Barry Maggie: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: General Debate[Sitting date: 21 August 2013. Volume:692;Page:12686. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore):Well New Zealand is not at all well served by its Opposition members. What a woeful lot of wallies they turned out to be. They flounder they snap they carp and they work their way round the sidelines but they do not deal with anything important. We as a Government focus on what really matters which is the economy which is families which is housing and which is jobs. We are a Government that is getting on with the job and I will give you some examples.We just need to look at the environment and conservation. The Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act is a particularly fine example. This is a piece of legislation that has been passed. Unfortunately of course for 9 long years the Labour Government propped up by its buddies the Greens did absolutely nothing while 46 wells were drilled with absolutely no legislation and absolutely no protection for the environment whatsoever. Then what did it do? It compounded the problem. When we put through the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act which was a piece of legislation designed to fill that gap Labour blocked it. It tried to stop it. It argued against it. So it has absolutely no moral high ground whatsoever around this and I am very very proud that we put that legislation through despite its pathetic opposition.The Minister for the Environment Amy Adams said earlier that the quality of debate in this House has gone downhill in the time that she has been here and listening to the quality of the debate from the opposing benches today I can see why she says that. But why is that? Are the members deliberately misinformed and malevolent? Are they just politicking? Or are they woefully ignorant? I am tending to think with the Resource Management Act reforms that they are absolutely woefully ignorant. We have created a system with the Resource Management Act reforms that creates more certainty. It is less costly it enables growth and it protects core environmental standards. It is fantastic. The Resource Management Act is A-OK. That is what we think. The Opposition says “Not at all.”Opposition members are obviously not well-informed. In April Statistics New Zealand’s Business Operations Survey cited that the Resource Management Act led to uncertainty which in the past 2 years alone—Hon Trevor Mallard: She’s reading the research unit notes.MAGGIE BARRY: I am reading from the statistics. You would do well member to actually inform yourself and read a bit more because you speak constantly from a position of ignorance. For 2 years the cancellation of projects worth potentially $800million has occurred. What was the uncertainty that led to the cancellation of about two-thirds of these projects put down to? The Resource Management Act and its costly cumbersome reforms which do not work.The way that the system works currently needs to be changed. A dangerous brick chimney—one of my favourite examples—is an $800 demolition job basically but requires in terms of its resource consents more than $3000 worth of costings. This is the kind of stuff that actually has to stop. Some businesses would you believe have spent up to 25 percent—a quarter—of their total expenditures on just applying for the resource consents. The most damning of all I suppose in the business survey is that only 3 percent of businesses that were surveyed said that the current Resource Management Act enhanced their business. It does not work.Our record is a proud one. When it comes to water we introduced the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. We committed $340 million to cleaning up some of our most iconic rivers and lakes. We also introduced a national objectives framework. We have done more to clean up our waters to make good the problems from past generations than Labour ever did. In fact we have spent more than five times the amount that the Labour Government spent so it is simply farcical for the Greens and Labour to assume that we are not doing the right thing in this space. We are and they should be ashamed of themselves. They have gone a bit quiet which is a refreshing change.When we look at waste management—which is something they ought to know a lot about because they have wasted a lot of time with their mismanagement—this Government invested $43 million on 82 waste minimisation projects across the country in 2009. When it comes to contaminated sites we have spent $5.65 million on cleaning up those contaminated sites. Environmental reporting has been much improved under this Government and under the able leadership of our Minister for the Environment Amy Adams. When it comes to hazardous substances there was no movement in this area from that failed Labour Government and its buddies the fruit loop Greens. When it comes to the compliance of hazardous substances we have done excellent work in this space. Thank you.