Brooking RachelRACHEL BROOKING (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker for this opportunity to speak twice in one evening this time on the Spatial Planning Bill. As we've heard from the other speakers particularly that last speech it's very closely linked to the Natural and Built Environment Bill and you'll see throughout the bill that there are lots of references to terms and the purpose of that Natural and Built Environment Bill. Unlike the purpose clause of the Natural and Built Environment Bill we did not at the select committee have an exposure draft for this so this is a new piece of legislation for the committee. It was however part of the Randerson review's recommendations to have a bill like this.Just quickly though those links that it's got with the Natural and Built Environment Bill include this regional approach that Scott Simpson just spoke to and the idea of requiring these plans to be made at the regional level—so Otago Southland Canterbury etc.; showing my southern bias there—is to make it more user-friendly for those people who want to use these plans rather than having to go through the plethora of plans that you have to use at the moment. Also like the last speaker said there's a regional planning committee and that's all spelt out in the Natural and Built Environment Bill. But the difference for when the spatial plan is being made is that there's a Crown appointment to that plan.Also noting the definition of infrastructure": infrastructure's defined in the Natural and Built Environment Bill and it is very wide and it goes quite a lot broader than the Resource Management Act (RMA) definition that includes mainly pipes; it also now includes Kāinga Ora hospitals waste disposal facilities schools and fire and emergency services. That's useful because the problem that this bill is trying to address is that lack of coordination between the infrastructure that we need when we have new development happening. The idea of having a spatial plan at that regional level is that it goes for a 30-year time frame—so it's looking out much longer than the regulatory plan that you have currently under the RMA or that's suggested under the Natural and Built Environment Bill. It's really trying to knit together the planning of new infrastructure with those new growth areas but also protecting areas where we don't want new growth.What happens often is that when there is growth in an area that means that infrastructure has to come with it. So people often think of roads and certainly the Land Transport Management Act and land transport plans are very much part of the spatial plan but also there are those other things like if you're intensifying an area do you need a new school? Do you need a new hospital? Do you need a new fire station? All these things—it's very useful to be able to think about them for the long term and in an integrated way.So that is what this bill is trying to address and trying to work through and my understanding of why it separated out is those relationships with the Acts such as the Land Transport Act and the Local Government Act and that's because the plans made under those Acts need to be consistent with or implement these spatial plans to an extent but not entirely because the spatial plan is a high-level document and it's important to note that at clause 66 I think it is—excuse me—"interest in land must be treated as not being taken or injuriously affected by any provision in regional spatial strategy unless [the] Act provides otherwise." So it's trying to sit above the regulatory plan. That regulatory plan in the Natural and Built Environment Bill must be consistent with the Spatial Planning Bill and that's found in a few sections in the Natural and Built Environment Bill. Thomas Coughlan noted that it was both clause 104 and 109 and I'm sure that's something that will be remedied in the select committee process.Also important to note with that one extra person who's on the committee being from Government that there's a duty to assist. That's at clause 64 and so departments Crown entities local authorities iwi authorities groups that represent hapū and network utility operators—they all must provide information or technical support to a regional planning committee. That is all part of the important coordination role that the bill's trying to address.So this is an important part of our reform of the resource management system and it should lead to much better environmental outcomes in terms of protecting those areas that need to be protected but also enabling the development in the housing that we desperately need. Thank you."