Sage Eugenie: Resource Management Reform Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sage Eugenie: Resource Management Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7338. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
EUGENIE SAGE (Green) 
: 
 It gives me no pleasure to speak on the Resource Management Reform Bill because it is one of three bills this year that have done little credit to New Zealand’s once highly regarded environmental management framework. At the start of the year we had the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill with its very weak purpose which has a framework that is now allowing Ministers to contemplate allowing deep-sea oil exploration as a permitted activity. Then we had changes to the Crown Minerals Act to allow the Minister of Energy and Resources as well as the Minister of Conservation to make decisions on any applications to mine on conservation land—and we know who will win that arm wrestle. And now we have got this bill. It is another attack by National on the Resource Management Act. 
When the Rt Hon Sir Geoffrey Palmer and then the Hon Simon Upton shepherded the principal Act through this Parliament more than 20 years ago the legislation was regarded as world-leading. It had been informed by extensive public consultation and discussion about the principles in the Act and the whole framework of the Act. And it was legislation that was consistent with New Zealand’s international reputation for being clean and green and committed to the careful stewardship of nature and to development that met the needs of present generations without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. It was enduring partly because of that bipartisan involvement and commitment to the Act. That image has been shattered. This year we cannot even look after the children of the current generation without even thinking about future generations. The Government has abandoned its commitment to the Kyoto Protocol we have attracted criticism from United Nations officials and we have got a Government that is not committed to giving integrity to our “100% Pure New Zealand” brand. 
On this bill there has been absolutely no effort by the Government to develop any cross-party commitment to the changes that may be needed to the Resource Management Act—none of the extensive public consultation that we saw on the principal Act—and so we risk zigzag policy-making where the next Government undoes much of the work of its predecessor. 
So as a key part of the whole system of managing our natural resources and our environment the Resource Management Act should not be an ideological football but in this bill it is. We all benefit from clean rivers from compact cities from ground water that is not contaminated by nitrates from sewage that is well treated and does not go into rivers and from coastlines that inspire us with their natural beauty rather than being overshadowed by big pretentious holiday homes yet it is this sort of development that this bill will allow—development that cuts across that “100% Pure New Zealand” image. It is a shameful bill that the Green Party will be opposing because it epitomises the National Government’s position to develop at all costs and to hell with the environment and to go after the dollars now with no thought for the consequences that that has for the quality of life for others or the quality of nature. 
It is a selfish bill to promote selfish development and we are opposing it for a number of reasons. One of those is that it promotes speedy decisions rather than quality decisions. It is all about central government in Wellington getting involved in the minutiae of decision making whether it is in Auckland or whether it is the timetable for councils to consider consents. When you have a 6-month time limit on councils being able to consider and process consents regardless of the scale and complexity of the application that cuts across the community’s ability to get involved. Any developer can spend years working up an application and put it into council and then the community gets a month effectively to be able to understand the development and make submissions on it. So that will lead to quick decisions yes but not ones that are good quality not ones that recognise the scope of environmental impacts. Again another way the bill reduces public participation is that it sets a limit of 20 working days on the public submission period again regardless of the scale of the proposal. 
The bill restricts access to justice to the Environment Court because—and this I think is a direct attack on NGOs like the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society which have had to pick up the baton because we do not have statutory agencies such as the Department of Conservation engaging in the level of resource management advocacy that they used to—it limits interested parties status in any Environment Court appeal to those that are directly affected by the application. What that means is that if someone from Whitewater NZ has an interest in a river but may not kayak that river herself and there might be a future potential recreational value of the river she potentially will not be allowed to get involved in any Environment Court appeals as an interested party. 
The bill is also bad because of the way in which it makes it much more difficult for councils such as that of Manawatu to introduce regulation to control intensive land uses such as intensive agriculture. This is because the changes to the section 32 analysis bring into play assessments of economic growth anticipated to cease if the council introduces rules controlling for example nutrient leaching or stocking numbers in sensitive catchments. This means that the council now has to have particular regard to that economic impact. This follows on from Minister Carter’s criticisms of the Manawatu plan for introducing rules that seek to protect our rivers to clean up our rivers and put rules in place to do that. This is why the Government is targeting councils that do that by making it very difficult to put in place regulation through the much more stringent section 32 requirements. Again on the Auckland combined plan the Minister mentioned consultation with the council about appointing the hearing panel for the Auckland combined plan but there is no right for the Auckland Council to appoint the commissioners who will hear the submissions on its combined plan. Once again it is control central—this Government wanting to direct everything from Wellington. Is Auckland happy with that? I doubt it. 
And again just like the Environment Canterbury legislation the Government is seeking through the bill to restrict appeal rights. People will be able to appeal decisions on the Auckland combined plan to the Environment Court only if the council rejects the recommendations of the Government’s stacked hearing panel. It cannot appeal to the court if the council upholds those recommendations. Again there is a very limited period—20 days I think it is—for the council to consider the hearing panel’s recommendations. So we have got a very truncated process to make sure that the Government hearing panel on the Auckland combined plan comes up with the recommendations that the Government wants and there is a very limited ability to challenge it. 
So not only is the bill reducing the ability of the community to participate in resource consent decisions but also it is reducing the scrutiny that those decisions will get in the Environment Court by the restrictions on participation in appeals and the limitations particularly in the Auckland Council process. 
So the Green Party will be strongly opposing the bill. The streamlining that the Government is talking about will result in poor decisions that have the fingerprints of Wellington all over them rather than promoting local decision-making by communities and public participation which was such a cornerstone of the Resource Management Act when it was introduced. Thank you.