Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you very much Mr Speaker. As the newly hatched bright-eyed shiny chair of the Environment Committee I'm very happy to support this piece of legislation going to the Primary Production Committee because I think that is a very good place for this piece of legislation to go.Now we've heard a little bit not much but a little bit of concern from the Opposition parties about why this bill in their view might be a bad thing. But I want to put members of this Chamber and also anyone that may be listening at home on their crystal sets or watching on television they will be able to take reassurance from the fact that this is a good piece of legislation that brings a degree of sanity and purpose back to resource management in New Zealand.So for the last six years we had a regime that thought Wellington knew best. They thought that they knew best. They thought that shiny painted people sitting in front of computer screens looking at Google Maps of landscapes and slopes and things like that they thought that those people had a better understanding of land of catchment areas of resource of land slopes and all those sorts of things than the farmers and people who worked that land. Well we take an entirely different view. It's always been our view in the National Party and I know that it is also the view of our hard-working and very collegial coalition partners that a catchment-by-catchment approach is the best.Now I heard the Hon Mark Patterson making a comment in his presentation just a few minutes ago about the very good report released just last week by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—none other than the Rt Hon Simon Upton a former member of this House who knows a bit about this kind of stuff. He has said without any hesitation in his very good report that actually a catchment-by-catchment approach is entirely the right approach.Now on this side of the House we don't take the view that matters relating to the environment and use of land are a binary equation that it's either one or the other. We think that actually there is a potential for us as a smart nation with clever people who have a regard and concern for our natural environment to also be able to protect maintain and enhance that natural environment while at the same time encouraging a development encouraging proper and appropriate land use that encourages the wealth and prosperity of our entire nation to give us the economic performance and strength that we need to provide for that maintenance protection and enhancement of our natural environment. Because without a thriving growing economy none of that other good stuff that we need for our environment can occur.It's often said in this House and something that I think the Green Party members often forget that it's very hard to be green when you're in the red—very hard to be green when you're in the red. I know that on that side of the House on the Opposition they have only three policy objectives. There are only three things that they ever consider when it comes to policy and that is either to tax it make it compulsory or to tax it again—no; ha ha! So actually the third one is to ban it. So it's tax it make it compulsory or ban it. Those are the only three policy options when it comes to anything in relation to the environment. We take a far more broad view of that. In fact this piece of legislation is part of a coalition agreement we've entered into with the ACT Party. So we're fulfilling that but it's also part of a broader three-phase plan that is to entirely reform our resource management landscape and our way of administering by statute and regulation.The first step of course was to repeal the hopelessly inadequate Labour legislation; the natural built and environment and spatial planning pieces of legislation that would have only made things worse—that would have only made things worse.The second step is of course to introduce the fast-track consenting system so that we can get things done in New Zealand and that is currently before my select committee and we're working our way through that.Then of course the third part will be ultimately to amend or develop an entirely new resource management statute that will actually achieve the objectives that we see on this side of the House that as I said are not a binary option—it's not just the environment or development; it is actually both. We think that as a smart nimble nation and a smart nimble Government we can achieve both those objectives.