8. Question No. 8—EnvironmentDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Minister for the EnvironmentQuestion No. 8—Environment8. DEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) to the Minister for the Environment: Will he undertake any specific actions to ensure the resource management reforms have the active consent of tangata whenua in response to concerns expressed from tangata whenua leaders regarding the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill; if so what are those actions?Hon PHIL TWYFORD (Associate Minister for the Environment) on behalf of the Minister for the Environment: On behalf of the Minister the repeal and replacement of the Resource Management Act (RMA) will address the longstanding problems with the current system while saving Kiwis hundreds of millions of dollars. Reform is overdue. Everyone is frustrated with the RMA—environmentalists developers councils farmers home builders and tangata whenua. Ministers and officials have regularly engaged with Māori throughout the two-year development phase of these bills and for the year prior to that with the Randerson panel. Tangata whenua of course aren't one amorphous group and different iwi and hapū have different views on aspects of the reforms. As the member will be aware the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill are currently before the select committee for consideration. The Minister for the Environment is not going to cut across the committee's role in scrutinising and proposing improvements to the bills. However the Government will be seriously considering all public submissions and the reports of the Environment Committee on the bills and I encourage tangata whenua and all interested members of the public to make submissions to the committee.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: What is his response to the National Iwi Chairs Forum who are urging caution in highlighting that the scale and pace of the reforms cannot be implemented on the ground?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: On behalf of the Minister I would just stress that there has been an extensive period of preparation of these reforms and engagement on a weekly basis between officials of the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministers the Hon David Parker and the Hon Kiritapu Allan and we now have a full select committee process to consider all of the issues contained in these two bills.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How many post-settlement governance entities or iwi organisations have explicitly endorsed the RMA reforms if any? Hon PHIL TWYFORD: On behalf of the Minister I haven't been briefed on that precise number but I'm sure that if the member puts the question in writing the Minister would be happy to respond to it.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: How can he claim environment protection is improved under the reforms when they actually weaken baseline environmental protections by removing the requirement that environmental limits safeguard the life-supporting capacity of ecosystems?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: On behalf of the Minister it's widely accepted I think that the RMA—as well as being expensive and slow stopping our towns and cities from growing—simply hasn't done a good job of protecting the environment. The new planning system is explicitly designed to strengthen environmental protection including by having the concept of environmental limits at its heart.Debbie Ngarewa-Packer: Will he amend the bill so that the environmental limits require the restoration of ecosystems from their current state rather than preventing ecosystems degrading further from their current state; if not why not?Hon PHIL TWYFORD: On behalf of the Minister the concept of environmental limits is not based on the notion that future degradation is merely prevented; it is about restoring over time the ecosystem to its un-degraded state.