Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): For a start I do feel the Opposition are flailing a little bit here around this idea that we are imposing complexity on the system. This system is being reformed because of the complexity of the current system. Under the current system do members know how long it normally takes to make a plan change? Ten years—10 years. I was speaking to someone from the hort sector the other day and I asked her what she was doing and she says What I'm always doing I'm in a constant unending melee of plan changes." It never finishes. Even within one region it never ends. It goes on and on and on for 10 years by which time they're starting again. It's ridiculous.What happens under the new system? Well the number of plans goes down from over 100 Resource Management Act (RMA) plans to 16—16. You can't tell me that once we go through this transition that 16 plans are going to be harder to put together than 100. I'm also confident that if we do the first ones well we'll avoid the mistakes of the RMA which has plans with unnecessary difference. There are some necessary differences but at the moment there's a lot of unnecessary difference—they're all laid out differently they have unnecessary differences within the same region. The recession plane might be 33 degrees or 35 degrees or 30—I'm sure the regions will be able to agree on 32.5 degrees or whatever the recession plane is at a boundary. So there'll be a number of plans—Hon Member: How can they agree?Hon DAVID PARKER: They don't have to—they don't have to. But I reckon common sense will prevail because you know what? I trust local politicians to want good outcomes for their people. They are so frustrated with the system. Who would want to be a mayor or a councillor in a council where you can't effect change through your planning instrument except over 10 years? Goodness me. Our processes around here are complex enough and long enough but 10 years to change a—what does that go to under the new system? Four years. Four years from whoa to go and you will have a regional plan. Four years. And that's partly because we're adopting the process that in fairness came from the National-ACT Party—Rodney Hide for putting together the Auckland Plan. Because the Auckland Plan bringing together the plans of all of the separate—Mount Albert you know the central Auckland city other Auckland—Hon Phil Twyford: Waitakere.Hon DAVID PARKER: Waitakere—Hon Phil Twyford: Manukau.Hon DAVID PARKER: Manukau—all of those district plans were put together into one plan and they did that through an independent hearings panel. It was chaired by an Environment Court judge in that case David Kirkpatrick and they did it. They did it and it was efficient and you've got a better plan in Auckland than you would other—it's not perfect it's not perfect but it's better. So we go down from 100 plans to 16 plans and instead of taking 10 years they take four. Now that's efficiency. That is efficiency and that's what the country needs.Now in respect of the benefits to users the cost-benefit analysis—the supplementary analysis report says that there's a number of benefits. There's going to be an increase in housing affordability of between $146 million and $834 million for the mid-range benefit per annum. It's quite significant. It will flow through to housing costs. In respect of consenting processes these become more efficient and the benefits to that are felt by the people who apply for resource consents or the people that buy services like roads and sewerage and footpaths and electricity and telecommunications and all of the other things that flow through to the price of a house. Those consenting cost savings are estimated for being between $210 million and $430 million—that's just the mid-range; it's not the top range I'm being relatively conservative here. So between $200 million and $430 million per annum cost saving; that's cost saving. It's real cash. And in addition to that the savings of time. If you're a developer and you have to hold land for an extra two or three years while you sort these things out those costs are astronomical they're much higher than the process costs.So there will be more permitted activities we have fewer plans and there is a duty under this legislation for that to be the outcome. In terms of the issues in respect of the Treaty issues that the National Party went back to again—you know because these take into account provisions in the RMA that didn't work we have had all of these bespoke arrangements up and down the country through Treaty settlements the most grunty of which were agreed by the National-ACT Government for the Waikato River Authority and the Hawke's Bay Regional Planning Committee."