Upston Louise: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Upston Louise: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:9601] 
LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupo) 
: 
 That was a rather dramatic rendition of this bill the Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill that has been put forward by the Hon Ruth Dyson so I would like to bring a bit of sanity to this debate. 
I wish to remind the previous speaker the Hon Shane Jones that he was one of the hard-working members of the Local Government and Environment Committee that was able to successfully pass the first round of reforms to the Resource Management Act last year. He is correct; his memory does serve him well in the fact that quite some work was done on designations and the topic was discussed at length. But I think his memory fails him somewhat in terms of where we got to. 
We recognise that there are still some challenges in the area of requiring authorities which will be addressed in the second phase of Resource Management Act reform. We need to make sure that we are able to more efficiently facilitate infrastructure development without compromising environmental outcomes. That is part of what we will be doing in the second phase of work on the Resource Management Act and that member Mr Jones is fully aware of that. He is fully aware of the great work that was done in phase one and of the fact that it is so important that we cannot deal with one single piece of it in isolation. We need to look at it holistically. In terms of the phase one reform we have undertaken already we recognise that we do not want to rush the piece of work on requiring authorities. I ask Mr Jones whether he remembers that. We wanted to make sure that we were able to take the issue further and look at it in phase two which the Local Government and Environment Committee looks forward to doing. 
We will not be supporting this member’s bill but I acknowledge Ruth Dyson for bringing one piece of reform to our attention this evening. I reiterate that improving planning for infrastructure is a key focus of the National Government and that the Government’s programme that we have outlined for economic recovery is dependent on an ambitious programme for infrastructure investment. That of course covers roads—which we have heard about—public transport broadband electricity grid upgrades new renewable generation and water infrastructure. The Opposition might not realise that some of those things are critical to growing our economy but at the same time we need to make sure that we do those things in the correct manner. 
If I look locally I see that it is projects like these significant infrastructure projects that have kept the Taupo economy afloat during these hard times and we can look at whether it has been electricity generators for Mighty River Power or Contact Energy’s geothermal developments. The East Taupo arterial road and Taupo bypass are also significant projects that we want to keep going. We want to encourage more development into our local economy because that brings jobs into the Taupo area. It is really important that we get the balance right; that is why a significant amount of work has been done in the first phase of the Resource Management Act reform. We will be looking at this issue of requiring authorities in phase two. That is only a matter of months away; it is not a long time which is unlike what we saw in the 9 long years of the Labour Government. If this had been such a priority perhaps that Government would have fixed it back then. But I move on. 
In terms of projects to meet the requirements of a necessity test for example network utility operators would have to demonstrate that the project was the only viable option. That is not always the case even if it were considered the best option. So that is why I am sorry but I cannot support the Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill.