Sage Eugenie: Oral Questions — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Oral Questions — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2031. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.EUGENIE SAGE (Green)to the Minister for the Environment: Will he be taking any steps to increase protection for indigenous trees and vegetation in the proposed changes to the Resource Management Act?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment):The Resource Management Act already provides ample opportunities for councils to be able to protect indigenous trees and vegetation so no. The law gives councils discretion over whether they wish to protect individual trees or groups of trees and where they are protected as in the kauri case in the Waitakeres whether to grant consent for alteration or removal. The situation with trees does vary hugely from community to community and it is entirely appropriate that the Act gives councils discretion over what trees to protect and where they are protected when to grant consent for their removal. It is healthy that there is debate around how councils administer that discretion but it is not a fault with the law.Eugenie Sage: Does he see the Auckland Council’s decision to allow a developer to fell centuries-old kauri and rimu trees as striking the correct balance between landholder rights and the environment?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: The Resource Management Act gives councils the discretion to decide whether trees should be protected. The group of trees in the Waitakere Ranges was included in the district plan and in the draft unitary plan that is currently before the panel for protection. The council commissioned a 70-page report on the individual case and it decided that consent would be granted to remove the tree—that is a decision for the council.Eugenie Sage: If this 500-year-old kauri is not protected under the Resource Management Act as it stands how can he justify strengthening landholder property rights and weakening the Resource Management Act’s environmental safeguards as he proposes?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: There are hundreds of cases of trees that come before councils every year. I am hearing all the time the case put by the Green Party that you should let councils make decisions. The council has made a decision which there is a healthy debate about but it is a decision that rests with the Auckland Council.Eugenie Sage: Does he believe that felling this 500-year-old kauri is acceptable when less than 1 percent of old-growth kauri forest remains; if not will he commit to a national policy statement on indigenous biodiversity to guide councils in their implementation of their statutory responsibility to protect biodiversity?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: I am not convinced that a national policy statement under the Resource Management Act would have a significant effect on such a discretionary decision. The reality is that councils have to make those trade-offs as to where to protect trees and where to allow them to be felled. If there is a particular instance in this case that I am surprised by it is the decision by the Auckland Council not to notify the decision. The test under the law is that if the effect is less than minor they do not have to notify it. I am advised it is about a 200-year-old kauri. I am surprised by the decision not to notify a decision to remove a 200-year-old kauri.