Lotu-Iiga Sam: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLotu-Iiga Sam: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8248. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA (Minister of Corrections) on behalf of theMinister for the Environment: I move That the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. The purpose of the bill is to provide more flexibility to the Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel to help ensure that it can deliver its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan to the Auckland Council by the statutory deadline of 22 July 2016.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Can I just ask the member’s colleagues—it is quite rude to do that Mr Naylor. Thank you.Hon Peseta SAM LOTU-IIGA: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. In order to achieve this the bill has three main components. Firstly the bill reduces the quorum required for hearing sessions from three members to two members. Secondly it will allow an increase in the possible number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10 excluding the chairperson. Thirdly the bill will enable the hearings panel to make its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan in stages after hearings are completed on a particular topic rather than in one final report.Before I discuss these components in more detail I think it is important to reflect on the context of these changes. In 2010 this Government embarked on a reform of Auckland’s governance arrangements including the development of a single combined plan covering the whole region. Auckland’s first unitary plan is the biggest exercise of its kind undertaken under the “RMA” or the Resource Management Act and it includes the review and the rationalisation of the seven district plans the Auckland Regional Policy Statement and regional plans inherited from the former councils into one new comprehensive unitary plan.The streamlined process was designed to significantly reduce the time to produce a plan for Auckland than what would be needed under the standard Resource Management Act plan-making process. It will reduce the uncertainty the cost due to complexity and also it will enable speedier implementation of improved rules and regulations to support the need to increase the supply of housing as well as business land in the Auckland region. The unitary plan of course is critical to responding to Auckland’s growth and the resulting demand for development opportunities for both housing and employment.The Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act established this streamlined plan-making process and it went through this House as you all know including an independent hearings panel that was created to hear submissions on that proposed plan. This is intended to result in a faster delivery of a high-quality operative Auckland Unitary Plan but to meet this need for fast delivery of the hearings panels it is required to make recommendations by 22 July of next year.The hearings panel made good progress. Approximately 79 percent of the hearings have been heard to date but the independent hearings panel published 13 items of interim guidance on regional policy statement topics and subsequently on district plan level topics of regional significance. Hearings on site-specific matters are due to begin in mid-January of next year but the focus of these topics will be the impact of proposals on specific sites and thus potential impacts on individual property rights. Accordingly the level of public interest for these topics is quite high.The matters due to be heard represent approximately 57 percent of all the matters raised in submissions and 39 percent of those submitters have indicated that they want to be present at a hearing session. Auckland Council estimates that these submissions contain approximately 20000 separate requests for a change of zoning relating to more than 150000 properties across the Auckland region. If a high percentage of the submitters who indicated that they wished to be heard actually attend the hearings then more days of hearings will be required than the current time frame allows and that is why we need to make a dramatic increase in the expected workload of these panels and it raises the risk that these panels will not be able to deliver on those recommendations at that due date in July of next year.So it is critical that the hearings panel be able to continue its good processes and to make the recommendations to the council on time and that is why a number of changes to the Act are required via this amendment bill. The first main component of the bill of course reduces the quorum required for hearing sessions from three to two members. Currently a quorum of a minimum of three members of the panel must be present at each hearing session.Reducing the quorum from three to two of course will allow for up to four concurrent sessions to be held at any one time and it allows for more submitters to be heard within the existing time frame. I consider it possible for many site-specific topics to be heard by only two members without any loss of quality of those particular hearings. For more complex or controversial topics the existing quorum of three should be maintained but I have every confidence in the panel’s ability to use its discretion about what is appropriate for each hearing session.Secondly the second component as I have already described earlier will allow an increase in the possible number of appointed hearings panel members from seven to 10 excluding the chair. Currently the panel comprises a chair and seven other members—a maximum of eight members on these panels. Allowing the appointment of an additional three panellists will ensure that the submissions again can be heard by three or more panellists and allow up to three concurrent hearing sessions at any one time and this would raise the overall number of panel members from eight to a maximum of 11 including the chair.Again the third component is to enable the hearings panels to make recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan in stages particularly on a particular topic after hearings are completed rather than one final report. Currently the panel is required to make its recommendations on the proposed Auckland Unitary Plan on one report after it has finished hearings of all those submissions.Enabling the panel to make its recommendations in stages again is to expedite this system and give increased flexibility for the panel to run this process as it sees fit and again reach that deadline of 22 July of next year. I believe it is a sensible and it is a pragmatic proposal as it would give Auckland Council more time to consider the hearings panel recommendations. To avoid confusion Auckland Council will still be required to issue its decisions on the entire Auckland Unitary Plan. This will be done within 20 working days of receiving the final set of recommendations from the hearings panel.To support these policy changes additional recommendations are required. Firstly the bill will create a requirement for the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation to consult with the Auckland Council the independent Māori statutory board and the chairperson of the hearings panel prior to appointing additional or replacement hearings panels members. Secondly the bill will clarify that the hearings panels may hold hearing sessions concurrently and that an additional chair may be appointed for the purposes of chairing a hearings session.It is critical that the hearings panel contributes to the good progress that it has made and deliver the recommendations to the council by its statutory deadline of July of next year. This bill needs to be passed by the end of this year to ensure that the policy changes can take effect prior to the expected increase in workload which of course will start in January of next year.This bill represents a great opportunity to ensure that the country’s largest planning process remains on track to become operative as soon as possible. It is Auckland’s first unitary plan and it is significantly larger in scope and more complex than any planning exercise undertaken in New Zealand to date. Having been a member of the Auckland City Council which put together the last unitary plan I understand the real complexities and the time that it takes to put such processes through. With pride I recommend this bill to the House.