Jones Shane: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Jones Shane: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6157] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Chairperson. I say before we start that it was very enjoyable having you in Te Tai Tokerau to show you the Marsden Point oil refinery and to learn what your party really thinks about climate change. However that is for another time. 
I want to focus on three elements before my colleagues contribute. The first is notification the second is the coast and the third is the decimation of the trees. No more totara no more rimu no more pohutukawa; all we will find in a National-dominated Tamaki-makau-rau is puha and wiwi. I want to know why Government members are spending all this time on developing a super-city but are unwilling to give the authority to the super-city to generate rules plans and safeguards for the resources of that particular area. They are insistent on carrying on with this. It looks like a “ninny State”—a nanny State development out of the National caucus much to the detriment of our people in Auckland. 
However let me come back to notification. Notification is referred to in one or two of the Supplementary Order Papers and the reason why we are very very reluctant to allow this to go unchallenged—and why we will not be agreeing with this particular provision in the context of the Committee debate—is that this is the first opportunity New Zealand neighbours and residents have to know about a proposed activity. We are entrusting far too much to the bureaucracy of the local government as to whether a matter is of a minor character. Once people lose that opportunity they lose goodwill and people feel that they are being denied a key part of what resource management married to social democracy means: a chance to have an influence through a guided process—not a gilded process but a statutory process. That chance has been removed. There has been a presumption that this bill is neutral. We would have preferred to see that citizens could rely on the fact that where an activity is proposed they will receive notice of it. It is highly likely that that activity will not have a deleterious effect on them anyway— 
Hon Tau Henare 
: What? 
Hon SHANE JONES 
: I shall repeat the word “deleterious” for Mr Henare because it has further to travel in order to educate him. However that is another matter. 
That is why we will focus on the area of public notification. 
I move on to the matter of the coast. The Minister in the chair the Hon Dr Nick Smith has had experience of this issue. I am really looking forward to hearing him explain how we account for stripping away from this area of the law any reference to the putative owner of the coast. Admittedly it is in the context of stewardship. The Minister has told us that the preferred model he presents in this legislation is a focus on rules on effects and on the regulatory responsibilities. But who owns the coast? The Government will not give it back to the tangata whenua and now it does not even want the Crown to hold it. It is almost as if ownership is floating around in some sort of ether. The public of New Zealand for public weal purposes need to know that the Government of the day is prepared to intervene and make a decision on such matters as whether a proposed project or activity ought to occupy that part of the coastal environment. That decision is not made just as to the ability of us to understand the effects; it is made as to whether New Zealanders through the agency of the Crown are comfortable with that portion of our environment being exclusively occupied for a given commercial purpose. That provision has been stripped out. We would like to see that provision not only restored but possibly enlarged so that we know as we move through these treacherous waters as to the Maori claims and the takutai moana that the Crown is not absolving itself of its Treaty responsibilities and its obligations to its Treaty partner. 
I come back very briefly to the matter of the trees. The issue has become very vexed and unfortunately members on the Government side of the Chamber have decided that Aucklanders cannot be trusted to come up with a solution. That is a bad decision and we will have more to say about it.