Flavell Te Ururoa: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFlavell Te Ururoa: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 04 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16243. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]4.TE URUROA FLAVELL (Co-Leader—Māori Party) to theMinister for the Environment: Will she continue to protect the concept of cultural impact assessments as a key tenet of the Resource Management Act 1991 and does she agree with DavidTaipari Chair of theMāori Statutory Board for Auckland Council that like built heritage it was important to protect archaeological sites or sites of significance to mana whenua?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): I do agree that particular sites of significance to mana whenua are a key consideration under the Resource Management Act. In respect of the second part of the question I note that cultural impact assessment is not a mechanism referred to in the Resource Management Act. However I am aware that its use has evolved as a tool used by decision makers to give effect to obligations under the Act—in particular under sections 6(e) and (g) and 7(a). Ican confirm that it has always been our intention to maintain and in some cases enhance these provisions in our reforms.Te Ururoa Flavell: What will she do to encourage and support the inclusion of technical reports focused on cultural impact assessments into the assessment of environmental effects required under the Resource Management Act to ensure that a comprehensive and holistic view of all effects is understood and addressed to achieve the purpose and principles of the Act and to protect archaeological sites or sites of significance to mana whenua?Hon AMY ADAMS: Of course there is already obligation within schedule 4 which sets out the assessment of the environmental effects provision. It specifically requires all applicants to consider all of the effects of their proposal including historic and cultural impacts and works through how they must do that. It is very difficult within the structure of an Act like the Resource Management Act to specify exactly how that works in each case because of course of the myriad of situations that can arise. But I can certainly assure the member that that will continue to be supported under the current arrangements and there will be considerable support to councils as to how they give effect to that in practice under the proposed reforms.Te Ururoa Flavell: How will the Minister encourage local government to co-create with mana whenua systems and procedures to engage effectively with tangata whenua therefore reducing compliance costs for the applicant without sacrificing the fundamental role that mana whenua have in protecting sites of social historic and cultural significance?Hon AMY ADAMS: That is a critical part of what the reforms are trying to do which is to ensure that those interests are involved far earlier on in the planning process. And one of the failings in my view to date is that there has not been adequate and effective engagement with iwi and with stakeholders up front in the planning process. Under the reforms there is the proposal to have an iwi participation agreement right at the outset of all planning so that the council and all of the iwi groups in that area can work together on how they will integrate all of those issues into the plan frameworks so that applicants know exactly what they need to do in each situation and what work is required of them in each particular case.Rt Hon Winston Peters: With regard to the unelectedMāori Statutory Board for the Auckland Council why have 19 iwi been given unbridled power to claim rights to any piece of land in cultural impact assessments some so special the reasons may not be disclosed and yet charge applicants iwi by iwi thousands of dollars for these approvals?Hon AMY ADAMS: The bulk of that question really is outside my responsibility as Minister but what I can say to the member is that my understanding of what the council has proposed in its plan—and this is a matter for the council its plan and its community to work through—is that the council is requiring consultation not approval rights. It is not giving rights of veto. It is not requiring approvals. It is requiring consultation in certain situations. How that works how far the net is thrown and whether that is appropriate are matters that are being worked through right now.