Ardern Shane: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:622;Page:17979] 
SHANE ARDERN (National—Taranaki-King Country) 
: 
 There is one comment made by the previous speaker that I agree with and it is that this legislation needs leadership. So far from this Government through two Parliaments we have seen absolutely none. The main part of the bill before us today was introduced as a discussion document in the mid-1990s. It evolved from that through a variety of committees including a 1998-99 select committee which brought to Parliament 12 recommendations of substantial change. I think this legislation touches on about four of them. The recommendations that came out of that select committee were then taken up by the incoming Minister Marian Hobbs and a red pen was put through every single one of them. In other words they were dumped. What do we have here today? We have a road to Damascus experience from this Government which is saying: “Well actually some of those things may have been so. They may have been. We’re not going to stand in the House and say they are or were; we are just saying they may have been so.” But we oppose this bill on the basis that it does not represent that kind of view for all. 
What we have here today is proposed legislation that includes only those who have the ear of the Government. I say to the Government members who may take another call at some stage as this bill progresses through the House to explain to me why major State-owned enterprises will be given special treatment as proposed here but the average joe—the hard-worker the average farmer the average businessman the average commercial entity that wants to go about its business and enter into some kind of development—is excluded. Why do they not get the same treatment? Somebody should explain that to me. In the Taranaki - King Country electorate the seven territorial authorities and the three regional councils will still be able to inflict their view of what the Resource Management Act stands for on the average farmer or business but if Meridian Energy or similar wants to come through that electorate with a development it will be given a different set of rules to work with. Why is that? 
Members opposite should listen to their new-found bosom buddy the muesli man from Auckland the Mayor of Auckland when he says that the proposed Resource Management Act legislation will not go anywhere near far enough towards fixing the problems in major infrastructure in New Zealand particularly roading in Auckland. I repeat the comments that have been made previously. What Auckland needs—as do other cities such as Wellington and Tauranga and other major areas where roading problems are clearly obvious—is engineering in the roads not engineering in the people. The Government is totally ignoring those requests. As I said earlier this legislation started in the 45th Parliament went through the 46th Parliament and now in the 47th Parliament it is still being tinkered with around the edges. I ask Government members why they cannot accept all the sensible work done earlier by a number of people who understand this issue inside out. Why can they not accept that and why has that recommendation not been taken up in full? I say to United Future members if they are to assist this Government in getting this legislation through—and it appears as though that is the case—why did they not given that they hold all the bargaining chips as it were dig in and get the reform to the Resource Management Act that they know and that everybody else in New Zealand knows should take place? Why did they not do that? Why did they roll over? Why did they accept a piecemeal incremental bit-by-bit change to this legislation? Why could United Future not have stood its ground and come up with something that most New Zealanders would have accepted and on which it would have had substantial majority support in this House? 
I think that this legislation has come about as a result of the fiasco we saw with Project Aqua. I cannot be sure that that is so but I suspect that the Minister came under much pressure at that time. One hundred million dollars was spent investigating that project—a project he ultimately dropped. On top of that of course the small-business committee came back to the Government and recommended that the single biggest barrier to growth and business in this country was the Resource Management Act. So that combined with the Project Aqua fiasco brought the Minister a relatively new Minister to the conclusion that perhaps he would go back and look at the earlier work and see whether he could pick out some bits that would help us to move this thing forward. I ask that Minister why he did not do the job right the first time. Why could he not bring himself to accept that his predecessor Marian Hobbs had made a huge mistake when she allowed herself to be hijacked by the very left of the political spectrum by those who are here supposedly to protect the environment the Green Party? Why could he not bring himself to the conclusion particularly with the support of United Future that he could have taken a substantial step forward with the Resource Management Act? Why did the Minister ignore the hundreds of thousands of submissions—and it is that many now—over a long period of time since the mid-1990s? Why did he ignore those submissions? 
I know that the other Minister here in the House Minister Swain who sat through the submissions to the business development committee could have told him in minute detail some of the concerns Business New Zealand has with the Resource Management Act and the impact it has on business development. Why did he not implement the leadership that the member for Whanganui spoke of earlier when he had the numbers? Of course the Minister sits there completely oblivious to what those people have been talking about. He has no idea of business like the rest of his Cabinet colleagues. He has no idea of what is needed to fix the Resource Management Act. So at this eleventh hour the Government has introduced this piecemeal unacceptable amendment to the Resource Management Act which will not go anywhere near far enough towards doing what is needed to fix it. 
The bill also amends the Electricity Act and we have to ask why we are putting in place a special one-off piece of legislation just because we have a major problem now with electricity generation and the transmission thereof. I again say to United Future that here was an opportunity to enhance all sorts of energy development. Thousands of projects are on hold because the people involved have looked at the problem of getting them through the consent process under the Resource Management Act and said that it is all too tough—in fact State-owned enterprises have. They have said they will go over to Australia and build generation capacity in Australia because it is much easier to build it there. I do not know whether the Minister is going to pass another amendment to the Resource Management Act so we can build transmission lines across the ocean to bring some of that power back home. Maybe he is; I would not know. What I do know is that New Zealand investment in energy generation is going on in Australia when we desperately need it here in New Zealand. The reason for that overwhelmingly would be that it is too difficult to get through the consent process in New Zealand in order for it to happen here. 
So I ask the Minister and the Government why they do not go back to the earlier work that was done. Why not have a look at where the real problems are? Why not adopt the whole revamp of the Resource Management Act as proposed by Owen McShane? Why not go back to the original principles—prescribed by Geoffrey Palmer one of Labour’s former Prime Ministers—and find out how those principles are being implemented by some of the district and regional councils that have completely distorted the original intent as drafted by Geoffrey Palmer and those who were involved in the first instance? I say to the Minister that he should take the opportunity now to fix it once and for all while he has the support of United Future and does not need the loony-left vote to get it through. He has United Future’s support. He has the numbers. He will have support from business and he will probably pick up other political party support in this House. He should fix the Resource Management Act and save New Zealanders from the endless grind that is holding this country back.