Parker David: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8312. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): I want to address two things. The first one will not take long. The first one is that I would like to know whether this new closing date for submissions of 28 February 2014 effectively puts out submissions that were made after that date. Are there submissions that were made after 28 February 2014 that because of this fixed date now being imposed are not going to be heard and do not have rights in the process? If so how many are there? I think that is very relevant to the decision that we are taking here as to whether we agree to that new date.The other point I want to make is in respect of new section 171(2) in clause 9 and also new section 115(ja) which is a consequential amendment set out in the schedule. The contrast here is to be made with what is happening in Christchurch. In Christchurch they had a need for a new plan as well as a consequence of the earthquakes. There was recognition that the normal plan-making processes would take too long. Normal plan-making processes include appeals to the Environment Court and at the Environment Court people have rights of cross-examination and can go into both the facts and the law. The reason that that process is being truncated in Christchurch is that they need a new plan and that would take too long and so there is some justification for shortening the process.There is also I think widespread recognition across most parts of the House that actually it does take too long to make Resource Management Act plans under the Resource Management Act. They take longer to make than it takes us to change a law in Parliament and therefore democratically elected local government officials cannot be elected on a platform and implement it because by the time the next election comes around they still have not finished the plan change which seems a bit nonsensical.Against that of course there is the need to protect the private interests and the legitimate interests of both private people and public organisations. Why is that? Well plans have enormous effects. They have multimillion-dollar effects. Whether you can subdivide land how many storeys you can build on a piece of land whether you can put a flat down below—all of these things have million-dollar consequences very expensive consequences. They also have lifestyle effects. If you are allowed to have a commercial zone right next to you then you are going to have to put up with a bit more noise and traffic. If you have a bar next to you that is going to be operating at all hours of the night then that has an effect on you. These things have an effect on people so what is the chance of changing that effect if you have not got a right to a fair process?When you have more than two people on a committee the chances are that the different concerns that are raised by people as to process are going to be more likely to be considered particularly if you have got a lawyer involved. This is where I want to go back to the Christchurch plan. This Parliament protected against unfair process by ensuring that Justice John Hansen a former High Court judge is in charge of that process there and therefore is more likely to impose upon his Auckland Unitary Plan Independent Hearings Panel—especially when he is there. But even when he is not there and he is authorising other forms of subsets of the hearings panel to hear submissions it is more likely to be a fair process. Here the hearing process retrospectively can be down to two people and the chairperson does not have to be there. That is what we are doing in respect of new section 171(2). We are saying that the chairperson does not have to be there. So I want to hear from the Minister in the chair Louise Upston as to what assurances we can have that in respect of these smaller panels we are still going to have a fair process.This is heightened by the provisions in new section 115(ja) where it says “the Hearings Panel may make recommendations to the Council in respect of a particular topic …”. If I am concerned about a particular topic and I go along to a hearings panel and it does not even refer my concerns back to the council what remedy have I got? It does not have to make recommendations in respect of my submission or the topic that I may raise and I have got no appeal rights to the Environment Court because we have truncated them. I will have had no cross-examination rights at the original hearings panel to highlight my concern or to show that some other information that is being presented to the council committee is wrong. So my rights have been severely truncated as a person whose life could be affected by say the fact that I have a tannery put up next door to my residential section—depending on where the planning line is drawn—or if I am a person who wants to bring forward affordable housing and I cannot do it because the minimum lot size is too high or the prohibition on multi-storey buildings is inappropriate around a transport node.All of these things have incredibly important effects not just on the individual but on society as a whole given the need that we have for more affordable housing in Auckland. I would like to hear from the Minister in response to those concerns that I have as to the fairness of the process particularly given—