Willis Nicola; Parker DavidNICOLA WILLIS (National): Madam Chair—Hon Nathan Guy: Lucky the list ranking's been done!NICOLA WILLIS: Well it just explains why he wasn't considered as the Minister of Health. My questions for the Minister—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): Sorry to interrupt the member. That's a really unhelpful unparliamentary way of starting a debate which is meant to be a conversation—could the member resume her seat please—with the Minister not a cheap shot at other people. Nicola Willis—second attempt.NICOLA WILLIS: Madam Chair my questions to the Minister relate particularly to clause 12 Relationship between this Act and Resource Management Act 1991". And I build on questions that my in your words clever colleague Erica Stanford put to the Minister and that I'd just appreciate some more detail on. What they go to is the way that this bill interacts with the Resource Management Act (RMA). The Minister has shared with this House and with the New Zealand public that he has under way a working group to reform the Resource Management Act recognising some of its flaws. I think there's general agreement across the House that the RMA is responsible for delaying much-needed developments in New Zealand.So my question is: given that admission—that the RMA has these significant flaws—and given the intent of this bill and this particular clause in particular to fast track projects and carve them out of that RMA process has the Minister given thought to allowing this bill to continue beyond two years and instead to allow this bill to be in place for so long as it takes for reform of the Resource Management Act to have occurred? It seems to me that there is an opportunity here to fast track much-needed development across New Zealand not just restrictive to the 13 special projects in this bill but to include the many housing developments that we need in this country—to include for example the roading projects that are so desperately needed in Wellington and the transport projects that are needed throughout the country. So my question to the Minister is: on what basis will this interact with the Resource Management Act and whether or not he has given consideration to that relationship?I am also interested if I can just take this opportunity for the back and forth to ask the Minister on what basis he has defined the difference between the listed projects and the referred projects and I ask that with reference to his earlier answer that he felt that if too many projects were listed that could overwhelm the authority—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Ruth Dyson): That's a very good question to make on Part 2.NICOLA WILLIS: Well I'm referring Madam Chair to clause 12 "Listed projects and referred projects"—Part 1 clause 12 of the bill—which specifically outlines the processes that relate to listed projects and referred projects. My question for the Minister is simple and I'll take my chair in a minute and sit down but I simply want to ask why it is that he is confident that this authority won't be overwhelmed with referred projects. Because I put it to you Minister and Madam Chair that there are hundreds of projects in New Zealand that would like to avoid the delays and costs of the Resource Management Act and that would likely wish to be referred to this Act instead. Thank you.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Just referring to those questions this amendment bill does not seek to undermine environmental standards; it seeks to retain them and the references here to the Resource Management Act cross-referenced through other clauses of the bill achieve that outcome. In respect of how many projects could be referred before the system would be choked up—or "Couldn't it be choked up by referred projects?"—of course that's the very reason that the Government has retained control over how many projects are referred. The Government controls the number of projects that go through by virtue of the Order in Council process that applies to referred projects."