Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): In the late 1980s and the early 1990s in New Zealand the National and Labour parties both put together the Resource Management Act (RMA). Sir Geoffrey Palmer on the Labour side and a person who is about to become a significant player again in the environmental landscape in New Zealand Simon Upton were the two architects and authors of an Act that is the greatest balancing act of any piece of legislation that has been before this Parliament. It has balanced together the rights of local communities and local people to be represented on the most important decisions about them and their community with the importance of sustainable development and management of the environment. It was and is a remarkable piece of law. Of course it is flawed. Of course it has got problems. Of course it has needed amendment over the years. But in its principle it is a piece of law that has done something that is very difficult to do around the world.Tonight by the barest majority the National Government is going to tear up what that law is about. I would go so far as to say—and it was called crony capitalism by Gareth Hughes earlier on today—that this is borderline corruption. In fact it is corruption. The National Government is bringing a morally bankrupt corrupt bill before the House. What this bill does is draw the Minister back to being the person who is now responsible for things that were in the National Development Act in the 1970s. It has put Nick Smith the Minister for the Environment in a position of taking power away from those at the local level and centralising that back with him—be it about plans be it about national policy statements or be it about this brand new tool this national planning statement. If there is a definition of corruption"—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): OK I am now going to interrupt the member and draw his attention to a set of Speakers' rulings on page 55 in relation to the word that he is using and indicate to him that he should not continue to use that word except in the most proper motion.GRANT ROBERTSON: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In the course of you undertaking that ruling—which of course I respect—around about 20 seconds of my time has been deleted. I would request that that be returned to the clock.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am not proposing to do that. Members do not get extra time for time taken to correct them for things that they do. Otherwise of course debates could be never-ending.GRANT ROBERTSON: The National Government is bringing forward today a piece of legislation—let us make this absolutely clear—that takes away from local communities and regional councils the rights that they have had to determine their own future and centralises that power back into the hands of a single Minister. In other countries when the central government goes in and takes rights and power away from local government we call it a banana republic. That is what it is.I am sorry to say to this House that the actions of this Government are corrupt because it has not taken this process through proper parliamentary scrutiny. It got a bill that it could not get passed so it did a deal with the Māori Party. We faffed around in the House with the bill being reported back and then coming back out for its second reading. We still did not debate it properly. The Māori Party and the National Government got together and did a deal and there was a 400-page departmental report that no member of the public got to comment on. No member of the public got to comment on a 400-page document that fundamentally changed their rights. It changed their rights in terms of what goes in a plan that a regional council creates—their rights to submit on that. They did that—the National Government aided and abetted by the Māori Party did that and did not go back to New Zealanders. They did not give New Zealanders a chance to actually comment on it. How is that not corruption? How is that not a corruption of the process of this House?This is a disgrace. The National Government will get this bill through and Nick Smith will be able to tick it off at some point in the future and say: "I did it. I passed the resource management amendment bill." Well it is a disgraceful bill the bill that is in front of us today. It is a disgraceful bill and Nick Smith—I will give him this. He can sure bring people together. He has managed to bring Fonterra and Fish & Game together. We have been trying to do that for years on this side of the House. Nick Smith did it. He has brought together Local Government New Zealand and iwi who are scrapping away all over the country on different rules because they all think this is a terrible piece of legislation.It will create confusion. It will create difficulty. It will be amended again and again. It is unclear it is muddled it is confused. Like owners and their pets it is the Minister and his bill starting to show the same characteristics. This is an incredibly poor piece of legislation.I do not believe that the members of the National Government who have sat meekly through this bill really support it at all. They do not really support it at all. They have been inundated with emails. Alastair Scott fresh out of Kelburn has been inundated with emails from people—Alastair Scott: That's me.Jono Naylor: Over here.GRANT ROBERTSON: Oh the wrong one—I get them confused. It is easy to do because neither of them have offered anything of any value in this particular debate.They have been inundated with emails from members of the public who are telling them not to pass the bill. Those emails might happen to be ones that I do not agree with—they might happen to be ones on a topic that I do not agree with. But their constituents are telling them and they are worried—they are genuinely worried. Alastair Scott fresh from Kelburn on his way to Wairarapa—Jono Naylor well he is saying goodbye so it does not matter—he should be worried because right through the Wairarapa from the Fish & Game people to the Forest and Bird people to the farmers of Fonterra to the people who have been emailing him with their concerns about issues within the bill they are all marking this day. They are marking this day as a tragic one for New Zealand.In the remaining couple of minutes available to me I want to pay tribute to a few people. I want to pay tribute to the staff of the Ministry for the Environment who have had to put up with this nonsense from their Minister. Their Minister has put them in a terrible position. The people who work in that department actually care about the environment they actually want to do something positive and they have been forced to work on this. I feel sorry for them. The other people I want to pay tribute to are the hundreds of New Zealanders who submitted on this bill who care about the environment who care about getting the balance between how we involve people in decision making and how we have sustainable management.I want to credit my own colleagues on this side of the House—and I include in that the Greens and New Zealand First as well—who have worked hard over many many months to try to find a way to talk some sense into the National Government members. They have consistently offered to actually come up with legislation that will make the improvements that are needed to the RMA that will help actually address the housing crisis and at no point have the National Government members been interested in taking up those offers. Over those many many months people like David Parker have led the charge from this side of the House and then over recent days my colleagues who are here tonight and others who have worked hard.The National Government with the Māori Party—through a deal that actually will not serve Māori well at all—will pass this bill but this is an incredibly sad day for New Zealand a corruption of process and a bill that makes very little positive difference to the way in which New Zealand's environment will be managed. I am incredibly sad that the National Government thinks that this is some triumphant moment for it. It is not. It is actually about taking something that National and Labour worked on together over many years and trashing it—and trashing it in the name of an incompetent Minister who has completely failed New Zealanders and now leaves many of his colleagues exposed in the election in September. This bill is an absolute disgrace."