Garrett David: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Garrett David: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6243] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 It will surprise no one in the House who heard my earlier speech during the second reading debate on the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill when I say ACT is pleased to support the bill. It will also not surprise those who hear me speak regularly when I say I am always delighted to find something to agree on with members on the other sides of the House. On this occasion I am very pleased to be able to agree wholeheartedly with Dr Russel Norman who said quite correctly that the Resource Management Act is the Act that protects the environment. That is absolutely what the Act is intended to do but that is all it is intended to do. What has happened is that the legislation has evolved into a circus in which frivolous delays tie up too much development in red tape. Those delays ultimately cost us all money and do nothing to improve productivity and living standards. Reducing those silly obstacles is something I am pleased to support as everyone in this House should do. 
I had hoped that my story about listening to the extensive submissions on this bill would be amusing and instructive but I am afraid that the story from the chair of the Local Government and Environment Committee far outstrips mine for ridiculousness. 
Hone Harawira 
: Yours is the most ridiculous! You win! 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Ha ha! Those members who were at the select committee that day will recall that all of us I believe on both sides of the table shook our heads in disbelief when Brother Pat Lynch chief executive of the Catholic Education Office came along and told us in a very serious way that a school in Manukau had decided to build a bike rack. One would not think that building a concrete pad with some holders on it would require any kind of resource consent at all. But apparently it was decided that it did. The school applied for a resource consent for the bike rack and it was rejected on the grounds that it did not have a roof and therefore the bikes would rust. It escaped the comprehension of everybody on the committee as to how on earth it was the business of the Manukau City Council to dictate that a bike rack should have a roof because otherwise bikes would rust. 
One of the most positive things about the bill—and the Minister spoke on this briefly—is the crackdown on businesses that use or rather misuse the Resource Management Act to eliminate potential competition. Everyone in the House and indeed most people in the country are well aware of the Foodstuffs circus on the North Shore of Auckland. With respect to the Minister I think he understated the debacle. In fact it took 20 years not 10 years for Foodstuffs to finally open its Wairau Park Pak ’N Save thanks to continuous spurious objections by Progressive Enterprises. In other words for the entire life of the Resource Management Act that company has used spurious objections which allowed it to stifle its rivals and therefore prevent the people of the North Shore from getting their groceries at a cheaper price. 
Undeterred by its eventual defeat on the North Shore Progressive Enterprises continued its attempts to block a mall that would include a rival Pak ’N Save from being built in Te Awamutu—many miles away for cripes’ sake! That development was approved in 2006. Since then Progressive Enterprises has tried to delay the progress of the Te Awamutu development on four separate occasions. Ultimately sanity prevailed but no doubt not before millions of dollars were spent on lawyers’ fees by both sides. That business should never have been allowed the chance to succeed in the first place. This type of behaviour will be severely curtailed under the changes made by this bill. The threat of damages will make people think twice before so abusing the legal process. 
I began my speech by saying how happy I was to find something that I could agree with in Dr Norman’s speech but sadly I must take issue with him on his paranoia about the security for costs issue. Dr Norman said the provision in existing legislation that allows the striking out of frivolous claims was a sufficient protection and that security for costs is a Draconian democracy-smothering device. Well I say to Dr Norman that the strike-out provision is almost never applied by the courts on the basis of something being frivolous. There is a very very high test to meet and the courts are very very loath to strike out cases on that ground. Conversely although requiring security for costs is allowed by the bill it does not mean that the courts will give that remedy lightly either. It could be said in summary that courts rarely require security for costs and if they do then they make it as manageable a figure as possible. But they strike out frivolous claims even more rarely. So this bogey about security for costs is nothing of the kind; it is merely a mild disincentive for silly behaviour. 
The bill makes it illegal for businesses to object to trade competitors moving in on their turf as it should do. It also limits their ability to slow down the process through appeals but it preserves the right to object if businesses genuinely believe that there will be an adverse impact on the environment. That is exactly as it should be. Businesses have as much right to put forward environmental protection arguments as anybody else. At the risk of tedium I say the Resource Management Act is meant to protect the environment as Dr Norman said. It is not meant to protect trade monopolies. There are some members who will vote against this bill. I think that its opposition is limited to the Green Party and perhaps Mr Twyford who will claim that communities will suffer when the legislation is passed. I look forward to hearing him explain why having 300 more jobs and lower grocery prices will hurt the people of Te Awamutu so badly. 
I will finish with a few words on the bill as a whole. Reforming the Resource Management Act is a process that is long overdue. Such a complex law—especially one drafted by Sir Geoffrey Palmer—for all its good intentions was never going to get everything right the first second or even third time. That is why the ACT Party in its confidence and supply agreement with National insisted on the establishment of an advisory committee to review the Act. Specifically in the agreement both parties agreed to “promote investment jobs wages employment and prosperity as well as environmental improvement through amendments to the RMA.” Environmental improvement was not added as an afterthought in that agreement but ACT recognises what many in this House sadly do not recognise which is that environmental progress and economic growth can and must coexist. This bill acknowledges that important reality. Therefore I am pleased to indicate on behalf of the ACT Party that we will be supporting the bill.