Williams Andrew: Resource Management Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilliams Andrew: Resource Management Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 25 June 2013. Volume:691;Page:11239. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW WILLIAMS (NZ First):I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First on the Resource Management Reform Bill. New Zealand First does have a policy of supporting streamlining legislation in this country to improve our productivity to support economic development and to grow the economy and jobs. However in this particular instance we have some grave concerns about what is happening here with the Resource Management Act. I will quote from the regulatory impact statement on the bill which says here: “The RMA is New Zealand’s principal statute for managing natural and physical resources.” The Ministry for the Environment also states that New Zealand’s main piece of legislation that sets out how we should manage our environment is the Resource Management Act. So the Act is a most important piece of legislation. It was brought to this House and passed in 1991. For over 20 years it has been on the statute book and it is highly regarded around the world as one of the best pieces of legislation anywhere in terms of environmental safeguards. Many other countries around the world have studied it and have adopted the measures that are in our Resource Management Act. It is often referred to in international legislation and in international case studies in terms of good legislation that other countries would also like to abide by. In terms of when we were looking at the 200-mile exclusive economic zone last year the Resource Management Act played an important part in that. We were extending out to the 200-mile limit but we also wanted to ensure that many of the safeguards that were in the Resource Management Act were in our 200-mile limit exclusive economic zone bill that went through.But in this regard we do wonder what the real motives of the National Government are in relation to this bill. Once again the Government does seem to be having a cheap attack on local government with many of the measures in this bill. Throughout the select committee process and in the Local Government and Environment Committee which was considering the submissions that came in it was apparent that the Government did not fully understand the ramifications of many aspects of the bill. An example of this would be for instance that the tree provisions have changed considerably from what were first introduced with this bill. In the initial legislation the Government was going to allow the fact that virtually all trees could be chopped down and they could be saved only if they were individually gazetted and individually highlighted on property titles throughout New Zealand. That was a nonsense. That was a total nonsense because we are a tree and bush-clad and covered country and if you had a situation where everyproperty owner had to literally name and note the trees on their property in order to save them otherwise they could be bowled over by any person wishing to develop the property in the future it could have a huge impact on many of the bush areas of our urban environment and indeed of our rural environment as well. This was shown up in many of the submissions on trees such as the one on Le Roys Bush on the North Shore. We managed to convince the Government that it was crazy not to allow aerial mapping of bush areas and bush zones and to allow an area that is naturally bushed—some of it public reserve bush; some of it on private land—to be taken in as a bush zone where the properties could be listed but you did not have to actually name every single tree on individual properties.That was just a small example under the trees part of the legislation where the Government got it wrong and through this bill there are many other areas where similarly the Government does not appear to have a great understanding of what happens with issuing resource consents. Where it says that there will be a 6-month time limit for projects up to a medium size it does not always understand what is required in terms of issuing those resource consents for a proposal. What we will see very much—and this will be particularly so in the case of Auckland—is holus-bolus development going on in Auckland. Sure the Government wants to see that. It wants to see a vast acceleration of development but it will not necessarily be in the best interests of the people who are dwelling there the residents of individual urban areas. It will not necessarily be in the interests of the city itself. It will be very much in the interests of many of the developers who will be able to fast track and basically put things on the table in front of council employees and say: “Get this through quickly. You’ve got only a few months and you’ve got no opportunity to hold it up.” and they will get it through. This will be abused. There will be many people who will wish to abuse the process as a result. Those who feel that they are not going to get a fair shake from their local authority will see that it is perhaps therefore better to divert it directly to the higher authority in Wellington. Many of them will choose to take that option. Many of them will simply choose to say: “We’re not going to work with the local authority. We’re not going to work with the local regional authority. Let’s just get this sent directly to higher powers in Wellington. Let’s work with the bureaucrats in Wellington and see whether we can get it through at a faster pace through the bureaucratic process in Wellington which will perhaps turn a blind eye to half of the concerns.”I can remember being in Taupō a year or two ago and hearing so many complaints about the apartments that were built directly overlooking the Waikato River by the bridge leading into Taupō. That development was diverted to central authority for approval because all the locals opposed those apartments being built. No one wanted them on the entrance to the Waikato River but they got approved through some other means through central government through central authorities. And Taupō people now to this day regret the fact that those apartments got built. We will see more and more of that happening around New Zealand. We will see more and more of the bending of the rules going for the direct line and going for the quickest option and as a result the environment will suffer.When you look at the overview of the current Resource Management Act it says that under the Act resource consents are required whenever a person proposes to undertake an activity or development that does not comply with the rules of regional district or unitary plans with national environmental standards or with the Resource Management Act itself. What we have grown up with in the last 20 years is a situation where district plans and regional plans have been developed after extensive consultation with the local people. I can recall that the North Shore district plan was started in 2001 and was finally operative in about 2009. It was staged over a period of years and camein over a period of years in different stages as different parts of the plan became approved. But it was done with full consultation through the community and the community had full buy-in to it. So at the end of that period the community could say: “This has absolutely been thrashed out and for everyone who develops within this community everyone who does anything within this community these are the rules of this community. We are buying in to this club. We are joining this club. This is the club of x y z community. These are the rules that we abide by.”Unfortunately under many of the proposals in the Resource Management Reform Bill the Government is basically again moving in on local government and saying that it knows better than the local authorities that it knows better than the local communities who may have consulted on their district plans for 1 2 3 or 4 years to get their district plans into line with what their community expectations are. It will be unfortunate because once again we will see the big hand of central government playing a big role in the future. It will move in and if it is not happy with what local authorities are doing and if it is not happy with decisions that are made locally then the Government will once again step in and say: “We know better.”Unfortunately we are seeing this too often under this Government around this country. We are seeing it in Canterbury in particular. We have seen it in Auckland in particular. We are seeing it in more and more communities around New Zealand. Unfortunately we have only two tiers of government in this country. We have central government and we have local government. Unfortunately this Government seems to think that there is only one tier of Government which is central government and that local government really does not count. I think it is a great shame and I think we will look back on this and ask how legislation that was brought in in 1991—it was unanimously brought in in this House in 1991—was trampled on in 2013 and allowed to be watered down when we actually had a very good piece of legislation.