Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I'm pleased to take a call on the Spatial Planning Bill. As others have noted it does provide for a strategic framework for environmental management and regional development with a term for the regional spatial strategies of 30 years but also looking out and being informed by climate change predictions over the next century. It will guide major decisions about how land and also coastal space is used and allocated.As the Randerson review said one of the frequent criticisms of the Resource Management Act (RMA) is that it has been too slow in responding to demand for increased housing leading to higher costs and a great deal of inequity. That's partly due to development occurring in an ad hoc way rather than being strategically focused and partly because plan development has been quite slow and litigious.At the moment the Auckland Council is the only council that's required to have a spatial plan and there hasn't been a consistent framework in the RMA to encourage it. And as Tāmati Coffey noted councils such as Tauranga and those in the Bay of Plenty through Smart Growth have worked really hard on doing spatial planning but they've had quite a weak mandate and there's been limited incentives elsewhere for councils to cooperate. It depends very much on the personalities of councillors and chief executives and just whether they actually get to do that. So they've had to develop as they did with Smart Growth their own governance and decision-making arrangements. So this bill is a step forward in providing that framework for spatial planning to happen across the country.And as Rachel Brooking noted it's a really important step forward because one of the problems in areas like Tauranga—or everywhere really—has been that central government agencies might be at the table sometimes but there is no commitment to the funding to follow through on the decisions that are agreed about where infrastructure goes. Generally it has been the transport agency Waka Kotahi. It hasn't necessarily been the education ministry health in ensuring if you're building new communities where the health facilities where the schools and preschools go. So the Randerson review highlighted about five key problems: no outcomes focus on the RMA; poor alignment of land use and infrastructure plans; not enough focus on the long term; and that inadequate engagement and coordination between local and central government. The review team recommended that spatial planning was a key tool to achieve that integration and that has led to this bill.As with the Natural and Built Environment Bill it will be these regional planning committees with two iwi members and council representatives which will be the real workhorses to drive the development of the regional spatial strategies. They will cover potentially a large geographic area: the whole of the region land and territorial sea. I envisage that they'll map the pattern of existing infrastructure; the areas that will be subject to constraints because of natural hazards flooding risk sea-level rise risk; what areas are suitable for new development; and where new infrastructure should be located.One of the issues though that means the Green Party is only supporting this bill to select committee is that the bill does appear once again to embed the bias in the RMA towards use and development rather than protection. Clause 17 includes the list of key matters that the regional spatial strategy should address and the key matters in relation to protection restoration or enhancement are areas that may require protection restoration or enhancement. If we contrast that with all of the other matters they are areas that are appropriate for urban development and change. In the Greens we want to make sure that there's the same investment in providing information identifying areas that need protection because they've got threatened species present where there shouldn't be more vegetation clearance there shouldn't be more urban development—the same level of investment and research on that as there is on identifying areas that are suitable for subdivision. At the moment words like may" make it very very vague and provide absolutely no certainty that nature will be better off through these regional spatial strategies.Also concerned in the list of key matters was matter (d) which is "areas that are appropriate for developing using or extracting natural resources including generating power:" because under a former National Government there was a list of rivers prepared that were suitable for hydro generation. They included wild rivers rivers like the Clarence and Marlborough famed for rafting and kayaking. So we want to see a greater attention in the Natural and Built Environment Bill to tools like water conservation orders so that they actually do protect wild rivers and we don't see things like these regional spatial strategies identifying a list of rivers that generators would like to get their hands on.One of the significant changes in this from the exposure draft is that we now have 15 regions. There was strong advocacy by Marlborough Nelson Tasman and Te Tau Ihu iwi that they shouldn't be combined in a whole Te Tau Ihu top of the south region. So we do have Nelson and Tasman preparing their own regional strategy and Marlborough preparing its own because there are quite different issues in terms of geography and particularly the big investment in aquaculture in the Sounds.The provisions in the bill around public engagement and consultation are crucial because you cannot—if we're preparing these regional spatial strategies with a 30-year life being reviewed every nine years they need to really engage with the public so that they have a real input in deciding what happens where and how they'd like their communities to evolve. We need much more innovative tools things like citizens' assemblies polling public opinion ensuring that children have a really strong voice not just relying on the traditional submission and hearing process. But again there's a bit of a concern here. Clause 32 certainly provides that the process must encourage participation but there's a qualifier that it's "by the public and all interested parties particularly those who may be involved in implementing the regional spatial strategy." That potentially gives a stronger weight to the infrastructure providers to the telcos and the corporate interests and again weakens protection for the environment. So there needs to be really good and innovative participation but not biasing certain interests.One final issue is in all these regional spatial strategies some of the key infrastructure will of course be around three waters. The House is going to go on to consider the Water Services Entities Bill but it's not clear—because you've got very different regions 15 regions in this bill and the Natural and Built Environment Bill but only four entities whose boundaries don't match on to the regions—how this really good coordinated spatial planning will actually happen. And it's not clear too about the relationship between the regional planning committees operating under the RMA reform and the regional representative groups. You really need that coordination and there's nothing that I can see in the Water Services Entities Bill and nothing in this bill which actually teases that out when three waters infrastructure is exactly the sort of infrastructure that we need to be planning ahead for.One of the other major concerns is that the bill doesn't appear to promote the precautionary approach in terms of—there's quite a high bar to identifying areas where adverse effects might occur rather than if there is a likelihood of those or we don't have sufficient scientific understanding ensuring that those areas aren't identified for development. So the Green Party is happy to support those to select committee but we will be seeking some significant changes there and our position beyond that will depend on that. I really look forward to public submissions and am concerned that there may not be enough time to tease through all of the issues with this bill and the Natural and Built Environment Bill just in a six-month process."