Ardern Shane: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
Ardern Shane: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5644] 
SHANE ARDERN (NZ National—Taranaki - King Country) 
: 
 Today is a very sad day for this Parliament. We are dealing with legislation that—as the last speaker Stephen Franks said—has been sitting around in this Parliament now for something like 12 years since it was first decided that amendments needed to take place. Its genesis was two Labour Governments ago—back in the late 1980s. It was introduced at Simon Upton’s direction in 1991 and within a very short time of the Act being passed it was realised that change needed to take place and that amendments were needed. A very lengthy process headed up by Owen McShane ended with a bill being proposed in late 1999 that would have fixed a lot of what was wrong with the original Act. At the time it was a great piece of academic thinking. It was described at that stage as a world-class piece of environmental law but it was tried out in the electorate at large and found to be substantially wanting. It came through that process and by 1999 was ready for amendment. What happened? The Government changed. We got a socialist Government propped up by the Greens that decided that the only way to run the country was through some kind of bureaucratic red-tape regulatory environment that will never work. It never has and it never will. 
What have we finished up with here now? We have ended up with a Minister putting a red pen through all the recommendations that were brought forward—the whole 16 of them—and a lengthy select committee process with 400 submissions and 80 hours of select committee work. People listening to Parliament would have no understanding of the amount of cost effort reading and submission work that goes into 400 submissions and 80 hours of select committee sittings and—at the taxpayer’s expense—visits to seven cities. The Minister then turned round and said that she was going to totally reject all that was put forward by those submitters. So in the forty-seventh Parliament we finish up in a situation where the Minister for the Environment has looked at all of that and decided that none of it is going into this piece of legislation. 
The bill had 18 parts and it has been brought down to two parts. That is an absolute abuse of the parliamentary system and the way that legislation should take place. This bill is being rushed through Parliament without proper or sensible scrutiny and debate. That is the reason that in the last few days we have seen the Government do an absolute U-turn and capitulate over the proposal that it brought forward with regard to “ancestral landscapes” and “cultural landscapes” and other significantly important places in the view of those who have that ”touch-feely” politically correct approach. 
What should be in this legislation? What would National members do if we could change this bill? Let me make it absolutely clear that on becoming the Government at the next election those amendments will take place—it will be a No. 1 priority. National will put in place direct referral to the Environment Court where that is the sensible thing to do. We will reintroduce standing which the Government has taken out. We will clarify the rules between district and regional councils. At the moment regional councils and district councils in the same area have different rules. There is total duplication in terms of what they are supposed to do. When people in the Taranaki – King Country want to build a cowshed a woolshed a woodshed or a chook-house—anything at all—they have to go to the regional council first then to the district council— 
John Carter 
: For a chook-house? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Yes to be legal they do. They have to have a building consent and an environmental consent for things like a chook-house for goodness’ sake! The inconsistency they get from the seven local councils and three regional councils in my electorate is unbelievable. The cost that applies to the process is unbelievable also. It delays the construction of whatever it is that one wants to go ahead with. It holds back development and drives major investors out of the area—offshore—at a time when the energy industry in the Taranaki electorate is desperate for further exploration. People are held up in environmental consent processes for years trying to find out whether they can move forward or whether they should even bother doing so. 
Under National there will be greater use of commissioners. That is a new initiative which was not in the original legislation and it has a certain consistency about it in that it will certainly speed up the process. There will be consultation with landowners. There will be a proper dialogue with the people who are likely to be affected. At the moment we have the bizarre situation where everybody else can have a say on what is likely to happen with regard to a development but the landowners themselves might not necessarily know that that process is going on. Do Government members opposite understand that that is actually going on? I doubt if they do. I doubt whether those who were on the select committee had any idea about that. 
We will put measures in place to tighten up applicants’ rights to refuse further information requests. At the moment there is a bizarre set of rules around who is entitled to know what is going on and that needs to be absolutely tightened up. National will repeal the treaty clause and spiritual references. As has been stated there has been a bit of toing and froing and changing and deals done between United Future and the Government on that. 
It is interesting to note that the United Future party which campaigned up and down the country before the last election on what it was going to do to cut red tape out of business development and to strengthen family-type values has today given its vote—or will have when this bill is voted on—to two pieces of legislation that have the exact opposite effect to what it campaigned on. That is a very interesting development and I wonder whether those out there who supported the United Future party are aware of that. Believe me by the next election they will be. The effects of some of these changes will then have become clear and those people will know what they actually voted for—it was not what they expected to get by a long shot. 
 We will narrow the definition of environmental and amenity values because at the moment nobody can really say what that means. 
Hon Member 
: What about compensation? 
SHANE ARDERN 
: Compensation which is often trumpeted by the ACT party as being the way to move forward has merit in some places. As a bland statement one would be very hard pushed to say that there should be compensation for everything that happens under the Resource Management Act. Certainly it is an idea worth consideration and certainly it is something that National would consider. 
We will reduce consents category types which are another major barrier to moving forward under this legislation. Without doubt the Resource Management Act in its present form is the biggest barrier to growth in this country and the biggest cost in terms of compliance red tape and regulation. It is the biggest cost barrier to development in all sorts of things including roading in Auckland at the moment. A syndicate of Auckland mayors spoke to the Government and Bob Harvey was included in that group. None other than Bob Harvey the former Labour Party president told this Government that the Resource Management Act—not money as the Government would have us believe—is the single greatest barrier to the development of roading infrastructure in the major metropolitan area of Auckland. 
Hon Judith Tizard 
: He did not say that. Absolute nonsense! 
SHANE ARDERN 
: The Minister with responsibility for Auckland Issues on the other side of the House says that is not so.