Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): E te Māngai o te Whare tēnā koe. Pleased to take a call on the Natural and Built Environment Bill. It's certainly been a busy seven months since the bill had its first reading last November and the Green Party will be supporting the bill. The fact that we put in a differing view was to highlight aspects of the bill that we think can be improved. I am puzzled by the contributions of both National and ACT in terms of the 5½ years of consideration of reform the detailed thinking that has gone in the consultation—what is National going to do if not proceed with this bill? We haven't heard from any of the National speakers any of the detail of what they would replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) with. I'm certainly not an acolyte of saying that there will be a brave new world for people and planet as a result of this bill and its companion the Spatial Planning Bill but it has been a substantial effort in developing the bill and taking it through select committee—and thank you for the kind comments of members. It's been a huge amount of work by Ministry for the Environment officials select committee staff MPs submitters and the parliamentary counsel. But seven months including the Christmas break has been a very compressed time frame for the select committee submitters and officials to deal with a bill this important. Because the committee received submissions from nearly 3000 interested groups and individuals we heard from 365 submitters over 28 meetings and we did release all of our background papers just before Christmas in an effort to enable the public to better understand the policy thinking and the context for the bill. I'm not sure whether those hundreds of pages of additional information helped or hindered the submission process but I do believe that as a result of the select committee work which was based on very careful analysis of those submissions and the many suggestions for improvements by professional bodies like the New Zealand Planning Institute businesses individuals environmental organisations councils iwi and hāpu the bill has been substantially improved. I really acknowledge and thank submitters for the huge amount of mahi that people put in the many who had a foreshortened Christmas summer holiday break in order to provide those submissions and appear before the select committee.Sir Geoffrey Palmer has described our legislative process as the fastest law in the West." While the gestation process for this bill has been long the legislative process has felt somewhat compressed and I think it would have benefited from more time to consider the departmental recommendations to look at some alternatives to commission additional independent advice and to refine the drafting. I really acknowledge the work of parliamentary counsel in restructuring the bill doing a lot of drafting in response to the committee and the department's recommendations to try and make the provisions clearer and to include some signposts in terms of the way the different provisions fit together and should work.So the bill is intended to enable development within environmental limits to shorten the consenting process to reduce the huge energy and substantial waste of time and resources by councils around the country reinventing the wheel with each of their plans taking 100 plans down to 16. It's intended to streamline the decision-making process and lead to more affordable housing and more effective development of new infrastructure. It has interested me that apart from a few press releases and a bit of legal commentary there's largely been radio silence in the three weeks since the select committee reported the bill back. There's certainly none of the controversy that has attended the three waters reforms. So I would take from it that a lot of the infrastructure providers electricity generators environmental organisations and others may be not satisfied but are comfortable with the bill as amended. That's why I think National in its opposition to the bill without a clear or coherent plan as to how they would replace it is simply political grandstanding. It's tub-thumping in the absence of major calls for change to the bill as reported back. It's a lot of bluster making sweeping criticism but I think it's the example that Todd McClay gave of issuing a press statement the day after the select committee reported back claiming that National would repeal the bill to remove the attack on trout fishing—totally failed to recognise that the select committee had fixed that and that the bill now includes recognition and protection of the habitat of trout and salmon in order to provide a substantial hook for the valuable advocacy that Fish & Game does and to carry on the protection that the RMA has provided. Mr Bishop's claims that the bill is now weighted heavily in favour of environmental protection fails to recognise that we need a healthy environment in order to sustain our economy and society. It also ignores the many provisions in the bill which the Green Party sees as undermining—cutting across the purpose of te Oranga o te Taiao the fact that there are generous exceptions for infrastructure from the provisions around places of national importance the fact that we still have a fast-track consenting process that comes into effect when the bill comes into effect the Ministerial powers which allow the Minister to pass further regulations making further exemptions for nationally and regionally significant infrastructure and water storage. So there are a number of ways in which that purpose clause and environmental protection is we would believe in the Greens weakened. Also I just note Rod Oram's comment that in Aotearoa New Zealand "We are perpetuating one of the fastest deepest degradations of natural capital of any nation." Our regular state of the environment reports give us evidence of that. So the concept of environmental limits and targets in the bill of significant areas places of national importance and highly vulnerable biodiversity areas are important because they provide the constraints around development to ensure that nature thrives. Those environmental limits are intended to identify a safe space for human activity and avoid ecological tipping points that lead to irreversible environmental harm and damage. The targets are intended to drive improvements in environmental health. One of the major changes that the select committee made was to ensure that we didn't lock in degradation in terms of current state and that the targets were used to drive improvement. But the first National Planning Framework which will provide that national direction which has been so lacking under the RMA until recently will come into play eight months after the bill is enacted. But it won't necessarily include new environmental targets it will carry across the ones that are in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. But we think there needs to be provision in the bill that sets a timeline around when targets will be included in the framework. There's been a lot of work done around the 18 outcomes which are at the heart of the bill and mark that shift away from managing the adverse effects of activities on the environment. They are intended to drive a much more strategic focus to enhance both the quality of the natural environment and the built environment and to support the wellbeing of current and future generations. As the Minister noted the RMA has failed to do that by its focus on effects management. It is these outcomes that will drive the National Planning Framework drive the natural and built environment plans and provide that strategic direction and guidance. We haven't in select committee provided any prioritisation across the outcomes as some submitters recommended. Working of the outcomes across each other and providing coherence will come through the national planning framework. I'm really pleased that there are new outcomes such as a recognition that public recreational use and enjoyment of the natural environment is maintained and enhanced—very pleased that we've done away with the problematic provisions on urban trees but we want to see a real commitment that the national planning framework will deliver on that. We still have a number of concerns with the bill particularly in relation to outstanding natural landscapes and features and the lack of recognition that landscapes and natural features can be important at the regional and local scale. But the Green Party will be supporting this bill because it is a genuine attempt to improve our environmental legislation."