Prebble Richard: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Prebble Richard: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5592] 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE (Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 I have come down to the Chamber to speak to the schedules of the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2). I have done so to give credit to the work of a number of members of Parliament. Some members may not realise this but this bill has been most unusual in that massive amendments have been made to it: amendments introduced by the Minister who then decided that it was not necessary to send it to a select committee. I think we need to record that because if the Minister had been right then the bill would have gone through with no amendments whatsoever. Would that not be right? If what she had amended did not require any amendments there would have been no change. Well the ACT member of Parliament Ken Shirley and I understand—and I have read here in the minority report—that the National Party member and New Zealand First member I am not sure who those members are— 
Brian Connell 
: Nick Smith. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Was it Nick Smith? And who was the New Zealand First representative. Was it Brian Donnelly? 
Edwin Perry 
: Jim Peters. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Well I as a member of Parliament want to pay credit to them because what they did in their time was go out and do something that is very interesting. They went out and formed their own Opposition committee to hear evidence. I can read that in the commentary on the bill which states: The Opposition Committee received over 30 written submissions from a range of business and community organisations. Twelve oral submissions were heard.” That is quite a massive amount. It is a massive effort from them They came back and reported that: “Of particular concern are the heritage provisions that will increase uncertainty and costs for landowners and businesses. Elevating the protection of historic heritage to the level of national importance will allow objectors to virtually veto developments.” 
I think that that is so because as I read their analysis it meant that every single piece of land in New Zealand was actually going to be a cultural landscape or an ancestral landscape because the definition was any land that had ever at any point been owned by Maori. Well Maori claim that they own every single bit of Aotearoa—which I am sure the Maori members over there will confirm—so this was actually saying that every piece of land was an ancestral landscape. So any objector anywhere in the country could have stopped any development. 
When the Minister heard that submission even she suddenly realised that they had made a terrible mistake. I think that the United Future party suddenly realised that it was backing a loser. The only people who were still prepared to support it were the Greens. They have always been losers and never wanted any development. They want New Zealand to be back pre-1840—and the thought of there being no Greens is quite a good thought—but apart from that nobody else supports it. But when we look at the schedules we see that those provisions have all been dropped. 
That is a huge achievement. I have not seen any Opposition party deliver such a humiliating defeat to a Minister for years It is a humiliating defeat for a Minister. The Minister brought forward a provision then said it that is so beautifully written that it does not need to go to a select committee. But when we get up to this stage of the provisions in the bill as the Minister wrote them—no they are not. This Minister Marian Hobbs one of the most incompetent Ministers I think I have ever seen has actually suffered a humiliating defeat in this Chamber. 
Brian Connell 
: Again. 
Hon RICHARD PREBBLE 
: Again. But of course we are seeing that day after day now are we not? The Government has been in office for 4 years. It is no longer cruising along on the achievements of previous Governments. We are now seeing a Labour Government having to operate and having to tackle problems like the power crisis—and now that is relevant to this bill. 
How does this bill help solve the power crisis? Is there anything in the schedules that will enable us to get the generation we need earlier? No there is not. The Government said: “Oh that is a serious problem. We must get on to it.” Winter is already here I say to the Minister. If it really is a serious problem and if she can write so beautifully how about having a section to help us tackle that problem? But no—and the Government still has other sections. It has the wahi tapu section. Why is that a matter of concern—because that is not defined either. The reality is that anyone who really has a big think can decide that that is a provision and the bill actually says that one does not have to justify it. That is an outrage.