Shearer David: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Shearer David: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:9606] 
DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert) 
: 
 I am very pleased to rise and support the Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Bill introduced by the Hon Ruth Dyson being referred to the select committee. As the member pointed out in her introduction the bill raises the threshold for an acquiring authority to be able to acquire and in a sense violate or take over others’ property rights. Originally very few organisations in existence were able to do this. What we are seeing now is a multiplying of those organisations and today a number of private organisations can successfully take away the property rights of landowners. Ruth Dyson gave an example in Canterbury where a group of farmers effectively found themselves needing to defend their property rights from entities that they did not even realise were able to take away their land. 
I think the New Zealand public would be surprised to know of the number of organisations that can successfully take away people’s property rights today. This is a very simple bill that aims to protect those property rights that are a core and central part of our own rights as New Zealanders. If those farmers were watching this broadcast on television tonight they would be surprised to see that the party that they thought would be defending their interests is not supporting this bill that would enable their property rights to be protected; and that the ACT Party which makes so much of property rights and the defensibility of property rights is also willing not to support this bill but is willing to enable those entities out there to take their property more or less at will. 
This bill omits the word “appropriate” as Ruth Dyson said and substitutes for it the word “necessary”. It states that the approval of the applicant as a requiring authority—therefore being able to take another’s land or property rights—is “necessary” for the purposes of carrying out the project not simply “appropriate”. That is a very simple change of law but nevertheless a very important one. The second part of the criteria is that “the project work or network utility operation is in the public interest;”. As my colleague Brendon Burns said it is in the wider interest not in the narrow interest of those who would simply like to take somebody’s property rights. 
This legislation tightens up an anomaly in the Resource Management Act that needs to be tightened. It is very simple it should be referred to the select committee and it could be passed very simply. People such as those we have talked about in the central plains could have their property rights adequately protected. 
How does the bill address the issues in front of us? It increases the threshold for the approval of a requiring authority. A requiring authority could not simply slide in and take property as it can at the moment. It strengthens the Ministry for the Environment and it will be required to be satisfied that the applicant seeking approval as a requiring authority actually needs to be a requiring authority. Again it is a simple but very fundamental clause. It will no longer be appropriate for the applicant simply to be a requiring authority; the applicant for requiring authority status will need to have that out of necessity. The applicant has to need the ability to issue the notices of requirement for the designations to carry out its work. In short this is good legislation that deserves to be passed through to select committee to be discussed and to be passed into law to protect the property rights of those people who would otherwise lack that protection. Thank you.