Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6200] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) 
: 
 That was such an extraordinary contribution from Lynne Pillay that I just have to respond. First up she claimed that kauri in the Waitakere Ranges are at risk. What total garbage! Not one tree in the public areas of the Waitakere Ranges is affected one iota by the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill which is before the Committee. 
The second point I make to the member is to ask why if Labour is so opposed to clause 52 every Labour member of the Local Government and Environment Committee voted for it. If the bill will bring about the end of the world as we know it— 
Hon Member 
: Death by a thousand cuts. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: —and “death by a thousand cuts” as Lynne Pillay has said why did every member of the Labour team on the select committee vote for it? 
Thirdly Lynne Pillay wants me to respond quite specifically to her amendment. It is truly “Einsteinian” and truly intellectual. It will really stretch the limits. She wants to change the wording in the bill so that councils can schedule or provide for trees in plans and can use maps. That is a good one! I have to advise the member that I am legally advised that her amendment will have absolutely zip effect and that it is perfectly possible within district plans— 
Lynne Pillay 
: Then pass it—support it. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member says we should pass her amendment. She says we should pass an amendment that will do absolutely nothing. I do not know whether she has noticed but if we look at any one of our district plans what do we see? 
Hon Members 
: Maps. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Maps. So I am not sure whether the Government will be choosing to include an amendment that provides for maps although I reassure the member that councils will continue to be allowed to have maps in their district plans. 
A further point I will make which is about something that seems to have focused the mind of the member is about how councils will be able to make provision for the protection of trees in the process that is used by 90 percent of councils. Let me make it very plain for her. With great relief on 1 October Aucklanders will no longer have to apply for resource consents to trim their trees. As a consequence I am advised that the work of about a dozen staff and about $2 million of resource will no longer need to be applied to that meaningless function. The staff will no longer have to do that work. I think everybody—homeowners and others—will be relieved about that change. 
I simply ask that rather than those council staff members doing that meaningless task they do a worthwhile job—that is get round their suburbs their beautiful areas of Auckland and whip around with a very simple device a locator and find out from the council plans where those significant trees are that we really should be protecting. I have confidence that they will get on and do that. 
The last point I will make is that Lynne Pillay and others have quoted a number of arborist businesses that are desperately opposed to this provision. Well of course they are. When people are required to get an arborist’s report to be able to trim or remove a tree the average cost for them is over $1000. I am advised that those businesses at the moment are earning over $5 million a year from the current requirement of the law. Are we as a Parliament surprised that those businesses would like the law to remain the same? I am not. Of course they want that to be the case but the decision for this Parliament is not about the interests of those arborist businesses. They are not of concern to me; what concerns me is— 
Phil Twyford 
: What about all the citizens? 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: —exactly—the ordinary citizens we are empowering through this provision. But where I think Mr Twyford and I differ is that he says that citizens will protect their trees only if there is a busybody bureaucrat from a local council telling them that they have to look after their trees; members on this side of the Chamber say that the vast bulk of Aucklanders value and want to protect their trees and do not need a nanny State Labour Party or a busybody bureaucrat telling them to do so.