Court SimonSIMON COURT (ACT): I just want to observe that while there's been unanimous support for reform to the Resource Management Act (RMA) pretty much as long as the RMA's existed when I studied resource management law in the 1990s I proposed to the lecturer that a land developer that we were asked to model consent conditions for should be able to progress because everything that land developers civil engineers drainage designers ecologists responsible for establishing wetlands—everything that we knew back in the mid-1990s about how to design a subdivision that fitted into the local landscape and with the infrastructure was known. It was already known. When I proposed to the lecturer that my model land developer should be able to get a series of very very simple consents that basically said Get on and build it." he said "No that will never be allowed—that will never be allowed. You'll end up in the Environment Court or maybe the High Court. They'll never let you do that." I thought "That's ridiculous." All of the engineers and town planners and environmental scientists in that class knew how to build a subdivision knew how to build drainage and knew how to establish wetlands—what you might call now "green stormwater systems". But no that development and all of those other developments since the mid-1990s have had to go through the resource management consenting process.So what is the problem with the Resource Management Act that we're here to solve? Well we've just heard from the Hon Phil Twyford former Minister of Transport housing even who proposed a national policy statement on urban development that set out what it is that we want from urban development. We want high-density housing. We want higher densities around transportation hubs around public transport transport corridors. No kidding! Of course we do. Well when you look at the Auckland Unitary Plan—and I can speak on behalf of Aucklanders because I live there—it says "We need to fit in another half to a million people between now and 2050." It's coloured in to show where they're going to live and even at what densities—whether it's future urban and what is currently rural land where people are intended to live on larger sections large homes enough room for a trampoline to park a boat in the driveway or whether they're going to live—according to Auckland Council's Unitary Plan—in more intensive urban environments places like Ponsonby and Grey Lynn for example. The spatial planning in Auckland has already been done.When Hamilton City Council—which the former Minister of Transport and housing the Hon Phil Twyford referred to before—came to the Environment Committee to speak on this bill and the complementary Natural and Built Environment Bill they said "For goodness' sake! Do not lump us in terms of planning with all of those other councils that stretch from Raglan on the West Coast to the Coromandel on the East Coast because we're a metro of hundreds of thousands growing by hundreds of thousands or more between now and 2050. We have nothing in common with those rural communities and small towns of hundreds to a few thousand. We need to be treated separately. And by the way we've done our own planning and we know where the people are going to live."So let's assume the spatial planning's been done and the Spatial Planning Bill may well help clarify some of the processes around that. But the speaker before that Labour former Minister of Transport and housing the Hon Phil Twyford said that this bill now integrates planning and infrastructure development. Nothing could be further from the truth—nothing. There is nothing in this bill that does anything to translate the beautiful coloured-in plans and drawings showing where Hamilton for example and Auckland for example have identified where hundreds of thousands even millions more people will live between now and 2050 and integrates that planning with the provision of the infrastructure in servicing land that will allow those sections to be developed those town centres to be developed. Nothing in this bill does that.The only thing that would do that is a reform of infrastructure funding and financing that gave private property owners the ability to raise their own special purpose vehicles—in other words raise finance and a fond—to build their own infrastructure independently from local government or alternatively cash flow local government to build the infrastructure. [Holds up document] That's what ACT proposes in our solutions for building New Zealand and conserving nature. What ACT says is: by all means do the spatial planning identify how many people are coming where are the places people shouldn't live where are the natural hazards—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Order! The member will come back to this bill. We are not debating ACT's policies.SIMON COURT: Well Madam Speaker if I may this document here sets out new directions for resource management in New Zealand. These bills—the preceding bill the Natural and Built Environment Bill and this Spatial Planning Bill—apparently provide answers to the problems that the Randerson panel which included current Associate Minister for the Environment the Hon Rachel Brooking apparently set out to solve. But they haven't solved it and that is why Madam Speaker I offer an alternative. In fact the alternative that I offer is set out very clearly in ACT's alternative view on the Spatial Planning Bill. So if you may grant me some leave to speak to our alternative view which is copied here from the committee's report.What is the problem to solve? Well Randerson says—and that's the Hon Rachel Brooking as well—there's not sufficient national direction in the Resource Management Act. Let's look at the Hon Phil Twyford's National Policy Statement on Urban Development. It's delivered in our community in Te Atatū where Phil and I both live a whole lot of density one or two houses removed 11 13 15 placed there no car-parking no additional waste-water connections waste water and raw sewage overflowing into Wai o Pareira Henderson Creek on a regular basis 80 times in the past year. That's what the current national direction delivered by this Labour Government has given us.National direction on the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity released just a few weeks ago trumpeted proudly by Labour's partner: the Greens and James Shaw—what does that give us? Well it sterilises access to resources energy quarries for example.What does national direction on fresh water—another policy implemented by Labour—tell us? Well it gives us te mana o te wai this concept that there is a hierarchy in the way we use water. First we must consider the spiritual values of the water; only then drinking water and only then water for economic and social benefits—like people who want to make stuff and grow stuff. That is the national direction that this Government proposes to transfer into the Spatial Planning Bill.But what's missing? What's missing when I look at a document that was provided to the public setting out the purpose of these reforms? The climate adaptation bill—or Act. One of the three natural and built environments strategic planning is missing: the climate adaptation bill—from a Government that said and a former Prime Minister that said that the climate emergency is our nuclear-free movement. Who knew? It's been raining a lot this year. Maybe they could have done something about the climate adaptation bill that told us how New Zealand should adapt to climate change where we should be building infrastructure how we should be defending assets where may not be a good place to live—but no that's missing.So not only does this bill enshrine co-governance in regional planning committees that will be completely remote from democratic control so the plans councils develop now will have no oversight under regional planning committees but they will be influenced and potentially controlled by iwi Māori appointees thanks to this Government. Another example of outsourcing decision making to unelected bodies and people appointed because of who their grandparents were. ACT opposes this fundamentally.What would ACT do? Well what we would do is preserve the democratic process of planning that is taking place in places like Hamilton City Council and Auckland and all around New Zealand under the Resource Management Act. But what we would also do is enshrine private property rights—the right to use your own property free from all kinds of objections by people who have no interest in your land except to tell you what to do. We would also through our alternative policy here complete the integration of infrastructure delivery financing and funding through ACT's solutions for building New Zealand and conserving nature. It's all here at act.org.nz. Thank you Madam Speaker."