Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. So as a civil and environmental engineer I ask What is the problem this bill is trying to solve?" Now according to the text that accompanies the legislation "Regional spatial strategies will identify big issues and opportunities facing regions and develop strategies and implementation plans to respond to them. A regional planning committee comprising representatives from local government central government iwi hapū and Māori"—I thought iwi and hapu were Māori but they "will develop a regional spatial strategy for a region. [And] All [people] exercising powers and performing functions and duties under this bill must [somehow] give effect to the [unknown and ephemeral] principles of [the Treaty of] Waitangi."My take on the problem that the Government's trying to solve is that Kiwis are not building homes and businesses in places that the Minister and his planning advisers want them to. The Labour Government of course is suspicious of private developers and they hate cars and this bill gives them all the power they need to sterilise private plan changes which deliver the best master-planned communities for example.As we heard last year when the exposure draft of the Natural and Built Environment Bill was presented to the Environment Committee this bill will give the central planners—appointed and approved by the Minister for the Environment David Parker—the ability to limit where roads and highways can be built even if they're desperately needed to unlock access to ports and to new residential and commercial areas.The intent of this Government is clear. We only need to look at those superb master-planned communities proposed for Drury south in Auckland; and Ōhinewai the Sleepyhead precinct in the North Waikato. Local councils and central government agencies—Waka Kotahi—objected to these developments on two grounds. Councils claimed they couldn't afford the infrastructure to connect these communities to the rest of the region. They proposed that for Drury 60000 additional people and Sleepyhead precinct in the North Waikato were not where the regional council planners had proposed that new towns and new people should live. Therefore they objected. New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) opposed any development on the Sleepyhead precinct and in Drury south on the basis that this might generate traffic on the State highway. Who knew? State highways—intended to carry traffic—but NZTA said "No. We don't want these new developments—they'll produce traffic."So either they can't afford to upgrade the network or they're following the directions that their woke car-hating Minister Michael Wood has set for NZTA. He insists that vehicle kilometres travelled—in other words the journeys that we take—will be reduced by 20 percent in the next 15 years. Now I've looked at planning maps; I've looked at projections. New Zealand's population's intended to grow by 1 million over that period; by 2 million by 2050. Apparently we're going to be using private motor vehicles and delivering freight by trucks and vans 20 percent of this. What absolute nonsense. But that's the kind of central planning nonsense that will drive planning under this Spatial Planning Bill if it becomes law.Now these developments—at Drury south and Ōhinewai—were actually approved because the planning commissioners agreed with the developers. It's important to deliver homes where people want to live and to develop mixed-use commercial operations where people can work in the same place—what we call mixed-use developments. And that's what good development looks like.Now if you think about the policy objective—the proposal—regional planning committees comprising representatives from local government bless them; central government whoops; iwi; hapu; and Māori to develop a regional spatial strategy for a region.Imagine when planning how cities might be developed and might grow that no one from business from commerce from infrastructure delivery agencies—even the Government's own KiwiRail or NZTA or whatever they are—all communities are included on a regional spatial strategy development committee. How on earth will these planners know where businesses in future might want to build the distribution warehouse so they can keep things ready to deliver to their customers?I mean apparently the central planners appointed by Minister David Parker will know—and these businesses are just expected to build where he tells them. How will businesses know where to build the food court or a shopping mall or anything for that matter? Unless Minister David Parker and his planning tsars tell them. Well the Minister and his officials actually don't care about that. They will have a vision of how and where cities should grow and the rest of us people—who want to build new homes; who want to build new town centres and commercial operations—will just have to suck it up.I can see the attraction to central planning though. When I was an engineering student instead of doing my assignments I used to play SimCity. Fantastic PC game.Hon Members: Great game!SIMON COURT: Great game SimCity that's right. Now it's a wonderful game: you lay out the streets and the infrastructure. You lay out the streets and the infrastructure first and the tiny people on the screen would then organically build their homes and businesses where you built the infrastructure. And this bill misses the valuable lesson of SimCity: the role of Government is not to colour in planning maps telling people where they are and are not allowed to build homes and businesses. The role of Government is to deliver the infrastructure which enables communities to thrive and a healthy economy to grow.This bill perpetuates the Resource Management Act (RMA) planning obsessions which is colouring in maps but on a national scale. And with the cold damp hand of the Minister for the Environment holding the colouring-in pencil this bill fails to give us any sense of how the infrastructure needed to grow communities will be funded—will be delivered—to meet the needs of our people now and in the future.Now the commentary says "This bill works in tandem with the Natural and Built Environment Bill as a single integrated system. [That] bill aims to recognise and uphold te Oranga o te Taiao and to enable the use development and protection of the environment within limits and targets." Well wonderful! We don't know what te Oranga o te Taiao is. We've heard it could take a decade to litigate through the courts what that definition means. It's completely unhelpful. What Kiwis want to know is: will Government be there with the money to deliver the roading the public transportation the three waters infrastructure that's needed to enable towns and communities to grow?Now one thing this bill points out is it's helpful to have a 30-year time frame—actually an approach which identifies what should happen in a region over 30 years. Now this is ACT policy. What we say is actually local government should be telling central government where they want to grow—not the other way around—and that central government should come to the party with the funding and make sure that the infrastructure that's delivered is delivered on time and on budget.We believe in a bottom-up approach; that communities should tell central government what they want; not have planning maps imposed on them by a Minister for the Environment from his fifth-floor Beehive office. This Government's got it all backwards. Central government it says will communicate priorities. The Minister said "Central government will communicate priorities." in his introduction just a moment ago. Well ACT has a completely different perspective. How about communities work out how and where they want to develop through a democratic process then central government comes to the party clearing barriers to growth wiping away regulations that stop people building and planning to fund and finance the infrastructure?Now Labour's addressed none of the problems that the RMA has delivered us. All they've done is insert a healthy—or unhealthy—dose of co-government into an already flawed system. Co-government has no place in our planning laws. This Government should take a property rights - based approach with people who want to build new homes or new towns even—or they need to develop quarries resources mines for those valuable minerals we need for the low-carbon transition—can do so where those resources exist where it makes sense to do so. ACT will be announcing our alternative to this flawed RMA approach next Tuesday. We ask the people of New Zealand to pay attention; it's a much better offering than this Government."