Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6165] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I want to respond to a couple of the points that have been made. The first of those is in respect of the timetable and the intent of the bill. I know it may be a novel concept but the Government is doing what it said it would do. We said we would introduce a bill to streamline and simplify the Resource Management Act within our first 100 days in office and we did. We also said we would pass that bill into law within a period of 6 months and we are doing so. I am surprised that other members in the Chamber are criticising us for doing exactly what we told the electorate we would do. 
Mr Charles Chauvel made a thoughtful contribution around the issue of notification. He raised a point that was also raised by Jeannette Fitzsimons of the Green Party. It is a very important point around the thresholds for notification. It is proper that the Committee debate those. In Supplementary Order Paper 39 in terms of adverse effects that may be more than minor my intention is to remove the words “may be” and substitute the words “likely to be”—and I ask members to remember that the consents I am talking about are the minor small ones that are on the margin as to whether they should be notified. We do not want council officials having to spend huge amounts of time trying to work out what is minor so we are saying in the Supplementary Order Paper that those consents are minor or likely to be minor. We are quite deliberately providing a bit more cover for council officials in that regard. 
Other members have given examples but let me give the Chamber an example. There is a real shortage of early childhood centres in my electorate. There are children who cannot get into an early childhood centre and get an early childhood education. I do not think there is a member of this Chamber who would not say that parents living in central Nelson need to have a place for their children to get an early childhood education. 
I have an application from a person to build an early childhood centre. The council said that all the neighbours agreed. The neighbours said they wanted to have the children around. But the people six doors down said there would be increased traffic flows in their street and they insisted on the right to be notified. So the council officials asked what the current law says. The law says that a consent needs to be notified if it has an effect on other people. Well the early childhood centre will have an effect on that street. I would argue it would be a minor effect but it will have an effect. 
Now the impact of all of that and of the old law was that it cost the development of that early childhood centre an extra six months in time and an extra $20000. Who do members of this Committee think will pay the $20000? It will not be the fairies. There is no money tree. It has to be paid for by the parents of those children. So in this debate about notification I make no apologies for saying that the effects have to be more than minor in order to justify the cost the time and the expense of notification. That is all the Government is saying with respect to these provisions. It is my view that the extra wording that has been developed with Local Government New Zealand—that is in terms of effects that are or are “likely to be” more than minor—simply gives councils a little bit of room to apply some common sense. If there is anything that we need to get into the administration of the Resource Management Act it is a good dose of common sense because right now we are adding too much in cost. 
The last point I want to make is that there is a balance to be struck between a level of public participation and the costs and delays because of that participation. In response to Mr Chauvel I say that the Government makes no bones about the fact that we are shifting that balance. If public participation is to be the only criteria under which we run this Act we will be relaxed about the fact that it took 17 years for some consents and a very long time for many others.