Simpson Scott; Parker DavidHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister providing that background information. It was useful. Part 3 National planning framework" sets out the requirements for such a framework and clause 33 sets out the purpose which it says it is to achieve by "(a) providing direction on the integrated management of the environment in relation to—(i) matters of national significance; and (ii) matters for which national consistency is desirable; and (iii) matters for which consistency is desirable in some but not all parts of New Zealand; and (b) providing direction on the resolution of conflicts about environmental matters including those between or among system outcomes; and (c) setting environmental limits and targets." So my question at the outset in this part to the Minister is: could he provide the committee of the whole House a layman's guide to the national planning framework and the kind of insight and oversight as to why this framework is going to be put in place what it hopes to achieve and why it's there. I'm asking him that question because again I think that this is a piece of the whole legislation that needs to be understood by laypeople not just those who are practising resource management or who are planning professionals or indeed are specialists in the area but from people who are just interested New Zealanders wanting to get things done. Can the Minister just explain perhaps giving us what is essentially an elevator pitch to the national planning framework please? Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Thank you Madam Chair and I thank the member for the question. This is actually an important part of the new system as national direction has been an important part of the Resource Management Act (RMA). One of the criticisms of the Resource Management Act is there has been too much uncertainty left for regional and district planning because of the absence of national direction. Therefore there has not been enough guidance given to councils about what should be done in their planning instruments—a common criticism by local government by central government and by civil society whether they're development or environmental interests depending on the issue.Now this Government has already filled in some holes in the existing national direction. Existing national direction has a number of instruments under the RMA: national policy statements national environmental standards and regulations under section 360 and various subsections of the RMA. All of those are combined into the national planning framework so they're consolidated into a document which will have various chapters. Those chapters will include the existing national direction that we have around air quality for controlling the small particles that give people asthma for example if you have too much coal burnt in an area. They will include the transitioned and essentially like for like—the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and the national environment standards that we have for various things. In addition there's going to be some new national direction in the first version of the national planning framework. Some of it is more grunty than other pieces. The most grunty bit of new national direction will be the section of the national planning framework where the drafting is being led by the Infrastructure Commission to make easier the consenting of infrastructure. One of the purposes of the bill—and we discussed this under the discussion on Part 1 of the bill—is to enable development once you're protecting those natural environmental values and one of the ways you do that and drive cost out of the system is to make it possible to have more permitted activities. In order to have more permitted activities you can't have as many bespoke conditions for things like sediment control or noise when you're building a road or a new building and in order to move away from notified applications or indeed controlled activities that aren't necessarily notified but none the less require a bespoke application and bespoke consent conditions to be set by the consent authority is to enable the creation of standards around those sorts of issues that can effectively be adopted by someone that needs permission to do something.So the new national direction that's coming from the Infrastructure Commission which will be a new chapter in the national planning framework will be facilitative of the infrastructure that we need in our cities and our towns and indeed in rural areas and it'll drive cost out of the system. That's one of the ways in which the very considerable cost savings that are achieved in the new system compared with the old system are achieved."