a particular project or development are able to behave irresponsibly in the resource consent process and impose very significant costs on ratepayers but have no responsibility themselves. That is not a fair use of the law. I have every confidence that the Environment Court will use that security for costs provision appropriately and not as a mechanism for shutting down community input into the resource consent process. 
It is true that this bill is aimed at facilitating the process for building major pieces of infrastructure. So often the practice has been that everybody knows that a consent dealt with by the local and regional authorities inevitably will be appealed to the Environment Court and that long drawn-out process is not doing favours for anybody either those who are supportive or those who are opposed to those particular projects. New Zealand will benefit from the changes made in this bill that provide for a single-step process for those major consents with a board of inquiry chaired by an Environment Court judge making those key decisions. Most important we have set out in the bill an ambitious programme of such consents being processed within a 9-month time frame. This is quite deliberate in order to send a clear signal that it is important for both the environment and the economy that we are able to get decisions in a more timely way. In this regard for those proposals not meeting the criteria of being nationally significant the bill also provides for direct referral to the Environment Court to provide for a single-step process rather than the dual process that frustrates so many applicants and communities. 
One aspect the bill addresses is unnecessary resource consents. Today we have heard quite a lot of bellyaching about the changes around the protection of trees. National was elected on a platform of reducing unnecessary bureaucracy and specifically streamlining and simplifying the Resource Management Act. The changes to rules around urban trees are delivering on that promise. This issue is about whether homeowners should have to get a resource consent to trim or remove a tree on their property. The Government takes the view that as a general rule they should not. The specific law change that National is making is to prohibit blanket tree protection rules. These are generic rules in a few councils’ plans where every tree over a particular height say 3 metres requires consents to trim or remove them. National’s change means that if a council wants to put restrictions on landowners trimming or removing a tree on their property the council needs to consult the property owners and specifically identify the tree or groups of trees in its district plan. The Government recognises that there are significant trees on private land that have wider community benefits. That is why we are providing for councils to specifically list those trees or groups of trees for protection albeit councils will have to consult the property owner. 
In essence this law change is around changing the relationship between councils and landowners over trees. At the moment councils are in the box seat and property owners must seek permission to trim or remove any tree on their property. The Government’s amendment bill will ensure that councils consult landowners before putting restrictions on their trees and it reflects a greater respect by the new Government for property rights. The process for councils to list specific trees for protection over the next 2 years is not onerous and will require a fraction of the bureaucracy needed to process all those tree-trimming consents. I will be monitoring though the performance of councils as they go about the exercise of identifying those trees and if councils fail to progress this work I will use my powers under the Resource Management Act to ensure that it will be done. It will be a relief for Auckland homeowners that from 1 October this year they will not need a resource consent to trim their own trees; this will save the whole resource management system 3000 resource consents per year. 
I acknowledge that this is a large bill that makes many significant changes—the most significant changes since the Resource Management Act came into effect in 1991. The Government has a second phase of reforms but this bill is an important first step.