Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:675;Page:14417] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 We finally come to the Committee stage of this member’s bill after a long long delay because of the very fragile numbers the Government has on it. First I want to raise concerns about the preamble that is proposed. If there is any debate around New Zealand’s resource laws it is that they lack the clarity we need to provide for clearer direction to the courts. Yet the preamble to the bill has the words: “this land is a fish” for example. I would like to know from somebody how the passing of a law that states: “this land is a fish” will improve the quality of the management of our environment. 
National’s concern about this bill is that it is all about politics and not about improving the quality of New Zealand’s resource management laws. We already have the extensive Resource Management Act. We have national policy statements regional policy statements and district policy statements and now this bill will require local area plans. How does having five tiers of wordy documents somehow result in better management of a precious area like the Waitakere Ranges? 
When I read through decisions of the Environment Court and when I read through the extensive decisions that are made by regional and district councils I say over and over again that there is a pleading for Parliament to be clearer about its intent. When I read the pages of the preamble about the history of the Waitakere Ranges I ask how that possibly provides greater clarity in the law. How does saying: “the land is a fish” which would be perfectly proper to say on a marae or in terms of a religious context provide greater clarity? I cannot believe that we are intending to put into law the sort of nonsense rhetoric that we see in the preamble to this member’s bill. Can any member opposite tell me how the courts are to make sense of a statement like: “this land is a fish”? Do members in the Labour Party really believe that the land is a fish? 
Hon Darren Hughes 
: I think the member said something about spiders once. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Darren Hughes interjects and says something about spiders. Well that would be more sensible than some of the things that Labour is proposing to put into the law. 
I simply plead with this House and say that if we are to improve the country’s environmental performance—and the report on the state of the environment shows we have some big challenges—then this sort of law will not somehow result in an improvement. I tell the House that it just adds to the bureaucracy. It just adds to all the frustrations that New Zealanders feel about this current Government. It adds to all the concern about a whole lot of bureaucrats and a whole lot of council officials having a word game at the expense of New Zealand taxpayers and ratepayers. We need good concise environmental laws that say what we mean and mean what we say. But that is not what we see in the preamble to this bill. 
This bill makes worse all the problems and concerns that New Zealanders have about the Resource Management Act. When the Ministry for the Environment came before the Local Government and Environment Committee it said it did not support this bill and did not support this sort of piecemeal approach to the reform of the resource management laws. [ 
Interruption 
] Dr Cullen wants me to digress and talk about the mess that this Government has made of the Ministry for the Environment. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I call the honourable member Dail Jones. 
Hon Members 
: Welcome back!