Simpson ScottHon SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): Well thank you Madam Speaker. As my colleague Chris Bishop said: well here we are at the fag end of Government's time in office and we are going to see this piece of legislation rammed through while the Government is still in a position to use its absolute majority to do so. That of itself is sufficiently poor process but I want to spend a bit of time talking about the select committee process which is usual at a second reading debate. This bill was one of two pieces of legislation introduced just before Christmas last year and then submissions were opened over the Christmas summer break period. Notwithstanding the fact that most of the country was on holiday and those parts of the country that weren't on holiday were like mine in the Coromandel under water with roads closed—still the Environment Committee received more than 3000 submissions on this piece of legislation. It's a piece of legislation that is part one of a three-piece set of legislation—three bills that will ultimately in this Government's view replace our existing Resource Management Act (RMA). We've had the benefit of seeing the first two bills but we haven't seen the third one the adaptation piece. And so any discussion of the Natural and Built Environment Bill and the Spatial Planning Bill which we'll debating soon is actually very difficult if you haven't got the third piece of the jigsaw puzzle. In fact it's a bit like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle with your eyes blindfolded. What the select committee faced as did submitters was a Herculean task of trying to digest interpret and understand the complexities of the proposals that had been put before us.Now this legislation is based loosely—and I say loosely" because initially it was supposed to be based closely on what has become known as the Randerson report or what my colleague Chris Bishop refers to as the RMA mark II report. Essentially if we go back in time and think about when the Resource Management Act was passed in 1991 some of those players are the ones who are still trying to exert change on their failed system 30 years on. Randerson was part of that initial process as was David Parker back in the day. And so I understand that for the Hon David Parker this is a legacy legislation for him and he wants to see it through. But a process that has been so appalling and so rushed at select committee is simply unacceptable on what should be and what is to all intents and purposes the country's primary environmental statute and also the country's primary planning statute. To rush it through in the way that it was done I think is simply unacceptable. Sitting on the desk here in front of me is 1642 pages of departmental report—1642 pages of departmental report—complicated convoluted and confusing for select committee members let alone submitters let alone the public officials that were having to work their way through it but absolutely confusing for laypeople who will have to engage with this legislation should it ever come to pass. I want to acknowledge the work of my colleagues on the select committee and I particularly want to acknowledge the role of the select committee chair Eugenie Sage who did in my view an exceptionally good job. Now I don't always agree with her political views or those of her party but I have to say that she did a thoroughly professional job as select committee chair a very daunting prospect and she was across the mammoth detail of this legislation and so I take my hat off to her. But for the rest of us who were trying to grapple with this legislation it was a veritable minefield. And I challenge anybody in this House to have given it the due attention that it deserved because it is important legislation—and I don't think it has been given appropriate attention in such a short time. The select committee had to seek and receive two extensions in report-back time. So now we find ourselves going into the last few weeks of this Parliament and this legislation is going to be rushed through. I don't think it's going to serve New Zealand or our people or our environment or our built environment at all well. It's just not going to do what it says it should do. We in the National Party have agreed with I think every party in the Parliament for some time that resource management legislation does need updating it does need reforming but I didn't ever in my wildest dreams think that the alternative that would be presented by this Government could be worse than what we already have now—worse than what we already have now! It's more complicated more costly and more confusing. It provides no certainty for environmentalists or indeed certainty for people who want to get things done. At the first reading I remember saying that the National Party's simple test for this legislation would be: will it make it easier to get things done? And the answer after the long protracted but condensed select committee process is absolutely not. It's not going to make it easier to get things done. It's going to be a blight upon our statute book and a blight upon the country because it's not going to achieve what I think the Minister and his officials intended in terms of protecting the environment and it's certainly not going to deliver in terms of our built environment. There are a number of new terms words phrases definitions that are included in this proposed legislation. Now we had none other than the Chief Justice come to the select committee and make a submission saying—and it's unusual for the Chief Justice to actually come and have a select committee submission. But the Chief Justice did come and she warned the committee that there were potentially decades—decades—of costly time-consuming litigation ahead for people who were wanting to try and engage with this piece of legislation. This is a piece of legislation that if it ever sees the light of day in fulfilment is going to be years and years in the legal interpretation. It's going to be years and years in the application in terms of local government. It's going to be years and years in terms of the application in planning. And it's going to be years and years before any of the perceived real or imagined benefits to our natural environment can hope to be achieved.So here we are with a process that was condensed in time frame that was the subject of submissions that had to be rushed through a summer holiday break—and those submissions nearly every single one of the 3000 or more that we received had criticism of the legislation. It was universally being criticised from all sides of the argument and the debate. There were environmentalists who criticised it for not doing nearly enough for the natural environment. They wanted it to go a lot further. Iwi groups hapū groups came to select committee and said "We can't agree on the terminology that is being used. We can't see how the decision making will be made. We don't know who's going to make the appointments how they're going to be made who's going to do it how are they going to be accountable." We had local government people coming in saying that they were confused and could not see a way forward. We saw developers and builders and people who wanted to get on with creating the kind of environment for a thriving economy say that it would add cost and time delays that would be even worse than we currently have under the existing RMA. So we got to a point in the National Party where we decided after careful deliberation having heard the submissions having participated in what we always said would be a constructive way at the select committee—we came to the view that this is going to be worse than we currently have now. And that's actually saying something because we know what we have now is pretty awful. We know that what we have now isn't doing the job that we want it to do. And so if my colleagues and I in the National Party have the opportunity and the privilege of forming a Government at the end of October or in October this legislation even if it is forced through by the current Government will be repealed before this coming Christmas and it will be replaced. We cannot and will not support legislation that makes it harder to get things done that is more costly more confusing and more underperforming for our natural and built environment than this legislation. We do not support it and will not support it."