Shirley Ken: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Shirley Ken: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22305] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (ACT) 
: 
 Is it not extraordinary? The Minister for the Environment Marian Hobbs who has just resumed her seat lives in an absolute fantasy world. She is wrapped in cotton wool and has rocks in her head. Let us look at some of the things she said. She tried to explain away a 36-page Supplementary Order Paper that has been dumped on the Committee today as the Government listening to the people. Nothing could be further from the truth. This is a gross abuse of process. 
Let me spell out for the Minister who should know better how it is meant to work. The Government the executive is meant to bring a bill to the Parliament. The bill is referred to a select committee then the select committee is meant to be given due time to consider that bill. That is how the legislature scrutinises the laws the executive intends to pass. That is how it is meant to work. But—no—what did the Government do? First of all it put its members on the select committee under incredible instructions to ram everything through as fast as they could. Now the Government comes here right at the last stages of this Parliament—possibly the last sitting day; we might dribble over into tomorrow but effectively it is the last sitting day—and on something as significant as the Resource Management Act it dumps on us a Supplementary Order Paper with a whole lot of new measures that no New Zealander will have a chance to submit on and no select committee will scrutinise. And this Minister has the audacity and temerity to try to say that that is listening to the people. What absolute rot and rubbish! Nothing could be further from the truth. 
Another interesting point is that the Minister in the chair David Benson-Pope put out a press release today in which he stated that these amendments will not have an impact on development—the Resource Management Act will not have an impact on development. He referred to a KPMG report that is purported to say so. The truth of the matter is that the people who did that report did not consult with one farmer or one representative of the farmers of this country. 
Shane Ardern 
: Or the foresters. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Or the forestry sector for that matter. The introductory comments in the bill itself state that it will have an impact on the primary industries of New Zealand. What a contradiction! The Minister in the chair—again wrapped in cotton wool—puts out a press release probably drafted by officials saying that this will not impact on development when the primary sector of New Zealand is reporting to us that it was not consulted in any way and when the Government’s own introductory comments state that the bill will impact on primary industries in this country as we know it most certainly will. 
Some aspects of the 36-page Supplementary Order Paper—and members have had only very limited time to look at them—are I think acceptable. I think that the measure to take into consideration the value of existing infrastructure in consenting or reconsenting is significant. We have that farcical situation of the Tongariro power scheme a sunk investment. Some of us would remember that incredible investment of the 1960s and 1970s and all the tunnelling that went on to produce that infrastructure for New Zealand’s power; yet another decision made by the Environment Court has virtually truncated those water rights and reduced the capacity of the Tongariro power scheme to function. Of course the Tongariro power scheme in turn feeds into the Waikato River and all the power schemes down the Waikato River. 
But the Government has to appreciate that because of all the metaphysical nonsense and spiritual values it has imported into the Resource Management Act we have decisions like the one in the Tongariro instance. Those matters should not be dealt with under the Resource Management Act. They are totally inappropriate. The intent of the Resource Management Act was meant to be the sustainable management of natural and physical resources yet somehow successive Governments have tagged on all those spiritual metaphysical values that we cannot deal with in this way. We have to have separate legislation if we are to try to tackle those. The Resource Management Act tries to do too much and it fails miserably. 
There are other matters that I think do require mentioning certainly with regard to the iwi authorities and hapu. It is good to see that it is confined now to consultation at the plan development stage and not actually at the consent stage because extortion was occurring in this place. In this country we had extortion whereby any consent applicant was held to ransom by people purporting to represent spiritual values.