Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Speaker. It is a pleasure to speak on the Natural and Built Environment Bill. What we've heard is quite a bit of passion from both sides of the House. I think one thing that anyone listening to this debate can be certain of is that everyone in the House cares for the environment. What we're hearing is a contest of ideas—a contest of principles in which we should approach the management of the natural and built environment. We should not be afraid of that. We're about to go through a contest of ideas when the House rises on 31 August through to 14 October. Not agreeing on something is healthy actually. If we all agreed on it probably the bar is not high enough I would suggest or it's too woolly to worry about. The member who just took her seat Arena Williams; I don't agree with everything that she said but I cannot for a moment question her passion on this idea and I think that's great—it's fantastic. But also equally my ACT colleague earlier also spoke with great passion with a diametrically opposed point of view and I don't think that's an unhealthy thing.I have not had the pleasure of being on the Environment Committee through the hearing of all the evidence for these bills but I do want to take a moment to acknowledge the chair of the select committee Eugenie Sage's herculean efforts to steer the select committee through that process and all the other permanent members on that select committee because it was a heck of a job. What a pity after all that work to have almost 1000 pages of a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) dumped on the Table which really I think was a kick in the teeth really.Hon David Parker: That's not true—that's just not correct. It was done at select committee.STUART SMITH: Well I think the Minister has had his turn. And I think that that SOP is just too much to bear. The exposure draft—I did go through that exercise—was also futile because there were so many empty clauses that meant nothing really; they were all placeholders.So we heard evidence—a lot of it actually quite prescient when we went on to find what the bill was and warned against the very things that we have in the bill. For example the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi—what does that mean? And we actually asked—and I was present when that was asked I'm pretty sure I do remember that—the officials: What are the principles then?" And they said "Well they're evolving." That is the issue that time after time we did hear and we asked many questions of the Minister in the chair: "What does that mean? How is that going to be interpreted by the courts? How is that going to be interpreted when there is no actual definition?" What we heard actually in the Environment Committee on another matter referring to the same issue from a constitutional lawyer was that actually the law has a principle in that the law should be known by all—should be known by all. You don't have to know it but you should be able to know it. And what we have riddled throughout this bill are principles and references that are unknowable at the moment—for example the principles of the Treaty because they are evolving. The previous speaker said that referring and giving effect to the Treaty was great—that was fantastic. Well the Treaty ceded sovereignty in article 1 and then it conferred property rights and then in the third article of the Treaty it gave equal citizenship. Well no one can disagree with that. We should just do that anyway. So what is the argument here and why that's in the Natural and Built Environment Bill I'm not sure. We don't know because we didn't get any explanation. We asked the Minister time and again—didn't get a thing out of it.We heard before that the bill was going to put the environment at the centre and at the front. Well I don't think it's ever not been quite frankly. To think that this is novel I think is not actually all that relevant. Values and actual thoughts and what is thought to be the right thing evolve over time. I'll give you an example of that. In south Marlborough it was thought by the Forest Service at the time and the catchment board that the best thing to do was to spread Pinus contorta around to stop the erosion of the hill country in south Marlborough which has now turned into an absolute environmental disaster. So having the environment as their cause was why those Pinus contorta seeds were actually planted—some of them right up above the bush line as you know I'm sure Madam Speaker because you've been there. And that has caused a huge environmental disaster today. Further conifers were advised by the catchment board to be planted to stop rabbits—unbelievably today. It actually gave a better environment for rabbits to thrive.So having the environment at the centre might sound great but that's not actually the end point. You've actually got to weigh things up; over time things change. This bill does nothing to improve on that. I think my colleague Chris Bishop put it pretty well when he talked about the fact that there's so much work going into this we've got to stick to it and carry on. He said it's the sunk cost fallacy and I think that's absolutely right. There's a lot of effort gone into this and undoubtedly the officials are beavering away at the moment on the assumption that this bill's going to pass and unfortunately it will. It will but it won't last long. Should we win the election on 14 October it will be gone by Christmas. We've given that undertaking and rightly so. And we do see a way forward. All the members on the other side have to do is look towards our Electrify NZ policy which shows how to deal with resource management in terms of renewable energy which we're all in favour of. By the way Contact Energy said this bill should it pass will make it much harder to build renewable energy. The New Zealand Wind Energy Association also said it would be much harder to build—Hon David Parker: Rubbish.STUART SMITH: —renewable energy under this legislation. Well the Minister says "Rubbish". He's such an expert—he's such an expert.Hon David Parker: The fast track applies to wind.STUART SMITH: And the fast track—how fast is that? Pretty slow as it turns out—in one year under our policy. All of these experts have looked at it and they actually have all dismissed the Minister's claims. I think the Chief Justice had something to say about that. What did the Chief Justice say? Was that a ringing endorsement? No it wasn't. He said it was going to be a very difficult bill to navigate and quite rightly so. Hon Member: Are you calling the Chief Justice a "him"?STUART SMITH: They're now complaining about the Chief Justice. Well you can't have it both ways. It's a contest of ideas and unfortunately some people are afraid of a contest of ideas perhaps because of the weakness of their own argument I can't possibly say.Angela Roberts said that the growth led to sustainability and ecological certainty. I'm paraphrasing; I'm not quite sure exactly what she said but along those lines. Sure we're in favour of environment. Our resources are limited but they are not that limited that we can't have a small impact on the environment. And under this principle of the bill it says that we must protect the natural environment. We've heard from legal experts that that is such a high test we're going to be tied up in court for decades and it's going to take 10 years to come into effect anyway.I think this bill is a wasted opportunity. I commend the Minister for having a crack but he went down the wrong track right at the beginning with the wrong principles. He's wasted a lot of time and energy and unfortunately when this bill passes it will trigger a series of court cases that will go for many decades. The legal profession—actually I thought they'd be delighted but they're not because they end up having to defend people and try and get their clients' projects across the line. And with all the uncertainty no one will know where it's going to go and how much it's going to cost and it is just a needless waste of this House's time. Thank you."