McAnulty KieranHon KIERAN McANULTY (Labour): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. The situation we're in now is that we're in obviously the second reading of this bill and that would have been normally in normal times the time where we speak to the select committee process and what people had to say. What we do know from the original select committee process from the Act that this bill intends to repeal or the Acts is that there was a broad recognition that the Resource Management Act (RMA) was no longer fit for purpose and there was a discussion not so much as to whether there needed to be reform but the details of that reform. That is what puzzles me about this. It goes back to a system that was broadly recognised as being unsuitable. It goes back to a system where local government industry—in particular construction—was saying that it did not enable them to do what the Government is using as a rationale for repealing it. They said that they couldn't get on with their business. They said that they couldn't do what they needed to do that it was cumbersome that it got in the way.When you consider there are 71 district councils across the country and under the RMA each had a slightly different interpretation of how the rules could be applied it is possible and it was common that tradespeople would have to go about things one way in one district and about things in a different way 10 minutes down the road and that just didn't make sense. But nor does what's being proposed here today.Why on earth would we go back to a system that if we think back to the 2017 election both major parties the Labour Party and the National Party said that the RMA was no longer fit for purpose and wanted to do something about it? I think I remember a few pledges of a bipartisan approach to this. But what this bill proposes is to go back to exactly that: a system that was designed in 1991 and has been added to and become a massive beast and was cumbersome and didn't take into account the realities of a modern world. Why on earth would we go back to that without something to replace it with? I don't quite get that.If there are elements to the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act why on earth don't we take the time to look at that and improve it? It seems to be counter to the whole point of a select committee process this parliamentary process where regardless of what individual MPs or their party's views on a particular proposal are they use a select committee process to improve a bill. And the good parliamentarians amongst us even if they know ultimately their party will vote against the bill when it gets reported back to the House will use that time to try and improve it. I'm puzzled as to why that principle that so many members in this House including on the other side on the Government side in my time here have worked constructively to try and improve something—I struggle to understand the rationale here. I know that members or some members—not many of them are taking a full call today which in itself is interesting and I'm sure we'll explore more at the committee of the whole House stage. But ultimately why wouldn't we just touch on the things that they feel didn't work?Because I actually don't think that they believe that the whole thing has to go. Sayings about babies and bathwaters come to mind. Hon Member: We're open to taking aspects of the laws.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: Why wouldn't we improve it? And the call is from the other side We're open to that." Why aren't we doing it now? I want to know why they didn't take up the Hon Rachel Brooking's offer to approach this in a bipartisan way and try and improve things as opposed to throwing it out on a promise that they will then start working on something else. I actually can't think of an example where something's been repealed in the context of an acknowledgment that something has to be done to go back to a system that wasn't working on a promise that one day they'll get round to doing something about that. Why don't we do that first? That's the essence of my point: why on earth aren't we doing that first? Why are we rushing through under urgency something that's going to take us back to what it was? The speakers that have contributed to this have said that they want business to just be able to get on with things that they want to provide certainty. I can't understand how going back to a system that they know wasn't working is providing certainty. If anything it is uncertain what's going to ultimately replace what this bill is replacing the Act with. We've got two or three steps ahead of us here. Nobody knows what on earth is coming and that is not certainty.What I did here in my travels around the country speaking to district councils was that yep some of them had some concerns about what was being proposed but they also absolutely acknowledged that the Resource Management Act was no longer fit for purpose. The whole idea of having a region-wide approach is that once things had been agreed there was certainty for business certainty for ordinary Kiwis that might be wanting to build a home or might be wanting to put up a shed or any of the normal things that require a consent. They can go in the streamlined approach: here's the parameters that are agreed; if you fit within those get on with it. That makes sense—that makes sense.I think it was fair for local government to register a concern about what they deemed to be a dilution of their local input. That had to be balanced up of course with the similar calls from the local government sector to say that simply many of them didn't have the resources to be able to comply with what was required under the Resource Management Act. That problem's not going to go away. There are many small rural and provincial councils who have a very small ratepayer base who are now about to face massive escalations and costs because the Government has indicated they want to repeal the affordable water reforms without any indication as to what it's going to be replaced with or indeed how it's going to work. And incidentally while I'm on that point I noticed the Hon Simeon Brown can't guarantee that balance sheet separation is going to be a part of it. He said it might be included or may be included or something—the crucial element.So we've got a situation where local councils were previously struggling under the RMA because of the cost burdens and their inability with their ratepayer base to pay for and allocate the resources that are required to do consenting. And now the additional costs that are about to come down because of the water reforms. That concerns me. Councils have been asked over successive Governments over many generations to increase the level of service to their communities but they haven't had the ability to be able to expand their revenue streams and revenue bases and this is just another example. No one's saying it was perfect—perhaps Rachel Brooking. Other than her no one was saying—Hon Rachel Brooking: Not even me.Hon KIERAN McANULTY: That's tongue in cheek because as you may have realised as the House may have seen the Hon Rachel Brooking is incredibly passionate about this and I want to commend the amount of work you put into there. Because this is the member's area of expertise and she dove right into it. She took on board the concerns that had been registered with us with the local councils with farmers with various stakeholders and made a genuine attempt to try and improve it.In fact I think it's fair to say that many of the concerns that have been raised today by the Government raised in justification of doing this—I'm yet to hear a justification about urgency but certainly justification repealing it—had been addressed by the member when she was Minister. So I do want to acknowledge that.It's a fair question. We want to know what this will be replaced with and I don't think it's good enough for the House or for the general public to have a response that is simply "We'll get to it but we've got to get rid of this now." I don't think that washes and it would have been incredibly interesting to have heard the feedback from the public. The reason I mentioned water reforms before—and I'll mention it again now—is because it's actually quite similar. Originally there was a large amount of concern about the water reforms. Some changes were made and then there was actually quite a lot of support particularly from the local government sector. In fact I had mayors that were previously opposed getting in touch with me asking to go first because the changes had improved it. I believe that's exactly the same with the changes that the Hon Rachel Brooking had made to this.So it would've been incredibly interesting to hear the feedback at the select committee process to actually gauge if that view had changed. I think that there is a genuine possibility a real possibility that some submitters that submitted originally expressing concerns now that they've seen the changes would come back and say "Actually this is much better now" or the more relevant question is: OK you might not have liked what the previous Government proposed but how do you feel about going back to the thing you didn't like in the first place? That's a fair question and that is a question that could have been teased out at select committee. This bill would have been improved as a result of that but we haven't had that opportunity.The only opportunity that we have now is in the committee of the whole House stage and we may as well register our interest early. This side of the House have a lot of questions."