Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Mr Chair. Minister the Infrastructure Commission stated that consenting infrastructure cost New Zealand about $1.3 billion in the last year. That's just the paperwork—just getting the consents. That's not building a sediment detention pond that's not turning up on site and moving the owls or shifting the frogs—that's just the paperwork Minister. Auckland quarries have been essentially sterilised by the freshwater rules which prohibited developing anything that is a wetland—and a wetland being a 3-square-metre patch of bulrushes in a wet field. That's regulation that the Ministry for the Environment produced that you signed off and that is now affecting the ability of infrastructure projects to proceed. More recently consents have been declined to extract sand from off the North Auckland coast—that vital special sharp sand used for making concrete in the City Rail Link project and in the Central Interceptor waste-water project; a project to keep sewage off Auckland beaches. Without these consents for vital resources Minister infrastructure cannot proceed even if we could afford $1.3 billion just to get consents. So Minister I have three questions for you this evening. How will enshrining race-based co-governance in planning legislation make it easier to consent vital infrastructure say for example like Port of Tauranga's wharf extension; Transpower's transmission lines over Tauranga Harbour?—question 1. Question 2: in reply to a written question that I asked the Minister about the Port of Tauranga being refused the opportunity to use the fast-track Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) consenting process to consent their vital wharf redevelopment—which they believe is vital in order to avoid major blockages in the supply chain for New Zealand's largest export port by volume and revenue—the Minister has declined to allow that consent to proceed through the EPA fast-track process. So Minister how will the Natural and Built Environments Bill (NBE) reforms and Spatial Planning Act reform make it easier whether it incorporates co-governance—or what other methods would make it easier to consent this type of infrastructure? Because that's just not clear from the reform agenda or from the information we've had back from officials Minister.Finally there's been great apprehension expressed at the Environment Committee recently on the emissions reduction plan no less; that the Resource Management Act (RMA) as it currently stands and the Natural and Built Environments Bill—the replacement bill for the RMA which we've analysed as an exposure draft at Environment Committee—will actually make it harder to get consents to achieve a renewable energy target. They claim that the environmental bottom lines which are included in the NBE Bill—a lack of provision for offsetting environmental effects by this inevitable dilemma we face: if we want to build infrastructure whether it's a renewable energy whether it's a waste-water treatment plant or a road we build it in the natural environment and the submitters have claimed that without the ability to offset environmental effects they're not going to be able achieve our renewable energy targets.So Minister could you please provide assurance? Will you be enshrining race-based co-governance in your resource management reform? Will you allow for fast-track consenting for vital infrastructure now—right now—and in any subsequent reform? And will the natural and built environments—or whatever the replacement is for the RMA—allow for offsetting for environmental effects? Thank you Minister.