Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe tēnā koutou e te Whare. Mr Chair thank you very much for the call. I just wanted to reflect on some of those points as made by the Hon Kieran McAnulty particularly about climate adaptation but also about climate mitigation because it is the Green's very strong view—and in fact the science and the evidence bears out—that good climate adaptation is also climate mitigation. This kōrero is happening not in isolation nor in a vacuum but in the context of our largest city in this country being hit by a climate-change charged weather event at the beginning of this year in the form of the Auckland Anniversary flooding. As a result of that we have seen Auckland Council start to move itself and shape its policies and regulations in such a way to provide for greater green infrastructure and that climate adaptation point.The Minister responsible for RMA Reform will be amply aware given that he is aware of the complexity in this area of the fact that Auckland's future development strategy as recently signed off by Auckland Council has substantive consideration for green infrastructure particularly the utilisation of public spaces such as berms. There could have been a great synthesis and opportunity for cohesiveness across local and central government policy were we to see the Minister utilising the opportunity to direct through the national policy statement—which the natural and built environment legislation and spatial planning legislation enabled—for greater utilisation of green infrastructure in turn creating that environment of certainty for local government to move ahead with its plans. Yet what we're seeing right now and what I'm hearing from the Minister is that we're in a bit of a holding pattern of wait and see. We're not going to have all of our Christmases come at once. We don't really know what's going to happen.We've also heard the Minister say that it's really important for the sake of the investment environment for there to be certainty for developers and otherwise. Yet what we're seeing—and I know that he didn't like this statement—is the throwing out of the baby with the bath water and no indication of where it is that we're going to go next.So my question to the Minister is: in lieu of issuing that national policy statement and direction—particularly pertinent to those of us in Tāmaki-makau-rau but also those on the East Coast on the West Coast those in Northland as well actually at the top of the South Island too who have all been hammered by climate-change charged weather events over the past several months over the past several years—what is he going to put in its place so that there is that certainty for local government to undertake the requisite planning not only to do density well but also to take inherent account of the inherent valuable nature of our natural environment?This is something particularly on the point of tree protection that I think is really important to continue underlining here. In my first term in Parliament two terms ago in the 52nd Parliament I sat on the Environment Committee when we were going through a process of another Resource Management Act amendment. I was sitting with members obviously of the Labour Party of New Zealand First and the National Party and I sought to put up an amendment through that select committee process to reinstate urban tree protection which the Minister will know was actually first removed by the former National Government and only recently reinstated in watered-down form by the outgoing Labour-led Government of the last term. To that effect it ended up being voted down on the basis that we apparently had to deal with that complexity. I then had a whole lot of engagement with our then-mayor at the time Phil Goff. I actually for the sake of debate and discussion here need to make the point that I will later seek leave of the committee to table that correspondence between former Minister Parker and Mayor Goff and myself about the fact that Auckland Council as one of our largest councils as the super-city simply does not have the resources—Hon Member: The best council.CHLÖE SWARBRICK: The best council the best city in this country does not have the resources to be able to work through the process of notable trees. Again we're seeing this lack of cohesion between local and central government policy.Just to kind of summarise all of those points we are engaging in this debate not in a vacuum but in the context of a climate-changed world in the context of climate-change charged weather events which have devastated our communities both rural and urban over the past several months and years. One of the best tools that we have to mitigate against that climate-change charged ravaging is the utilisation of trees which are both climate adaptation in the form of green infrastructure but also climate mitigation too in terms of their capacity to sequester carbon. My question to the Minister is whether he will and what he will be doing to provide that certain environment for local government but also for the sake of investment in lieu of pursuing the national planning framework as would have been enabled under the natural and built environment legislation and that national planning legislation as well?