Rurawhe Adrian; Simpson ScottRESOURCE MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed from 27 May.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Members when we were last considering this bill the Hon Scott Simpson had the call and he has seven minutes 10 seconds remaining if he should wish to do so. Hon Scott Simpson: Thank you Mr Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call the Hon Scott Simpson. Just before he starts I'll start the clock at five minutes after you've done two minutes 10 seconds just to let you know.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): I trust your mathematics Mr Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Ha ha! Might be a bit longer.Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: Might I say at the outset that it's a great pleasure to be speaking and finishing my presentation on this second reading at the relatively respectable hour of 9.30 in the evening as opposed to a couple of minutes to midnight last Friday night when the House was in urgency discussing this very bill. For those people listening at home or watching on television or indeed in the Chamber who were not up at a couple of minutes before midnight on Friday night listening intently to the discussions taking place in this Chamber the National Party will be opposing the second reading of this tinkering piece of resource management amendment.This is by my count the 19th substantive amendment to the Resource Management Act (RMA) and bizarrely the purpose—David Seymour: This one'll work!Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: This one might just work Mr Seymour yeah; it might just work this one! That's what the Government thinks but bizarrely in the purpose clause of the bill and in the introductory comments it says that the objectives of this bill are to reduce complexity increase certainty restore public participation opportunities and improve Resource Management Act 1991 processes. The bill also supports the urgent need to improve freshwater management. Well that's effectively been the same prayer that has been the preface and the purpose of every one of the 18 amendment bills prior to this one.Actually what's required in terms of resource management amendment is a complete start again. That is a very big piece of work. In fact I'm reminded of a conversation I had with former Attorney-General the Hon Chris Finlayson QC a couple of years ago when he said Well actually the only real way to deal with the Resource Management Act is to start again." But he was quick to point out that in his professional and political opinion that would be a 15-year project. It may well be but if that's what it takes to actually get planning legislation and to get the primary environmental protection legislation of New Zealand into a shape that is finally a piece of legislation that can be respected can be understood can achieve results quickly fairly and equitably for New Zealanders then maybe that's what's required because this piece of tinkering legislation does not achieve any of the things that are set out in the purpose statement of the legislation.One of the most troubling aspects of this piece of tinkering legislation is that it seems to have an element of vindictiveness about it. What I'm talking about is that the primary function of most of the changes in this legislation is simply to undo the work that was done in the last Parliament led by my colleague the Hon Nick Smith. He made some very good changes and this piece of legislation effectively just for the sake of pettiness really seems to want to just undo those. It's a bit of political point-scoring. The fact that it's taken the Government nearly its entire three years to get to it I guess tells the House and members of the public something about the Government's real enthusiasm for this. It's a rushed piece of legislation towards the end of their term of Government and as I say there's a level of vindictiveness to it that I find quite upsetting.But really at the core of it the thing that is most concerning is that the Government themselves have set about in November of last year to appoint an expert panel led by no less a person than a retired appeal court judge the honourable Tony Randerson to actually produce sensible considered well-thought-out RMA reform proposals. Now it was pre-COVID that that committee that working group chaired by the honourable Tony Randerson was due to report before the end of last month in May. Now we're told that the Minister in his speech the other night at about 10 minutes to midnight made it clear that he now expected that report to be conveniently another month or two away—conveniently because it's going to be in mid-September that we're going to have a general election. Isn't that fortuitous—isn't that fortuitous!Dan Bidois: Who would have thought!Hon SCOTT SIMPSON: "Who would have thought." says my colleague the member for Northcote. What we have is a situation where a piece of reform work is going to be presented to this Parliament this Government literally a few days if not a matter of weeks before the general election.So why are we tinkering with this? Well the questions remain unanswered. The select committee as they went through their work wasn't really able to provide any sensible answers. But what was very apparent at select committee was that there is very clear consensus that both the Government Labour Party for one—no one quite knows what New Zealand First thinks about it and the Greens of course will go off on an ideological flight of fancy but certainly the Labour Party of the coalition and National we agree that the RMA in its current form is underperforming. It's underperforming for our planning and built environment and it's certainly underperforming in terms of being the nation's primary resource and piece of legislation to protect our natural environment.There's nothing in this bill for instance that's going to address housing affordability; it's going to make building houses more difficult. They've tried to bring in under the cover of COVID a quirky little thing where suddenly climate change is going to have to be considered as part of the consenting process. Now an earlier amendment backed by a Labour Government in 2004 specifically excluded—specifically excluded—consideration of climate change matters in RMA consenting and that was done for the very good reason that every single council will have a different interpretation; every regional council will have a different interpretation. But no for some reason a Government policy halfway through the select committee process sought to introduce suddenly that climate change should be a factor considered by resource consenting process. We don't think that that's a good idea we don't think that's appropriate; we think it's just very messy and very ill-considered.So we're going to oppose this piece of legislation. It's tinkering it doesn't add any value and actually what's really required is a start-again approach to resource management in New Zealand."