Smith Nick: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Smith Nick: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Volume:608;Page:5314] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (NZ National—Nelson) 
: 
 That speech could well be a chapter in Gilbert and Sullivan and a comedy were it not so serious. We are in the middle of an electricity crisis. The lights in the corridors are dimmed and we have a bill before the House that will make the provision of new electricity generation more difficult. We have a bill that will make more difficult the building of roads that are necessary in our largest population centre Auckland where traffic congestion is said to be costing a billion dollars a year. We are in the middle of a drought. Communities are wanting to build more water-augmentation schemes so that they might be able to produce the wealth for this nation and this Government wants to make the construction and the development of those more difficult. This bill is environmental and economic lunacy. Only a Minister living on the wrong planet would claim that this bill will in any way reduce compliance costs delays and uncertainty with the Resource Management Act. 
I draw to the attention of the House the fast and shonky process we have been through. Would the Government allow a single submission from any organisation that might confirm the Minister’s claim that this bill would reduce costs or uncertainty in the Act? Not one! In fact that Minister gave a specific instruction to the Local Government and Environment Committee that we were not able to take submissions from absolutely anybody and that is a disgrace. I commend Jim Peters Ken Shirley and National for taking the time to listen to groups that do have some knowledge. I refer now to United Future’s Larry Baldock who campaigned on fixing the Resource Management Act but arrogantly shut down the opportunity for anybody to have a say. One might be able to argue that Jeanette Fitzsimmons and members like myself had the opportunity to receive hundreds of submissions. That member has not heard one submission from anybody yet he expects to come into this Parliament and vote for this shonky bill. 
Let us listen to some of the independent—if we could even describe them as that—organisations and what they have to say about this legislation. Firstly I refer to Meridian Energy. Meridian Energy is the largest energy producer in this country. It is a State-owned enterprise and it supplied five pages of criticisms of this bill which are summarised in its submission. It says that there are 24 clauses in this bill that will add to the hurdles and obstructions to building new electricity generation in New Zealand. I challenge members opposite: is Meridian Energy their own State-owned enterprise wrong? Is it to be disbelieved? Are we simply to throw into the trash can the submissions of the largest electricity generator in New Zealand at a time when we are in the middle of an electricity crisis? The Government and the United Party would so do. 
I refer now to a major submitter—the Petroleum Exploration Association of New Zealand. Its submission—provided to the rebel committee because the Government would not hear any—represents over 34 large companies involved in petroleum and states that this bill would make the development of energy resources more difficult. Again the Government and the United Future party dismissed that as well. Submission after submission stated that this bill will not work. I challenge Government members to provide me with one independent commentator who will confirm the Minister’s speech that this bill will go any way towards reducing the compliance costs the delays and the uncertainty of the Resource Management Act. I say that they will not find one—the bill is uniformly condemned. The National Council of Women of New Zealand which is hardly some raving right-wing organisation absolutely condemned this Government in its submissions on the bill for not providing any opportunity for it or anybody else to be able to have a say. 
I turn now to some of the loopy provisions that provide for the protection of ancestral landscapes. We—New Zealand First ACT and National—ask members opposite to tell us what an ancestral landscape is. They will require that everybody in this country—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Benson-Pope thinks this is a laughing matter. He thinks it is a big joke. He thinks it is funny that people are having cold showers. He thinks it is funny that people are locked in traffic jams for hours and more in Auckland. We say that the Government needs to define what an ancestral landscape is before it gives directions under the Resource Management Act to every decision maker to protect those things. We see the same sort of nonsense with the provisions about cultural landscapes. Can any member opposite define for me what a cultural landscape is? Can Mr Benson-Pope tell me what a cultural landscape is? I say that he does not have the foggiest idea—no idea whatsoever. 
This bill has 149 clauses—over 100 pages—and the select committee was given no more than 2 weeks taking into account the Easter adjournment to consider it. How long did the Minister for the Environment have to consider the select committee report? She had 100 weeks. Why is that and what sort of disdain is Parliament being treated with when it is asked to ram through this bill in that sort of time frame? Where is United Future’s mandate to support legalising the protection of ancestral landscapes cultural landscapes and the spirits? I would love to know. Could any member in this House tell me how we could protect the spirits? 
I ask members look at the fiasco at Ngawha Prison and at the conduct of Ngapuhi. What will this bill do to remove the “brownmail” that is going on in New Zealand whereby Maori organisations object as of right—right through? I am happy to table the documents that confirm that is going on. This bill will make it worse and that is bad for race relations bad for the environment and bad for the economy—and this bill does absolutely nought in that regard. I come now to the dirty tricks part of the bill. 
Hon John Tamihere 
: You’d be a specialist in that. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: I would like that member to explain for me why when the 1999 bill was introduced it had 18 parts and this bill has only two. I will tell members why. The Minister for the Environment gave a specific instruction to parliamentary counsel that this bill would have only two parts. She is so embarrassed and so not prepared to defend the shonky content of this bill that the Government is going to shut down the debate that occurs in this House. That is an outrage and it is a greater outrage that the “common-sense” party the United Future party is going to back that approach to lawmaking. I also draw attention to the sorts of submissions made by major investment groups. Business group after business group whether it be AMP or the Employers and Manufacturers Association is condemning the provisions in this bill and so are groups like the major investors in the forestry industry who want to process forestry product in this country. 
We have here in this bill chapter and verse not just on examples of lost investment but on how this bill will make those key investments in timber processing in this country more difficult and members opposite are ignoring the situation. I want the next Government speaker to answer a simple question. The Government promised it would take seriously the business compliance cost report that was commissioned by Mr Swain the Minister of Commerce at the time. That report had 52 recommendations on changes that should be made to the Resource Management Act but not one of them is included in this bill. The Government cannot pretend that it is interested in growing the New Zealand economy or lifting the standards of living of our people with this sort of bill. Even the limited notification provisions—as weak as they were in the original bill watered down from that proposed by Simon Upton—will take us nowhere. This bill is a recipe for more costs more uncertainties and sadly greater delays. This House should reject it.