Hague Kevin: Regulatory Improvement Bill — First Reading 
Hague Kevin: Regulatory Improvement Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:654;Page:3046] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I shall say for the benefit of the  
Hansard 
 record that I have just given the sign for “kia ora” which I learnt from the New Zealand Sign Language website this afternoon. 
I begin my expressing the sympathy of the Green Party to Hekia Parata and her whanau. 
So far my speeches in this House have often focused on the need for a Green New Deal; for a range of actions by the Government to help people cope with the effects of recession but also to address the urgent challenges of climate change and other environmental problems that cannot wait. If it is possible to do both simultaneously then why on earth would we not? But the Green Party has some other priority areas for action. Today in relation to this bill I will touch on a couple of these matters. I speak on behalf of my colleague Metiria Turei who cannot be in the House today. The need to protect our natural environment in the interests of our kids and the need for healthy politics including the Green Party’s charter principle of appropriate decision-making are also foremost in our minds. 
The Regulatory Improvement Bill is designed to improve regulations and the compliance burden on businesses in a range of areas. That is a process we heartily endorse and I should say for the record that the Green Party will also support the omnibus bill process. However despite the claims made by the Government that this bill contains only minor and uncontroversial changes we disagree. In particular we are opposed to the changes to the Conservation Act the Reserves Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Therefore with regret we will be opposing the bill. 
The Government says that the measures contained in the bill—and Jo Goodhew has already mentioned some of these—address regulatory duplication gaps administrative errors and inconsistencies between different pieces of legislation. That is clearly a laudable aim. But unfortunately although many of the measures contained in the bill—indeed most—meet this prescription others do not and they would have been much more appropriately dealt with in separate legislation. Even though there is an intent to break the bill into separate pieces at a later stage of its process that is not an appropriate way of managing the substantive change proposed. 
Firstly we have concerns about the implications of some of the proposed changes to the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. Some of these changes do meet the criteria the Government has set out while others do not. For example the proposed changes to delegations do not meet those criteria. Our co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons has been closely involved in this area of law and we will be considering the submissions made on this aspect of the bill with keen interest should it proceed. 
This speech however focuses on our concerns about the proposed changes to the Conservation Act and parallel measures proposed for the Reserves Act. Conservation law is an area where conservative—with a small “c”—approaches to change are most needed yet the changes proposed in this bill do not fit the “technical and uncontroversial” test at all but rather have been incorporated into this bill for entirely opportunistic reasons. The amendments to the Conservation Act are designed to reduce the costs and administrative burdens of the concession provisions by amending the current provisions to allow concessions to be granted for a term of up to 10 years instead of for the current limit of 5 years and by introducing a discretion not to publicly notify the intent to issue such concessions. We are opposed to these proposed changes. Conservation land is extremely important to our tourism industry and will become increasingly so. It is also very fragile land and many areas have very important values. Although the recreational and tourism use of conservation land is an important purpose in the Act and in New Zealand culture the protection of that land and its fundamental intrinsic conservation values is the highest priority. 
Extending the maximum period of a concession reduces the ability of the Department of Conservation to oversee review and manage any detrimental impacts of the concession. We note that the Minister will have the ability to seek a mid-term review of a concession. However that will most likely require some external organisation making complaints and following up a long and bureaucratic process to seek the Minister’s agreement to require such a review. Retaining the 5-year maximum term ensures that every concession is reviewed within a realistic time frame allowing for better-quality assessment of the impacts of the operation on the habitat without ministerial intervention. The reality is that if a concession application is for a 10-year duration it will be very difficult for the department and for conservation boards—and I should inform the House that I have previously served on the West Coast - Tai Poutini Conservation Board—to make decisions about conditions with any degree of certainty as to likely impacts. The consequence will inevitably be heightened risk to conservation and recreation values. 
Some increased pressure effectively will also come on to conservators and boards to consider further applications or to vary conservation management strategies or national park management plans as potential competitors are excluded by longer-term monopolistic licences. If an operator cannot undertake the activity for 10 years pressure will be put on to create a new opportunity. As public conservation land and amenities face increasing pressure from concession activities the inevitable consequence is loss of wildness and erosion of the important values and features that led to this land’s inclusion in the conservation estate in the first place. The current 5-year maximum term provides greater protection of the conservation estate and the public interest in it. 
In addition there is a high level of discretion as to whether a concession application is publicly notified. The risk of the public being shut out of the decision-making process is heightened as the bill’s provisions make the public’s involvement in decision making more contingent and would reduce the frequency with which the public may have the opportunity to express a view. This is an inappropriate decision-making process. As the land in question is public land the public interest should have a greater level of protection. The precautionary principle should be applied in the case of granting concessions. By extending the time frame and increasing the discretion around public notification it will be more and more difficult to identify and remedy the impacts of concessions. 
I note that the longer maximum durations for concessions proposed by the bill set out to reduce the administrative costs faced by concession applicants and holders. Members need to note that the department’s cost is in no way reduced as all costs are recovered from applicants. So the benefits are all accrued by concessionaires with less cost and exclusion of competition while the costs for the New Zealanders who own this conservation land are increased risk to conservation and recreation values less public involvement in decision making and potentially the loss of better ideas—those potential concessions that are locked out of the concessions process by the longer-term licences. 
We note that these proposals arise out of the 2004 concession review project and that a number of environmental non-governmental organisations were consulted. Of course that does not mean they supported the outcomes and should this bill advance the Green Party will be paying close attention to the views that non-governmental organisations wish to express. 
These provisions in relation to the Conservation Act represent just a fraction of the recommendations of that review and they have been advanced at this time for opportunistic reasons. We are concerned that changes to the concession process are being made in a piecemeal fashion. The conservation estate is too important for this kind of law-making process. Parliament should instead be seeing all of the proposed changes together and making decisions on the integrated package. These provisions have been inappropriate inclusions within this bill and carry substantial risks that they have not been appropriately canvassed—and they will not be appropriately canvassed by the process proposed for this bill. For these reasons the Green Party will oppose the bill but offers to work with the Government and other parties to find a formulation for the bill that would really be uncontroversial and attract the support of all members of this House. Thank you.