Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management and Electricity Legislation Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:627;Page:22317] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 We heard from Minister Hobbs this afternoon that this Supplementary Order Paper is the result of special pleading—a kind of special pleading that is open to some stakeholders but not to others. In the adjournment month they have knocked on her door and local government and resource management lawyers have come as have other stakeholders and they have persuaded the Government to change policy as introduced in this Supplementary Order Paper. Yet the only example the Minister could give us of changes that were the result of listening to the people in this way was that the Environment Court when it looks at the evidence should have to consider the decision made by the council hearing. That matter was actually inserted in the bill as reported back. So it is still not quite clear which of these changes are the result of special pleading to the Minister during the adjournment. But it does reflect the selective approach to consultation that we see also in the Cabinet minutes which agree to the setting up of reference groups on national policy statements and national environmental standards whereby selective consultation is with the industry to be regulated rather than with the public the environmental movement or whatever is progressing the work on these environmental standards and national policy statements. 
Transpower told the Local Government and Environment Committee that it was already working with officials to write the standards for high voltage transmission lines and the standards for electromagnetic fields as produced by those transmission lines. Transpower told us that the draft of those standards was expected to be ready to go out for public submissions in July. So we must be very close now given that this is the beginning of August. But nobody on any of those consultation groups is reflecting the wider public interest or the environment. It is the regulators and the regulated working together. 
I have to comment on Brian Connell’s remarks about Blue Mountain Lumber. As far as I know Brian Connell does not live in the Coromandel and is not particularly familiar with what has gone on in our local community. Everybody in the Coromandel agrees that processing the forests in the northern Coromandel locally would be a good idea. But the site chosen by Blue Mountain Lumber was a peaceful rural valley a completely inappropriate site between two streams that fed directly into the waters of the Whangapoua Harbour against the backdrop of the spectacular “castle” up on the Coromandel ranges. There was no possibility of that site not contaminating the two streams and the harbour. It was not an industrial site. It was a rural site and it was an area of tourism importance and the local community objected to that site being used. The local councils did not agree because they want to see economic development but the Environment Court did agree and that is the way the Resource Management Act is meant to work. 
Furthermore one of the points of local processing was to reduce the amount of timber trucking on the roads so that what was taken out from the mill would be sawn timber instead of whole logs and that would reduce the number of trucks going down the Coromandel coast on those windy roads. But lo and behold what did Blue Mountain Lumber want to do? It wanted to build a really big mill too big for the trees in the forests of the northern Coromandel so it wanted to truck trees in. That company wanted to truck whole logs up the Coromandel Peninsula to the mill so it could then truck the sawn timber back down again. That is the reason why the local people opposed this site. They did not oppose an industrial site for example in an industrial part of Whitianga or another town up there. It was inappropriate development and that is exactly what the Resource Management Act is for—to stop that kind of development. The Act worked and the National Party should just accept that. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Dr Nick Smith to Part 1 be agreed to: 
to insert the following new clause: 
5ABCertain rules in proposed plans to have effect 
The principal Act is amended by repealing section 20 and substituting the following section: 
20Certain rules in proposed plans or proposed plan changes to have effect at the discretion of the local authority— 
(1)A local authority may before publicly notifying a proposed plan or a change to a plan resolve that: 
(a)any rule in the plan or proposed change to the plan does not have effect until the plan or proposed plan change becomes operative; or 
(b)any rule in the plan or proposed change to the plan will have effect in substitution for any existing rule until the plan or proposed plan change becomes operative. 
(2)Public notification of the plan must include the resolution. 
(3)If the resolution is rescinded the local authority must as soon as possible publicly notify: 
(a)the rescission; and 
(b)the resolution to which it relates; and 
(c)the date of the rescission. 
(4)A rule to which a rescinded resolution relates has effect as a rule in the plan or ceases to have effect in substitution for any existing rule for all purposes on and from the day after the date on which the rescission is publicly notified. 
(5)A reference in this Act (except in Schedule 1) and in any regulations made under this Act to a proposed plan excludes a rule in the plan if— 
(a) the rule is subject to a resolution under subsection (1)(a); and 
(b) the resolution has not been rescinded. 
(6)If a local authority has resolved that any rule in the plan or proposed change to the plan will have effect in substitution for any existing rule until the plan or proposed plan change becomes operative pursuant to subsection (1)(b) then for the purposes of this Act the existing rule will cease to have effect until the resolution is rescinded or the plan or proposed plan change becomes operative.