Robertson GrantHon GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour): Oh great choice Madam Chair thank you. I have a series of questions for the Minister mostly around clause 5(2) because the Spatial Planning Act one of my favourite bits of what we did hasn't had anywhere near enough attention tonight so I want to come to that.But first I want to ask the Minister whether or not any cost-benefit analysis has been completed on this piece of legislation that's in the House tonight.Hon Shane Jones: Oh detail!Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: I'm not at all surprised that Shane Jones doesn't care about cost-benefit analysis but that's the subject of another discussion for another day. But the work that was done and the Hon James Shaw mentioned this before—the extent of the work that was done to create the two pieces of legislation being repealed under clause 5 of the bill that we're debating tonight. Among other things we were able to determine during that was that over 30 years the Ministry for the Environment estimated that the new system would deliver between $2.58 and $4.90 for every dollar that was spent. Now that kind of return—I see that's back to Mr Jones' interest when he hears about that kind of return on investment because that is a significant improvement to where we are.The system could have created a 19 percent reduction in costs or around $150 million per year in reduced costs from the two pieces of legislation that are proposed to be repealed under clause 5 of this bill. Now I find that extraordinary because we hear day after day from the Government opposite that they're here to be able to cut costs and cut waste and be more efficient and here they are repealing legislation that would have saved around $150 million a year and over 30 years delivered between $2.58 and $4.90 in benefits for every dollar spent. That kind of cost-benefit analysis should accompany any major piece of legislation. So my question again for the Minister's benefit is for him to be able to tell us whether or not he did commission a cost-benefit analysis and what it said because at the moment this looks like a pretty bad deal for the taxpayer to be going backwards to this.I also as I said want to then ask the Minister a series of questions around his repeal of the Spatial Planning Act. There are many of these that I could ask but the ones that I want to start with are the extent to which the member thinks that the repeal is going to result in an increase in the number of plans that need to be done. The Minister because I know he's followed this debate for some considerable time would be aware that we were moving from around 100 plans that are required to be done and all of the red tape and the challenge and the difficulty that presents to people to want to be able to do things—we were going to reduce that down to 16 plans from 100 to 16. That's the cutting of red tape. They should be on their feet over in the ACT Party saying Well done congratulations to the former Government for doing that." but instead tonight Christopher Bishop and the National Party want more plans. They want 100 of these plans around the country that are going to slow down the activities of people. Mr Bishop and others—Christopher Luxon being one of them—have told us how bad the Resource Management Act (RMA) is. Chris Luxon told us it didn't work for anybody it needed to be got rid of and tonight they bring it back. Clause 5 repeals an Act that actually would've seen the number of plans reduced down from 100 to 16.So I want the Minister to tell me how many plans he expects will exist under the RMA instead of the Spatial Planning Act and while he's at it it would also be useful for him to be able to outline to us what it will mean for the speed of plan-making to return to the Resource Management Act rather than the Spatial Planning Act—I'm sure the member would be able to help understand that for us—what it would mean in terms of Māori representation in the plan-making process. So what does it mean now to go back to the Resource Management Act? Can he please explain to the committee in some detail what the difference is there and whether or not there will be fewer consents as a result of the plans that are now going to be put here or more consents? I look forward to the answers from the Minister."