Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Waitaki Catchment) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15409] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 Everything that is flawed about the approach of the Minister in the chair Marian Hobbs to resource management law is typified in Part 4. I simply tell the Minister what a diabolical mess she has made of this issue and of resource management law. It is quite extraordinary that we have had the 9-page Supplementary Order Paper 244 from the Minister and we have yet to hear any Government Minister give an explanation of it. I ask the Minister to look at the explanatory note of that Supplementary Order Paper. It is the most congested and the smallest explanatory note that I have ever seen for such an extensive Supplementary Order Paper. It could read: “I Marian Hobbs stuffed up.” That would be quite honest; that would be upfront. Instead we have had to listen to a whole lot of weasel words from the Government about its approach on this issue. 
I want to put some quite serious questions to the Minister about what has happened to Part 4. The Minister told us that this bill had nothing to do with Project Aqua. She said that this bill was all about the proper management of resources in the Waitaki River catchment area. So why did the bill have to include a panel of commissioners 10 months ago and not now? Why when the Local Government and Environment Committee went through a very extensive process on the submissions did all the Government members say that we had to have a panel of commissioners? What has changed since then? Why did we suddenly receive Supplementary Order Paper 244 2 weeks ago which stated that the panel of commissioners was no longer required? It is a gigantic and an expensive flip-flop and that is just so typical of the problems that this Government has with regard to resource management law. 
Next I ask the Minister why on earth given all the public concern about delays in the processing of resource consents—and I note that Part 4 will now be labelled “Processing of applications”—she and the Associate Minister David Benson-Pope are saying that we need to speed up the consent process and that there are too many delays. I say hear hear to that. But what will this bill do in terms of reducing the delays and the bureaucracy of the Resource Management Act? It will make things a whole lot worse. Some of the poor old cow-cockies who have dealt with consents for very minimal amounts of water—as contained in schedule 2—lodged their applications in early 2003. They had to wait for the Minister’s call-in last year and have now had to wait almost 12 months for this bill to be considered. They will then have to wait another 12 months while the board develops the plan and only then will their consent applications be considered. I say to the Minister that if that is speeding the process up I would hate her to slow it down! I say that members of Parliament and people all over the country will be concerned about that. 
I come to the issues faced by the farmers of the Waitaki. What occurred during the Minister’s absence from the Chamber last week when we had a debate on that matter was quite disgraceful. I want the farmers in the upper Waitaki catchment area to know how flawed the Government’s position was. Its position was that it would not support my amendment to take into account the promises that were made to the farmers in 1969 because that would interfere with the court process. That is what the Government said. But the very provision of that amendment was to state that actually the court should have to take those promises into account. I would hope that the Minister will come to her feet as the Minister responsible for the bill and respond to those concerns. 
The last point I wish to make in respect of the processing of applications is that people who get resource consents need to have certainty. Those who have applied for resource consents in the Waitaki River have been put through hell by this Government’s policy and the expense that it has caused.