Simpson Scott; Smith Stuart; Brooking Rachel; Salesa JennyHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to ask the Minister whether clause 64 is a carry-over or not. I suspect it's not. Clause 64 places a duty of others to assist regional planning committees and the clause applies to chief executives of departments Crown entities local authorities iwi authorities and groups that represent hapū network utility operators and that's the list. But again there is a requirement in clause 64(2) that these persons must provide information or technical support to a regional planning committee free of charge if—(a) the committee requests the information or support to assist the committee in performing or exercising its powers functions or duties under" the legislation. And so again there's quite a wide-ranging requirement potentially for what could be quite costly levels of information to be provided and the requirement that it be done free of charge I think follows on my previous comments relating to a similar provision. How can the Minister ensure and give us confidence that that is going to be reasonable? There is a reasonableness test but how can we be sure that that's not going to be abused and will that require judicial interpretation at some point? Because I can imagine that the regional planning committees are probably going to require an awful lot of information because they are effectively setting a strategic plan for a region for 30 years and potentially more than 30 years. So some of the detailed data and information that only a chief executive of a department or a Crown entity or a local authority can provide could potentially be very very detailed. Now the regional planning committees of themselves are going to almost certainly create their own secretariat their own support their own administrative base their own datacollecting teams and staff so I'm interested to know: where's the balance what it's going to be and how can we be sure that this is going to work as intended? Because notwithstanding what I'm sure is probably a good intent and probably for reasons that may seem practical there is a potential I think for abuse of this facility that requires information and data to be provided free of charge. So if the Minister can give us some insight into that that would be very useful thank you.STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Chair. I want to turn to clause 65 "Rights or interests in freshwater and geothermal resources preserved". This clause really outlines that the bill does not create transfer extinguish or determine rights or interests. So therefore we take from that that geothermal interests in particular that I want to talk about are not going to be affected by this bill. But I do note that Contact Energy in their submission warned that the bills risk delaying the decarbonisation of the energy sector putting New Zealand's emission-reduction goals at risk. So that has to come from a fear about something within these bills. So if the spatial plans Minister cannot extinguish the rights of any party to those resources how might the plans actually effectively extinguish it by not allowing them to access those resources? So as we often know geological structures don't follow lines on maps and so I imagine spatial plans will be based on the surface area not in the aquifers beneath. An earthquake may for example change the structure of the aquifer underneath which is the resource for the geothermal plant. Therefore they have to go somewhere else. Is that affected if horizontal drilling in the geothermal space underneath crosses the spatial plan's boundary underneath the surface? Is that an allowable activity?Simon Court: It sparked a war between Iraq and Kuwait.STUART SMITH: Wow! It's a very serious question and I know it might seem a little technical Minister but it could be very important. I do note the concern of Contact Energy and I'm sure they don't spend their days trying to trip up the Government. They are concerned about their business. So that must come from some real concern. So have you turned your mind to that Minister? I'd be really interested if that is the sort of thing you think that they might be concerned about in their submission.Hon RACHEL BROOKING (Associate Minister for the Environment): As I've noted a couple of times in this debate these spatial planning plans are not regulatory plans. That is the Natural and Built Environment plan and these provisions—clauses 66 and 65—are largely carry-overs from the Resource Management Act.Going back to the Hon Scott Simpson's points about the different bodies that need to provide information for free under clause 64—of course this is an important point and I think the member acknowledged this as well; we are trying to get all the relevant parties involved in the making of this plan and therefore we need the information sharing. As he noted as well there is that practical and reasonable test but also under Schedule 8 of the Natural and Built Environment Bill if it is costly it can be paid for.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on Scott—Hon Scott Simpson: Simon Court.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Simon Court sorry.Hon Scott Simpson: It's getting late Madam Chair.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): It's getting too late in the night."