Franks Stephen: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5642] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 This will be the last time that this House considers this bill. This bill has been stalled in Parliament literally for years and it was stalled for some very sound reasons. It started with Simon Upton’s review of just what was going wrong with the Act. In the bill as introduced there were a number of tinkering changes to remove opportunities for people essentially to rob their neighbours to extract gains from property they had never owned and to ensure that changes could not happen. It did not go very far—National did not push the legislation through when it could have and there was a change of Government. We saw the chairman of the select committee from the Green Party take charge and assert the dominant influence. The consequences were a number of changes that the Labour Government plainly did not wish to see enacted. Because it had 3 years to push the bill through it did not do it. It did not want to have an outright confrontation with its then undying Green supporters. 
We get to this year and we find that Labour has some new poodles. Labour has a new party that it can rely on to push through unpalatable and damaging legislation. That brings us to this afternoon—the United Future afternoon in this House. We began with the Families Commission the new body that will cost $28 million and employ a whole lot of spiky-haired very predictable opponents and enemies of the family—$28 million to subsidise them to attack any family that consists of mum dad and the kids. 
We then moved on to the next part of United Future’s grand afternoon in Parliament—the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2). Before we get to United Future’s responsibility I will go through just what is wrong with the bill. Firstly it does not acknowledge that the Resource Management Act is simply bad law. Every apologist in this House and elsewhere keeps saying that it is not bad law; it is just that people do not apply it right. Implicitly they are criticising every council and council officer in this country. Most of the citizens of this country would take advantage or disadvantage of this law. It would not be bad law if only they were not human. When we get a law like this one that constantly sets people at each other’s throats constantly wastes money and constantly holds things up it is not that people are not good enough for the law it is that the law is not good enough for people. It does not reflect human realities. That is what is wrong with the Resource Management Act. 
A very simple and straightforward reform which United Future might have been expected to support or even to think of had it truly wanted to do what it said—and what is best for New Zealand—would have been to provide that when people use this Act to shift value from their neighbours’ land to themselves those neighbours should be compensated. When land is taken by regulation and people are no longer able to use it because it has been designated a significant natural area a heritage area or has an area of “indigenous biological diversity”—in effect turning their land into a reserve for the benefit of their neighbours—those neighbours should share the cost. It is a simple change but nowhere do we see anything like that in this amendment. 
What do we see? We see the creation of new stand-over rights. Historic heritage areas are now “matters of national importance”. That means that local authorities cannot decide whether an area is of sufficient importance to them to override property rights or development prospects; instead it is now an area of “national importance”. What does that mean? It means that “inappropriate subdivision use and development” cannot occur. What is a word like “inappropriate” doing in the law of New Zealand? That is not law; it is simply giving unbridled discretion to a lot of petty local tyrants. 
What else does this bill do? Simon Upton’s proposal that commissioners sit on hearings instead of interested local politicians who will obviously pander to votes is not there. That was a very straightforward solution and it did not take the power away from local communities. Through their politicians they could set the scheme design and terms of resource management plans. Instead that proposal was dropped. As I said it brings in the notion that if there is an area of “indigenous biological diversity” on people’s property—I think there is a simple translation of that: it means native plants and animals—they might not be able to subdivide it. A very noble objective of course! We can see why United Future thought it was a good idea. If its approach to the way humans act is right there might be more “indigenous biological diversity”. 
What actually happens? Humans are sensible. If there is an area of “indigenous biological diversity” on their land they will squash it crush it or make it have accidental fires. They will make sure that if they come across something that has heritage value it will not be there by the time someone is around to pimp on them. In other words what New Zealand loses from this kind of law which is hostile to the way humans actually act is “indigenous biological diversity”—unless people are unlucky enough to have it in such a prominent form that their local authority already knows about it. 
What else have United Future and Labour done? They have left “amenity values”. No one can ever define what “amenity values” are. They have reinstated the restriction on courts requiring security for costs to make sure that people who are exploiting their rights under this bill can be required to pay if they lose—in other words that if people are wrong and have held their neighbours up held up development or held up the community they have to take into account that they might at least be paying for the proceedings even if that does not pay for the real cost of their disruption. 
Why did I say that this was the United Future bill? United Future members have claimed credit for removing two features of the heritage provision—that is the dropping of protection for something called “ancestral landscapes” and “cultural landscapes”. They have claimed enormous credit for that. I was a little undermined this afternoon when the Minister said that did not really matter because the issue was already covered by “wahi tapu” and “areas of significance to Maori”. It was quite plain that it had just been a smokescreen. In other words we had been through 2 years of charade using terms that no one could define—that is “ancestral landscapes” and “cultural landscapes”. They were simply lying words for sucking up to any self-appointed spokespeople for Maori groups. 
 Does it do Maori any good? It is Maori who suffer from the Resource Management Act as much as anyone. Does it do their relations with their neighbours any good when their genuine spiritual or cultural concerns are seen to be simply a licence to extort money? Does it do the environment any good when it is seen that those deep values can be converted to money as simply and effectively as getting a letter signed to withdraw an objection? Does it do respect for the law any good? Does it do any New Zealander any good? 
Yet Mr Baldock had the gall to stand here in this Parliament and accuse National ACT and New Zealand First—who ran the process that resulted in the removal of those terms and should have resulted in the removal of wahi tapu as well; that resulted in the redefining of the term so that it related to anyone’s cemetery and anyone’s area of serious cultural and spiritual concern—of not acting in the interests of New Zealanders because they pointed out that that very late withdrawal occurred after National New Zealand First and ACT had held their own select committee hearings and it had become plain that the issue was going to be a political liability. 
In other words the United Future party—which says that we should get used to the reality of MMP which says it votes for what is good for the country—suddenly decided what was good for the country only after it had become very plain that there was a serious political disadvantage to United Future. Why did they not go for the rest of the bill?