Smith Nick: Resource Legislation Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Nick: Resource Legislation Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8555. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment): I move That the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Local Government and Environment Committee to consider the bill. The Government’s intention is that this bill which makes over 40 changes to six different Acts be subject to wide public submissions and a full select committee process to ensure that we get the details right. This bill is about reducing the bureaucracy that gets in the way of creating jobs of building homes and of good environmental management. It provides for greater national consistency more responsive planning and simplified consenting and it better aligns the Resource Management Act with other laws.I wish to give this bill some context. The Resource Management Act is New Zealand’s most important environmental and planning law and it matters a great deal to both our economy and our environment that it works well. There are only a few diehard greens who will not acknowledge that this Act needs reform. The OECD in its report last year highlighted the problems with its very high administrative costs compared with other countries. Through the report of Local Government New Zealand earlier this year councils noted that of all of the areas of their work this is the area where there is the greatest public dissatisfaction. The Productivity Commission’s substantive report on housing affordability identified it as the root cause of our housing problems. Business New Zealand has identified it as its No. 1 priority for reform in terms of job creation. Most recently the Rules Reduction Taskforce identified it as the No. 1 concern of homeowner complaints.I have been around resource and environmental lawmaking long enough to know that there are no silver bullets. There is always going to be some degree of tension between people being able to get on and use their own property and the wider public interest in ensuring that environmental issues are properly managed. However I am also of the view that we can make substantial improvements.National set out on a two-phase reform programme when we were first elected in 2008. Our first reform bill set up the Environmental Protection Authority and a far better process for dealing with big infrastructure projects. We would not have the Waterview Connection motorway and tunnel in Auckland which is half finished now. We would not have the consents for the 600 megawatt geothermal power station in Taupō. There would not now be work beginning on Transmission Gully. There would not be the new Christchurch motorway being constructed if it were not for those changes that our Government made in 2009.The first phase reform was also successful in stopping trade competition objections and appeals that gave the Resource Management Act a bad name. We have thankfully consigned the supermarket circus to this country’s history books. We introduced provisions that penalised councils when consents were processed late and we have seen those numbers drop from 14000 in 2008 to fewer than 1000 last year. The second phase reform was always going to be more complex and I want to acknowledge the work of the three technical advisory groups that helped pull together the proposals. I want to put on record my thanks for the hard yards that were done by present justice Minister Amy Adams.The first big change in this bill is the introduction of national planning templates. I highlighted at the beginning of this year the 10-metre high stack of Resource Management Act plans amounting to over 80000 pages of objectives policies and rules. We have each of our 86 councils reinventing the wheel and that is just not efficient for a country of 4½ million people. We have over 50 definitions of how to measure the height of a building. There are dozens of different descriptions of what you are allowed to do in a commercial area. The answer is standard planning templates as proposed in this bill.The second big change is reforming how councils write plans. The current process is too cumbersome too rigid and too slow. This Parliament keeps having to pass special legislation to get around this problem such as in respect of the previous Government’s challenges over the Waitaki River or our own challenges around Auckland housing. The average time it takes under the current Resource Management Act to make a plan change is 6 years and this is just not responsive enough to deal with the environmental and resource challenges that we regularly face. This bill speeds up the plan-making process and makes it more flexible. It introduces collaborative planning where there are conflicting interests that are incentivised to work together on a way forward—a proposal that was sensibly developed by the Land and Water Forum. It also introduces an alternative streamlined planning process that can be adapted to the specifics of a local issue.The third batch of changes in this bill is around making consenting less bureaucratic. It gives councils the discretion to waive the need for consents on minor issues. It introduces a new fast-track consent for simple issues which is required to be done in 10 days. Councils will be required to have fixed fees for standard consents. Consents will not be required where an activity has already been approved under another Act. This bill will reduce the number of consents required each year by thousands.This is a blue-green bill that will deliver environmental as well as economic gains. It enables us to pass national regulations to ensure stock like dairy cows are fenced out of rivers lakes and wetlands. It requires decommissioning plans to be required for offshore oil and gas rigs. It introduces into section 6 a requirement to manage natural hazards—a recommendation that came from the royal commission on the earthquakes in Christchurch. It would also help ensure we properly address the issue of sea level rise from climate change.This bill is an important part of the solution to the long-term problems over housing supply and affordability. The new bill requires councils to properly manage for population growth. It reverses the presumption of subdivision. It limits appeals on consents for housing infrastructure. It removes the double up of charging regimes between development contributions under the Local Government Act and financial contributions under the Resource Management Act.There are also important changes in the bill to the Conservation Act the Public Works Act the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act the Environmental Protection Authority Act and the Reserves Act that will also help achieve our goal of less bureaucracy and better economic and environmental outcomes. The bill also contains significant cost-saving measures from the use of new web technology. This will reduce those boring long ads that you read all the time in the paper about the Resource Management Act by having a crisper description and having the information available on the web. It allows for the electronic serving of documents. It also contains improvements to the Environment Court that encourage early dispute resolution.I want to acknowledge the support of the Māori Party and their advocacy around iwi participation arrangements. The arrangements were included in the proposals put forward in 2011 and have been refined. They will work better for iwi by focusing in on the issues that are important to them but also preventing the bureaucracy of them being involved in a huge number of consents which just adds time and costs. Can I also welcome the support of Labour members opposite. I look forward to a genuine process of engagement and dialogue so we can ensure that this reform delivers a Resource Management Act that works better for New Zealand. I commend the first reading of the bill to the House.