Willis NicolaNICOLA WILLIS (National): As with so many things that the Minister Phil Twyford says National finds it very difficult to disagree with his good intentions and the goals that he has for this bill. What we worry about is this bill's ability to deliver on those objectives. We supported this bill at its first reading and we did so for the very principled reason that we support the concept of urban development authorities and the Specified Development Projects that they can carry out. New Zealanders—many will be aware of international cities where vibrant new suburbs have emerged whether it's the Docklands or others as a result of this sort of an urban development project. We recognise the need for vehicles that allow for brownfields urban regeneration in areas where more can be done if the sufficient powers are in place. We recognise the urgent need in New Zealand to accelerate housing development particularly housing development focused around transport and other amenities and we recognise that right now it is almost impossible to do that in some areas that powers are required to assemble parcels of land reconfigure infrastructure and allow the assembly of public and private buildings. We don't think a piecemeal and incremental development approach is sufficient and so it was that the last National Government initiated a discussion document process to draft this sort of legislation. There were reports from the Productivity Commission recommending this sort of a process and National I believe in Cabinet had initiated a bill of this sort.So it is in sorrow that I stand here and say that today National can't support this bill at its second reading because we do continue to support the need for urban development powers and urban development authorities but we don't think that the Government has done a good enough job of this. We have three major areas of concern. The first is the context in which this bill is being progressed the second is the detail of the processes this bill sets out and the complexity thereof and the third is the balance this bill provides between State power and private property rights or the ability of private developers. I will take you through each of those three major concerns.Select committee scrutiny of this bill as the Minister mentioned brought forward many submissions. While I wasn't part of that select committee process I have taken the time to read through those submissions and to speak widely with those involved in housing development and urban development in New Zealand those developers local authorities and others. What has come through as a consistent theme when discussing whether or not people support this bill is an overwhelming concern about the extent to which the Resource Management Act (RMA) is continuing to hold back much-needed development. The concern here is that that should be the first-order priority of any Government seeking to speed up development. In fact the disdain for the RMA unites detractors from left and right in an almost unrivalled fashion—in fact you know in recent times possibly only rivalled by the ability of Dr David Clark to unite detractors from left and right. What we hear from those concerned about the RMA is that the Government has been quick to move on some of the press release - type issues such as KiwiBuild promises of 100000 homes but has been entirely negligent in its progressing of meaningful reform to planning law.The reason that is significant for this law is that essentially what this law we are debating today does is it says we acknowledge that the RMA is incredibly complex and so in some specified cases we'll let people cut through it. We'll let people get through all of that complexity in a fast-forward way. Of course what this creates as a concern is that if you're doing that for one very specific subset of Crown-led projects but you're not doing it for other development we could potentially have very uneven benefit across our community. For example there is no way that this bill can ever assist the small developer who wants to do a small development. It can't assist those who wish to do a private development without Crown involvement. It can't assist those who don't get to the front of the queue with Kāinga Ora. So we see that this bill is a poor substitute for the wholesale planning law reform that New Zealand so desperately needs and we believe that without that wider system change the benefits of this bill are inherently limited.We're further concerned that it does tip the balance towards Crown-initiated development in a way that could hold back new development for New Zealand because while the Minister points out that yes of course private developers will partner with the Crown in these Specified Development Projects the reality is not all developers will pass the Crown test. Some will miss out on the ability to partner and therefore will miss out on access to a huge range of powers from which private benefit can be gained from which profit can be gained and from which development can happen. We don't think that that is fair and we support more wholesale planning reform.The second area of concern that I flagged was that of complexity. As you know the devil is always in the detail of these things and for this Government in particular the devil is in the delivery. This bill agglomerates powers that are currently dispersed among multiple Acts and organisations and it also incorporates some novel things including an engagement process. Submitters identified on many occasions that this could give rise to legal ambiguities and omissions. Now the Environment Committee I'm sure has done a very good job and did identify many of those admissions and many of those complexities but there is a high risk remaining of technical difficulties in this bill. That's not a small issue because those technical difficulties could have a very material impact in terms of delaying or sabotaging the development projects that could be under way.To give you a sense of that I just want to refer to the submission from the New Zealand Law Society that noted that the list of principles that need to be applied for special development projects is long and without an explicit hierarchy could be very difficult to apply. They recognise the potential for conflicts between different Acts and for example around rating issues and development contributions. Parliament's own Legislation Design and Advisory Committee highlighted that aspects of the bill may make it difficult to understand and lead to uncertainty or errors. This House must take note of those concerns very seriously because those are the sorts of concerns that some commentators had way back in the day back in 1991 when the Resource Management Act was introduced. Today I think we can all agree that all of that has come true and so we on this side of the House flag our concern that the complexity of this bill may undermine its good intent of fast-tracking development processes.We also have concern—and this comes both from submissions and from discussions with those involved in urban development currently—that the way this bill sets about its process actually could be so slow and difficult so as to not warrant the additional powers it gives the Crown. To quote the Urban Development Institute of New Zealand it threatens to significantly undermine if not entirely negate the value gained from deployment of the UDA [process]." That is because the process is pretty complex. Kāinga Ora has to do an assessment of goals it has to engage stakeholders it has to do an assessment report then it goes to the Minister who does an Order in Council a governance body is formed then boundaries are progressed the councils are engaged—they have to be on the governance entity—then a draft development plan goes out it's notified for consultation. There's an independent hearing panel the hearing panel hears things then the hearing panel makes recommendations about things that need to be ameliorated and then it goes back to the Minister. My point here is that this isn't some simple fast-forward cut-through and the potential for major projects to fall over or to be subject to huge complexity and delay remains.Finally I flagged the issue of private property rights and I think perhaps given the shortness of time remaining I am best to highlight the submission from another who said simply that the way that the private property rights are impugned on here is that yes there are land acquisition powers that have always existed under the Public Works Act but the difference here is that the way it is done potentially encourages Kāinga Ora to land-bank before a Minister has made a decision about a Specified Development Project. The concern here is that the Crown will acquire land will therefore create profit for private developers at the expense of those who had land in the first place and there are questions raised about the compensation mechanisms that are introduced.So National continues to support this in concept but the devil is in the detail. We oppose the bill."