Adams Amy: Resource Management Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: Resource Management Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12842. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): I just want to take a call on Part 2 of the Resource Management Reform Bill to respond to the last few speakers we have had on this issue of the appointment to the hearings panel because I do think it is an important process and it is worth taking some time to respond to. I think that when you look at this you have to start off by acknowledging that the process that we are developing in this legislation and through this part began because the Auckland Council came to the Government and asked us to develop an expedited process. It was the Auckland Council that wanted the Government to work with it to come up with a legislative framework that would mean that this plan would not take 10 years to be in place but could be delivered much more quickly. We agreed that that was an important objective so we worked with the council to deliver this process.Effectively what it does is take what would have been a two-stage hearing process of a full round of submissions mediations hearings and decisions at a council level and then have all of that replicated once more at the Environment Court level and combine it into one process. I do not think there is anyone who has sensibly suggested that the Auckland Unitary Plan if it had progressed under the normal schedule 1 process would not have gone off to the Environment Court. So what you have to consider in actual fact is that without this the decisions under the unitary plan would have been made by the Environment Court. Of course it is trite to point out that the Auckland Council does not get to appoint who sits on the Environment Court to hear the decisions. So in that respect the fact that the Auckland Council is not the appointer of the final decision-makers is absolutely consistent with the normal schedule 1 processes.In fact I would go so far as to say that the Auckland Council and the independent Māori Statutory Board have a greater ability to be involved in the appointment of the decision makers in this process because there is a statutory requirement that the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation must consult with both the Auckland Council and the independent Māori Statutory Board on making those appointments. So what we had to do was balance the desire of Auckland Council to be fully in charge of this process versus what we saw was about protecting the rights ofAucklanders to have confidence that the final decision-makers were independent as they would be at the Environment Court stage. So I do not think it is a fair comparison to look at this appointment process versus an Auckland Council process. It is a far better comparison to consider how this process works versus an Environment Court process which would have been the final decision-maker. Just to repeat: of course in that process Auckland Council would have had no say at all as to who the decision makers were and in the plan process. I do not think that it can be fairly suggested that it would be appropriate for the Auckland Council to have the say on who is the judge and jury on what is also its plan.So if we are going to combine a council plan process and an Environment Court process into one in my view the independent oversight that the Environment Court hearing represented was a critical component of what had to be maintained. That is why the decision was reached by Cabinet and believe me this was a process of ongoing discussions with the council around these very issues. So this is not something we have not considered; this was something that we worked through very carefully with the council. We listened in great detail to its representations but it was our strong view that it was important that that independence that you would have had at the Environment Court was replicated in this process.Can I just point out to members of the Committee that while this legislation is making its way through the House and without making any presumption on its progress we have already begun some initial preliminary consultations with the council. Obviously there is an awareness that the council is very keen to get its plan under way and we certainly do not want to be a barrier to that so we have begun a process of discussing with the council whom it would want to suggest for that board. Those processes are working very well. I have great confidence that we will come up with a board that has the support of all parties and that is certainly my intention. But I did want to make the point that we absolutely considered this issue. We talked extensively with the council around it and there are very good reasons why we made the decision that it is more appropriate that the council not be an appointer of decision makers on its plan.