Brooking RachelHon RACHEL BROOKING (Labour—Dunedin): How about Yes" to decreased biodiversity and "Yes" to pollution? That seems to be what the other side of the House is interested in—nothing else apart from economics and shame on them. Now we have heard—Hon Member: You clearly weren't listening.Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I'm told I wasn't listening. I can tell that member that I've been listening very attentively and that I of course will be spending a lot of time with this bill that was introduced only 12 minutes ago. We've had this bill for 12 minutes and we're speaking on it now—that is shameful like everything else about this bill.Now we know that there are problems with the Resource Management Act and that it takes too long to consent things. That would be why the last Government did—Grant McCallum: It took you six years to work that out.Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I'm hearing about how we had six years to do things—that's right and we did things. We did the Natural and Built Environment Act and we did the Spatial Planning Act because we need to plan better for infrastructure in New Zealand we need to do long-term planning and that was there in the Spatial Planning Act that this Government repealed—repealed under urgency. All stages urgency—no referral to the select committee. Shame on them. We also in the last Government provided for fast tracking and that fast tracking was put into the Natural and Built Environment Act. And when this Government repealed that Act the fast-tracking provisions were retained—there is no need for this legislation. We want to keep the fast-tracking provisions of that Natural and Built Environment Act—they are there already—but this Government shows no interest in using those and instead wants to go ahead with this very dangerous proposal that puts far too much decision making into the hands of a select few Ministers.You might think that the relevant Minister—if you're chugging through the Resource Management Act—would be the Minister responsible for that Act who is of course the Minister for the Environment. The "environment" is not a word we've heard in this debate from the other side or in answers to questions today because there is no interest in the protection of that. This Minister the Minister for the Environment is not involved in this process. Instead it is the Minister for Infrastructure the Minister for Regional Development and the Minister of Transport.Now this is very different—and I want to pause on this for a moment—from the COVID legislation that we've heard the Minister talk about. The COVID—Hon Shane Jones: Siamese twin—Siamese twin.Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh we're hearing it's a Siamese twin. No no Mr Jones it is not a Siamese twin. It is very importantly different because in that COVID legislation it was very clear that the panel after Ministers had referred a project—a referral is not a decision. A referral to a panel—not making the decision. They referred it to a panel—Hon Shane Jones: Minor detail—minor detail.Hon RACHEL BROOKING: This is not a minor detail; this is very serious and it seems that the Ministers on the other side of the House think this is some sort of game. You are not a serious Government and this is not a serious bill. What happened with the COVID legislation is that the panel could decline one of those listed projects. It was very clear that it could be declined on either inconsistency with the national policy statement or inconsistency with the Treaty.There is no such section that I have been able to find in this bill and in fact we just heard the Minister say that this was very purposeful that he wants the Ministers to make the decisions that the executive needs to be involved. If that is the case then surely there should be a wide range of criteria that specify the sorts of projects that are in the public's interest to proceed with. Public projects maybe like the ones that were in the COVID legislation; maybe ones that are to do with iwi groups—also in that COVID legislation. But no this is not just about infrastructure; this is about mines potentially; this is about all sorts of development that has nothing to do with the public good. A lot relies on what is in Schedule 2—Schedule 2 "Listed projects"—and we see that there are no projects listed in that schedule at the moment. I need to say in my remaining seconds that it is just beyond vitally important that there is a public process about what goes into these schedules and I hope all lawyers will be submitting on this bill."