Dyson RuthHon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills): There has been a bit of a theme running through the National Government over recent times. That is the theme of: They know everything and everybody else is wrong." That is exactly what the scrambled thinking of the Minister the Hon Nick Smith and the total lack of leadership of the Prime Minister the Rt Hon Bill English has demonstrated in this legislation. The Resource Legislation Amendment Bill is being used as an opportunity to reduce public input into decisions that have a major impact on the amenities and the environment in which we live and the Auckland housing crisis is being used as the excuse. It is very hard to justify given that the Minister consistently denies there is a housing crisis in Auckland let alone spreading throughout the rest of the country but there clearly is. Then he says: "Because of this housing crisis which does not exist we are going to gut the Resource Management Act even further."I remember when the resource management legislation was introduced into New Zealand. For the first time we had a change from the old town-planning regime of rules and regulations and we moved to an effects-based piece of legislation. It was a big challenge but people were interested in looking not just at rules but at the impacts of development the way that our cities and our rural towns could be friendlier to families and their citizens and the way that we could develop our infrastructure in a manner respectful to the environment. Those are tensions that are hard to meet and the Resource Management Act sought to do that. The whole of Parliament agreed on that legislation. Of course at that stage there were only two political parties here—it was before the start of MMP—but it was supported by the whole of Parliament. In my view something as important as the rules around developments that have an impact on our lives should be supported by the overwhelming majority of Parliament if not by the whole of it instead of this bill which is going to just squeak through in what I think has been a pretty shabby deal. I say that with respect to the Māori Party. I do not agree with the deal that has been done having more merit than the damage that is being done by the rest of the legislation.The resource management amendment Acts introduced by the Government since 2008 have just continually reduced the opportunity for ordinary citizens and communities to have a say in what is happening in their area. In Christchurch the combination of the 2009 resource management amendment combined with the central government imposition of a truncated and restricted input let alone appeal of district plan changes have caused communities to feel disempowered and tricked and they have been by this Government—they have been. We no longer have the valid say on developments in our area that we used to. This is bad for local democracy. It is bad for the empowerment of citizens.Anyone in this Parliament would I am sure sit around a table with the relevant Ministers and say "What are the problems with the Resource Management Act and how can we work together to sensibly fix them?" but that is not what the Minister does. The Minister who knows everything sits in his ivory tower totally ignoring all the contributions to this legislation. These are not fringe groups here—we had Local Government New Zealand we had regional and district councils we had Fonterra we had Fulton Hogan Ltd we had airport owners we had the New Zealand Law Society we had the Environmental Defence Society we had Forest and Bird and we had Fish and Game New Zealand. It was a pretty broad range of submitters and they all opposed the legislation. But the Minister would say from his ivory tower: "I know best. They are all wrong." Well Minister I do not agree with that. I think that in this Parliament we should listen to submitters particularly when a broad range such as I just outlined come in and say "This is a bad bill." and that is what they all said—"This is a bad bill."We could improve the Resource Management Act in a way that all New Zealanders would benefit from but cutting citizens' voices out of democratic processes and blaming the Auckland housing crisis is not the way to do it. It does demonstrate a scrambled way of thinking from the Minister and a total lack of leadership from the Prime Minister. We need more solutions working together not this."