Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1485] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 I move  
That the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee with an instruction that the committee report finally to the House on or before 19 June 2009 and that the committee have the authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions and during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House on a Friday in a week where there has been a sitting of the House and to meet outside the Wellington region during a sitting of the House despite Standing Orders 187 189 and 190(1)(b) and (c). 
The Resource Management Act needs fixing and as promised the Government is introducing a bill within 100 days of taking office to reform the Act. Over the nearly 18 years since the Resource Management Act became law there has been growing criticism across all sectors about the slow and costly plan preparation and consenting processes. 
Decision-making processes under the Resource Management Act must become more efficient. The amendments in this bill will provide timely and welcome support to the other Government measures being taken to stimulate the economy. 
To draft this bill I asked for input from local government and a wide range of stakeholders. The Government appointed a technical advisory group in December last year to help formulate options for reform. I thank that group for its advice and commitment to putting in the work for these policy proposals particularly given how hard it worked over the summer break. 
First I confirm that the Resource Management Act will remain the principal statute for managing the use of natural and physical resources in New Zealand. No changes are proposed to the purposes or principles of the Resource Management Act. I believe that those principles are sound. There are no changes to section 8 of the Act affecting Maori involvement—an issue I note has been the subject of very strong submissions from the Maori Party. However this bill does not just tinker with existing provisions; it addresses problems that have been apparent for many years. The bill provides stronger tools for managing anti-competitive behaviours and new consent pathways and it rationalises decision making and existing consent categories. 
These amendments will have a significant impact on the processes in the Act that have led to delay uncertainty frustration and avoidable costs. The bill makes changes to the level of public involvement under the Resource Management Act. This is necessary to achieve any real improvement in its operations. I believe that this bill strikes a better balance between the public’s right to be involved and the need for sensible and timely decisions. 
I reassure New Zealanders that this rebalance will not mean a reduction in environmental protection. Repetitive and costly consultation processes broad appeal rights and time-consuming reporting requirements add tens of thousands if not millions of dollars and many years to both the plan preparation and the change processes that are conducted around New Zealand by councils. 
Slow and overly bureaucratic processes do absolutely nothing for the environment. This bill provides for more efficient decision-making on infrastructure. It provides for a reduction in the costs and delays of getting resource consents. It provides for a streamlining of planning processes. It provides restrictions on anti-competitive appeals motivated by trade competition and other vexatious and frivolous objections. It provides for efficiency and effectiveness of national instruments and central government guidance as the new Government believes that there needs to be a greater degree of leadership on these issues. It provides for the establishment of an Environmental Protection Authority and an improvement in enforcement provisions to increase compliance. 
The first tranche of reforms deals with projects of national significance. There are real problems in how long it takes to get major infrastructure projects through under the consenting process particularly as they have to go through a local consenting process and inevitably end up at the Environment Court. We need only look at examples—such as the Albany to Puhoi realignment B2 (ALPURT B2) in Auckland which took nearly a decade and the Wellington City bypass which took 17 years—to see the need for reform. 
The tricky balance we need to recognise is that these projects have both a local and a national dimension to them. It is a gross simplification to say they are all either national or local. That is why this bill takes an innovative approach in creating a single board of inquiry but with the capacity of local authorities to nominate board members on to those boards and also an amendment to ensure that local knowledge is an important factor. The bill provides for a single-step process that recognises both the local and national dimensions of projects. 
The boards will be chaired by a current or retired Environment Court judge to ensure independence. There are tight timelines of 9 months for reaching a decision and restrained appeal rights to ensure that we can build important infrastructure for our country. 
An Environmental Protection Authority is created to enable direct application of such projects to a national body and the authority will be responsible for providing the administrative support for boards of inquiry. We are also extending the definition of what deems projects to be of national significance by including networks when we want to ensure that a timely decision is made on them. As a transitional measure I intend that the Environmental Protection Authority be established as a statutory office within the Ministry for the Environment. 
Phase two of the Government’s reforms of the Resource Management Act will look at the broader functions of that authority. The costs and delays caused by anti-competitive objections made by trade competitors fall on applicants councils and courts. Some of the highest costs are incurred in those so-called supermarket wars in which proponents and opponents have spent years and millions of dollars fighting each other. The losers are families who end up paying more in their grocery bills. 
The bill will also require third parties that have been supported funded or encouraged by a trade competitor to disclose that information and there will be sanctions for non-disclosure. Consistent with our pre-election policy commitments the proposals reinstate the powers of the Environment Court to award security for costs. This is an important provision that will ensure that where the court believes that it is important a bond is provided upfront rather than allowing those costs to fall on ratepayers or others. 
Provisions in the bill will streamline the consent processes. One of the bill’s important changes is to enable resource consent applications and notices of requirement to be directly referred to the Environment Court with the local authority’s agreement. The bill also has provisions to ensure that councils try harder to meet the requirements of the Act in timely consent decision-making. 
The bill will require that councils develop a discount policy in respect of late-processing consent within a period of 12 months and where the local authority is at fault a requirement to discount those fees and charges. It simply is not good enough that as many as 50 percent of resource consents are not processed on time. The bill makes significant progress in trying to get plans progressed more quickly where the average at the moment is over 8 years. 
We will simplify the process of having a double round of submissions. We have had cases where a council has received more than 30000 submissions and the processes around that have been too burdensome and laborious such that councils have failed to have effective plans in place. 
This is a very important bill. I look forward to the select committee process. It is a very complex area and we need to get the detail correct.