Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — Second Reading 
Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:642;Page:12023] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 A key election issue in 12 months’ time is going to be the Resource Management Act. There is a deep feeling in the electorate that that well-intended Act is in need of reform—reform not to change the balance of the Act between the environment and development but to simplify and streamline the Act. What is so flawed about this bill is that it is going to add to the complexity it is going to add to the uncertainty and it is going to add to the bureaucracy of the Resource Management Act. It is so significant that the Ministry for the Environment opposed this bill. It said that this bill is bad law that it is against the intent of the Resource Management Act and that this bill only adds— 
Lynne Pillay 
: They did not! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member sponsoring the bill says that that was not true. I say as a member of the Local Government and Environment Committee and as my colleague John Carter will confirm the Ministry for the Environment made very plain that it does not support this bill. This bill should be called the “Lynne Pillay (Save Her Bacon) Election Bill”. 
Steve Chadwick 
: How populist is that! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well it is! I have to tell Steve Chadwick this bill is bad law. It is more about politics than it is about doing the right thing for the environment and that is exactly why members on this side of the House will oppose it. 
Members will have heard often that we need to get greater clarity into our environmental laws. I would like to ask the House how a law that states: “this land is a fish.” is going to have a better result. What we are proposing in Lynne Pillay’s bill is to put into the law of the land the statement that “this land is a fish.” I am respectful— 
Lynne Pillay 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The bill is not my bill; it is a bill from the local authorities in Waitakere and the Auckland region. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not a point of order; it is a debating point. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. We listened respectfully to Lynne Pillay’s contribution but where members’ speeches are unnecessarily interrupted there is a practice of the member with the call being able to go back to the beginning of his or her speech and I suggest that that should be applied because that was a complete non - point of order. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I am the sole judge of that. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: This bills states—and puts into law—the words: “this land is a fish.” I cannot believe that there are members of this House who think that that will somehow provide greater clarity for the administrators of the Resource Management Act in making good decisions about how we manage the environment. I am respectful of people’s religions and I in many environments am happy to have such statements made—on the marae and in other places—but it has no place in the law; it is garbage as is this bill. 
A further point with the Resource Management Act is the huge complexity of plans that we have within that Act. I remind members that for the Waitakere Ranges we have to have a district plan we have to have a regional plan we have to have national coastal policy statements and we even have to have a long-term community plan. What this bill attempts to do is to introduce a new layer of planning into the Resource Management Act. We are now going to have to have local area plans as well. So for an area included in this legislation we are now going to have to have local area plans a district plan and a regional plan as well as the national policy statements and one specifically for the coast. 
I have to ask members opposite: “Is not that a nonsense?”. This is a little country of 4 million people and we now have to have four tiers of planning documents to look after the environment. Members on this side of the House say we do not need more plans we do not need more tiers we do not need more bureaucracy; we need better environmental outcomes. 
 Then we come to some of the issues that have been raised by the member. There is in law right now the capacity for the Waitakere City Council to be able to rewrite its district plan. National is of the view that at the moment the time it takes on average to change a plan under the Resource Management Act is 9 years. That is a nonsense. For it to take 9 years for those people who are standing for election in Waitakere and other parts of New Zealand to be able to implement their policy as to what they think is the right protection for the environment is a nonsense and this bill will make it worse. 
I say to members opposite that there are rightly problems with the Resource Management Act about dealing with cumulative effects. But why are we going to fix them only in the Waitakere Ranges? What about in Queenstown? What about in Banks Peninsula? What about in Motueka? What about in Waipukurau? Why are cumulative effects to be taken into account only in the area of the Waitakere Ranges and not in any other part of the country? The real answer is that the member and the councils do not have the capacity to fix the whole Resource Management Act so they are going about it in a piecemeal way. 
Then let us look at the member’s management of this bill. This bill was reported back by the Local Government and Environment Committee on 24 May. Why is it I ask the sponsor that it has not come up on any of the 6 previous members’ days? 
Lynne Pillay 
: Because we’re busy. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: They say they are busy! I will tell members why. It is because the member has not had the support of the House on those occasions so she has manipulated the parliamentary process to try to save those members from an embarrassing defeat. What National says about this bill is that it says everything about the culture of bureaucracy the culture of more laws the culture of more plans and the culture of more uncertainty that is at the heart of the problems we have with our environment. 
I want the next speaker opposite to somehow explain how having another tier of plans will help. I commend Paula Bennett who I think is on the money. She has said: “Look we members on this side of the House think the Waitakere Ranges are a special place in Auckland and in New Zealand.” We also note that there is not a single national park north of Taupo. I am attracted to the idea that the Waitakere Ranges should be a national park as Paula Bennett has proposed. Does that need a law? No it simply requires an application by the Minister of Conservation to the New Zealand Conservation Authority. 
I ask members opposite why if they really care about the Waitakere Ranges they have not lodged an application with the New Zealand Conservation Authority for that area to become a national park. That would make some sense and it would provide for a special protection for this particular area. 
What concerns me deeply about this bill is that submission after submission and advice from official after official said we cannot say with any level of definitiveness what this bill will actually do. It is so full of waffle so full of expectations and long words. We can ask basic questions like: “Am I going to be able to convert my land to a vineyard? Am I going to be able to include a new wine-processing facility? Am I going to be able to build a garage on my property? Am I going to be able to put a granny flat on my property?”. The advice from the officials is that they do not know. Members on this side of the House say they have had enough of sloppy woolly law that is designed for politics rather than for getting good environmental outcomes. 
I challenge the member opposite to give us a bill that will improve the environment and we will be happy to talk. Give us a bill that will improve the certainty of the Resource Management Act and we will be there to talk. But we do not want woolly laws that talk about the land being a fish and all sorts of other nonsense. This is woolly foolish law. It is no wonder that our own Ministry for the Environment advised against it proceeding. This bill has more to do with politics than with good environmental law. 
National says that the right way forward for the Waitakere Ranges is a national park as proposed by Paula Bennett and we should reject this bill. Steve Chadwick and the smarter members on the select committee know that it is political hogwash know that it is all about politics and know that those who really care about the environment are interested in good concise robust law and not this silly woolly-washy stuff that will only make worse the problems we currently have with the Resource Management Act.