Smith Stuart; Brooking RachelSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Chair. It is a pleasure to be speaking on this bill this morning. I would like to also point out that the people in the Coromandel have moved on from crystal sets and when I was last there—Hon Scott Simpson: We've still got munted roads.STUART SMITH: Yes I know and the Minister is quite confused about a crystal set and we'll have a chat about that later. I have to say that neither Scott Simpson nor myself were in Hastings in 1066 but we are aware of what went on then so having a good sense of history is quite a good thing.Hon Scott Simpson: David Parker was there.STUART SMITH: Yeah. But Mr Chair I know you're interested in the title and commencement clauses and I am focusing on the commencement clause and I would like to ask the Minister: given that this legislation and its sister bill the Natural and Built Environment Bill are so intrinsically linked to the economic activity of New Zealand and will be when they come in and that we have an election in about 70 days wouldn't it have been more appropriate to have a commencement date that was enough time for the incoming Government to assess whether they wanted these bills or not? We are having effectively a referendum on among other things the Resource Management Act (RMA) reform RMA 2.0" and I think that given it is so broad and it covers so much of the activities of New Zealand—in fact we almost have to have a consent to have a bowl of fruit on the table in—Hon Scott Simpson: Organic fruit.STUART SMITH: Organic fruit—yes maybe. So it would seem appropriate to let New Zealanders have their say on it rather than try to rush it in. The National Party has the position that we will repeal it. So it seems pointless to try and just ram it through in the dying days of the Government to try and usurp the democratic process.I'd really like to know Minister if you personally considered this when you were working on that and when you were on the Randerson review panel—I know that you weren't the Minister then—but surely it would have been—Hon Scott Simpson: Would've had aspirations though.STUART SMITH: Would have had aspirations. But would you have considered this has such an effect on our democracy that it actually should have been put up for the community to have a say? If you've got confidence in this as being a good piece of legislation surely you'd have confidence that the public would vote accordingly in favour of that and therefore you would have a commencement date of say 1 January—I don't know what day of the week that is—2024 or some period after the election which would give time for an incoming Government to consider whether they wanted to run with this or not and therefore save New Zealand a whole lot of time and expense. When this bill receives the Royal assent no doubt there'll be a whole lot of officials beavering away with the implementation of these bills. So I look forward to the Minister's response.Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Associate Minister for the Environment): Thank you Mr Chair. I just want to say that this legislation and its sister legislation—I like it that the legislation is female today—is good for the economy. It reduces red tape. National says they don't like the Resource Management Act and they don't like this so who knows what they will do. But if it was in partnership with ACT then it's pretty terrifying."