Barry Maggie: Resource Management Amendment Bill Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill (No 2) Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: Resource Management Amendment Bill Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill (No 2) Local Government Official Information and Meetings Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12865. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): It is quite difficult to keep awake actually after a tedious dissertation like that one. That memberSu’a William Sio has not—not to my knowledge anyway—sat in on any of these reforms. He has not actually sat in on any of the submissions and seems to have a particularly poor grasp of the legislation which is let me say out loud just in case you would benefit from this at the last moment the Resource Management Act reform legislation in its third reading. When we talk about the track record of Governments let us look a little bit at what Labour contributed to the Government propped up by its pals the Greens.Tracey Martin: You’ve got to speak about the bill. You don’t know what you’re talking about.MAGGIE BARRY: This is in those long dark years—the 9 years in the wilderness. There is achihuahua yapping somewhere in the Chamber Mr Assistant Speaker. Is that allowable? Anyway.In the exclusive economic zone legislation which is a piece of legislation that we passed late last year it was very important that that very important piece of water be protected. Under 9 years of Labour and the Greens what happened? There were 46 mining consents in our precious oceans. Those parties did nothing to protect them. There was not a single regulation and there was not a single protection put down. That is bad enough. That is appalling—46 consents granted. They made it worse though. They compounded the problem because they then stood against what we put through. They voted against the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Bill. So not only did they not protect it when they were in a position to but also they stood against the actual protections that this Government put in place. I am very proud of what we did there. It was important.A lot of stuff and nonsense and mythology has been spun by those on the opposite benches about the Resource Management Act. It is a fabulous piece of legislation according to “Planet Labour”—22 years old nothing wrong with it. That is not actually what Sir Geoffrey Palmer said a few weeks ago. He actually agrees with a lot of the things and a lot of the reforms that our Minister for the Environment Amy Adams has put through.Hon Ruth Dyson: Ha ha!MAGGIE BARRY: It would pay to pay attention to this particularly that member who guffaws up the back ruddy faced and paying little attention. When we looked at the 234 submissions on the Resource Management Act and listened to 147 of them in Wellington and Auckland a lot became clear. For example Statistics New Zealand’s Business Operations Survey maintained that the Act was expensive that it was time-consuming and that it was having a significantly bad effect on business performance. The business survey cited the Act specifically saying that it had led to an uncertainty that in the past 2 years had led to the cancellation of projects potentially worth more than $800 million. The uncertainty had led to the cancellation of about two-thirds of those projects. Another 430 businesses cancelled projects each worth more than $100000. Again they blamed the Act’s processes.So “lies damned lies and statistics” were quoted by the member with her head down over there Maryan Street a little bit earlier in the evening. She very selectively looked at the statistics. She did not consider the lost opportunities and the people who were defeated by the Act. Some businesses—can you believe it; it almost does beggar belief—have spent up to 25 percent a quarter of their total expenditure just on applying for resource consents. The lost opportunity costs of the Act are truly appalling. To dispel some of that nonsense and mythology that we have been hearing I say that more than half of the resource consent applications are cancelled in the pre-application stage due to uncertainty and time delays. These are the sorts of problems that we were being confronted with as a nation so we addressed them. We looked at them and we did something about them. Perhaps the most damning thing of all is that only 3 percent of the businesses surveyed said that the current Act enhanced their businesses. The others pointed to it as a roadblock and a problem that caused delays. That is something that needs to be addressed.In 2007 there was an example that estimated that for a $10 million project the cost of the delay per day was $2200 which if you extrapolate that over 3 months—I know you are not too crash hot at the maths over there but bear with me—means an additional $140000. If that delay extended out into 9 months which is about the average time of delays around consents those costs blew out to nearly $600000. So who is the winner there?There is not time to go into the issue of the Environment Court. People say it has been diminished; it continues to have a very important role in interpreting and applyingpolicy and safeguarding the rigour of planning and consenting processes and the quality of incomes. What it does not need to do is determine values or policy which is the role of communities and their elected representatives—namely the council and the Government. I commend these bills to the House wholeheartedly.