Ardern Shane: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4309] 
SHANE ARDERN (NZ National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 It is enlightening to follow on from the new member from Otago who gave a very very deep and meaningful speech. We are at the brink of going through a process in the House that could only be described as a misuse of Parliament’s Standing Orders and the way that the process should work. I invite United Future members to sit down with the clerks and other members who have been in this House for a long time and ask them what the normal process is. What we have here is definitely not what could be described as normal process. How can we take a bill which in its first form had 18 parts and turn it into two parts describe it in the commentary as being more or less exactly the same as the bill put up in the first place to the select committee and then say in the commentary: “This new Bill is required to make sure the passage of the amendments through the House is as efficient as possible.” How can that be described as proper due process in Parliament? I ask the leader of United Future Peter Dunne who has been somebody who has championed that type of thing for years—for as long as I have been in this Parliament—to take a good look at that come back to this House perhaps take a call and tell us how that can be so. 
As the previous National speaker said we are missing a great opportunity here to fix up what has been a major problem for some time in terms of growth in this country. I go right back to the original passing of the 1991 Act—which was brought in by National. At the time under the leadership of Simon Upton it was described as environmental legislation that was world-class. The most important part about that legislation was that it was enabling. It is quite an indictment I guess one could say not only on local government representatives but on New Zealanders at large that they have misused that basic principle to the extent that they have. 
We have heard many examples of that in this House. There is one example that I can give just briefly as an aside. State Highway 3 going through Taranaki to the King Country and on to Auckland is the major link between Taranaki and the north. It is the link to the biggest city in New Zealand Auckland where most of our produce goes and it is the highway where most of our connections to the outside world one could say pass up and down. Trade is absolutely affected by that highway—and we had its realignment held up for 6 months because of the discovery of six hangi stones. I suggest to this House that that is an abuse of legislation that was never intended at the time it was introduced. It is high time that was fixed. We had an opportunity to fix it in this process and we have missed that opportunity. The old Act was very permissive and very enabling and unfortunately those qualities have been abused. 
The 400 submissions that were presented to the Local Government and Environment Committee and the 80 hours of select committee time put in in the last Parliament have totally been ignored. United Future members talk about the fact that they have a deal and that they have brought to this House some changes that will be significant. Well we learnt earlier from a previous speaker that all of those changes were in the original draft before United Future came to the House with the members that they have. I thought that they had achieved one change and I learnt that that was not the case. They need to sit down with the Green Party and learn how to negotiate because when the Greens were propping up the Government at least they used to get some changes. Most of them were negative but at least they used to achieve changes in their negotiations. United Future has totally rolled over on this legislation. This is the one opportunity—probably the only opportunity—that it will get as a support for the Government to bring about significant change in its time in Parliament but it will go down as an absolute failure in terms of the constituency that that party represents. 
Chapman Tripp said when it presented a submission to the select committee that the proposed amendments will bring no certainty whatsoever to further development in New Zealand and no certainty whatsoever to the process of how resource consent is handled. I challenge any Minister or Government member to stand and tell us why that advice has been absolutely and totally rejected and ignored. Sixteen substantial amendments were brought forward by the Simon Upton report after the Owen McShane report recommended 12 amendments. I invite the ACT member Ken Shirley my colleague on the select committee to have a look at that. There were 12 recommendations in the Owen McShane report and 16 amendments were recommended by Simon Upton. Most of those have been totally ignored and rejected by this process. 
We have now ended up with a bill that has 110 clauses and two parts. Subpart 2 outlines the purposes and principles of the bill. I suggest to the House that if something as substantial as the purpose and principles of the bill can be a subpart then what would we put in a whole part? What would be significant enough to be included in a whole part? If the purposes and principles of the bill are a subpart then what goes in a full part? With regard to the drafting of legislation that is a question I would like members of the Government to stand and answer because I am absolutely at a loss to know why the purposes and principles could be a subpart. 
It has also come to my attention that one of the major amendments provides that we are now going to provide legal aid to a person who wants to object to a development. Let us remember that this Government—since it has been elected in two elections—has championed the need for supporting our entrepreneurs the need for growth the need for development and the ability for business to flourish and for jobs to flow from that. But in this legislation we will be providing people even if they are just objecting for the sake of objecting—and we have heard about the types of objections that take place—with legal aid to allow them to object. 
I am absolutely at a loss to understand how that will meet some of the comments made by the Government over that 4-year period that it is about helping and assisting business to flourish and do well. It would be really useful for the Parliament and for the listening public if somebody within the Government—a Minister preferably but not necessarily—would stand and tell us how offering legal aid to vexatious claims against development such as the realignment of State Highway 3 out of Taranaki is going to aid and abet the Government’s objective of assisting the country to grow and prosper and for jobs to flow from that. There is an absolute tragedy here in the fact that we are missing an opportunity like none other to help New Zealand to grow to help our environment to be maintained to help our economic standing and to help our climb up the OECD to improve. The only opportunity for improving this bill is to change the Government.