Robertson GrantGRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I am sure the Minister Nick Smith will in fact appropriately come after me because I have got some questions for him. I want to focus my intervention here on clause 37 especially around the question of the artist formerly known as the national planning template now called the national planning standards. But before I do I have got a specific question around Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 281 in the name of Marama Fox which has been debated a number of times already in the Committee.This is the deal as it were to make sure that the rules around regulations that prohibit or remove certain rules do not apply to rules or types of rules that regulate the growing of crops that are genetically modified organisms. I just want to be clear on the definition of the word crop" as to whether or not that actually includes—Hon David Parker: Good question.GRANT ROBERTSON: —thank you very much—ryegrass or pine trees for instance. Are they crops? Certainly around pine trees I know that would be one of the concerns that was being raised when this matter was put forward. The definition of the word "crops" is a little hard to find. Marama Fox has just arrived in the—sorry I should not say that. Marama Fox might now be able to respond to me. I am just looking for some assistance from the member for her SOP 281 perhaps through the Minister as to what the definition of the word "crop" is and whether or not that does include things like certain types of grasses ryegrass or particularly pine trees. I do note that in a quick search of other legislative definitions of the word "crop" I have come across one in a regulatory bill for 1999 that says that " 'crops' means crops whether matured or otherwise and whether naturally grown or planted attached to land by roots or forming part of trees or plants attached to land;" then it says "but does not include trees"—Hon David Parker: What about pasture?GRANT ROBERTSON: —or pasture. I think that is quite an interesting clause because it specifically excludes trees from the definition of "crops". So if the intention of Marama Fox in SOP 281 has been to cover GMOs generally in the environment I think we have clarified a little bit today that we are not talking about GMOs in the lab—good. But now we are talking about excluding crops here. I for one looking at this SOP want to be sure that (a) we know what we are voting for but (b) that it meets the concerns of the groups that have been advocating for this. As I say I know from previous work in this space that GM pine trees are definitely one of the issues that has been put out there.Hon David Parker: And GM ryegrass.GRANT ROBERTSON: And ryegrass as well Mr Parker. That is right. So I am sure that the Minister the officials or the member who has drafted the SOP will be able to help us with that definition of the word "crops" lest we be misleading members of the public as to the extent of the exclusion for GMOs within those plans.To return now to clause 37—as I said the artist formerly known as the national planning template now called a national planning standard. In the submission process nearly the majority of submitters actually supported the concept of having a planning template. That is understandable because that kind of guidance is actually useful and important. But the concern that submitters raised throughout the process having got their heads around the idea that there would be a template—77 percent of submitters actually had problems with its implementation. The Local Government and Environment Committee clearly gave quite significant consideration to this and basically tore apart clause 37 and put some other bits in. But I do not think it has solved two of the fundamental problems which I want to talk about now and perhaps the Minister can help enlighten me on this.I now want to refer particularly to what is now new section 58C(3)(a) in clause 37 which talks about what a national planning standard may do. It may "specify the structure and form of regional policy statements and plans:"—absolutely fine. Subsection (3)(b) says "direct local authorities—(i) to use a particular structure and form for regional policy statements and plans:". Here we start again to get into the overreach of the Minister. We talked about this earlier on in clause 105—that the regulatory power was going too far. Here we have got moving beyond what is a template to actually the content of that template.We then go to subsection (3)(b)(ii) which says it may also direct local authorities "to include specific provisions in their policy statements and plans:". That is not a template any more. That is a direction from the—Mr Chair? You should probably ring a bell. Mr Chair?The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Righto. Grant Robertson—final call I think.GRANT ROBERTSON: It was so enlightening Mr Chair that you were gripped by my words. I understand that.Hon Amy Adams: It's called insomnia.GRANT ROBERTSON: Ha ha! Insomnia with his eyes open Minister. But yes. So in subsection (3)(b)(ii) we have a national planning standard that may direct local authorities to include specific provisions in their policy statements and plans. This is the very kind of overreach that we are talking about today where the Minister is taking powers that should or would lie in the hands of regional councils and using an instrument that he has called a template to do that. That is not what the submitters who actually favoured this were looking for. In fact they were quite clear in the concerns that they raised. A number of them if we look down at the opposition—so 77 percent opposed its implementation. The reasons for that include a lack of evidence for a new planning instrument of this type—that came from district councils and iwi—and then the erosion of local democracy in decision making. That is exactly what this section does.Just look at the groups that actually opposed this: Stevenson Group the Kaikōura District Council Local Government New Zealand the Resource Management Law Association the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment Genesis Energy and Fish & Game. You would hardly get all of those people in the room all at once at the same time without some sort of barnyard brawl and here they all are telling the Minister that he is overreaching again and that he is actually putting in place a measure that will erode local democracy and that will undermine the very premise of the Resource Management Act—that the decision-making power should be held at the local level close to those who know how to solve the problems.If the Minister gets up and tells me "This is about guidance. This is about making sure that there is consistency."—that is what national policy statements (NPSs) and national environmental standards are about. That is the very purpose of them. So for a piece of legislation that is allegedly here to make things easier and more effective and more efficient it is just another layer. It is another layer and it is so poorly developed that it is another layer that ends up with the same acronym as one of the layers that already exists. So now we have got two types of NPSs. We have got national policy statements and national planning standards and national environmental standards so it is some sort of weird hybrid morphed body of the two that has emerged out of the select committee as it tries to clean up the mess that the Minister has created for it. So there are real concerns about the implementation of this template or standard.I want to just mention the submission of the Hawke's Bay Regional Council because I think its submission sums up where the good could be in this but where it goes off the rails. It has said that "The template"—or now called a standard—"should be limited to a pattern or plan format that identifies: (i) The plan format and layout … E-planning provisions including for both text and the associated planning maps" matters that the council should address provisions that must be included as a result of existing rules and plans and NPSs and a glossary of terms. That is actually a useful set of things that will help guide and make more efficient and more effective the way in which plans work at the moment at a regional and local level.Meka Whaitiri: Smart people come from Hawke's Bay.GRANT ROBERTSON: They are—very smart people from the Hawke's Bay Regional Council. But sadly despite the best efforts of the select committee we have not actually seen sufficient changes to address those ideas.I just want to mention in the time that is remaining to me some further concerns around the implementation of the template and in particular submitters who were very concerned about the amount of power that was given to the Minister to decide on template content. Submitters were particularly concerned that there was no requirement for a hearing and no avenues for appeal. Again this is just a good example of the way in which the Minister—if we give him credit—was trying to find a way to make the Act more effective and more efficient but has actually just ended up making it more complex and more difficult and has added a layer of uncertainty and confusion to the planning process. We could do so much better. I think everybody in this Committee knows that there are ways to improve the way that plans are drafted. There is the odd element in this bill that does that. The national planning template could have been a good idea but unfortunately its implementation is deeply flawed."