Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well that was amusing because we had the ability to do all this in the last Parliament in fact but who was it that didn't vote with the National Government of the time to make those changes—to live in hope as that member the Hon Ron Mark points out? We've had opportunities but they decided to play politics. They were the ones who decided to vote against our very good amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA) at the time. So it's very rich for that member to stand up today and say Oh I live in hope that one day we can all work in a cross-party manner and rah-rah-rah." Absolute rubbish.This bill sums up the Labour—the whole of the Government actually—term so far: big promises big talk big slogans but absolutely no delivery. It's almost like they sat down and went "Well gosh isn't it terrible that we only built 395 out of the 10000 houses we promised with KiwiBuild? Now we're going to make sure that no one else can build a house either. We're going to make these incremental changes to the RMA to undo the changes that National put in place to make it more difficult to build houses to make it more costly and more timely." It's very interesting: I found that the Minister for the Environment at committee stage when I put to him—I said "Well why is it that you undoing those very good changes that we made in the last Parliament to make it more difficult and more costly to build houses?" He said "Oh well it's very important that we put these appeal rights back in because it's important that we get back to a base where people get to have their say." and he waffled on and on about getting back to a base where it's important that people have to have their say. At the same time—at the very same time—he's putting two bills forward the Urban Development Bill and the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill where he gets to completely circumvent the RMA. So on the one hand he's saying it's absolutely fine and we don't want appeal rights because that just clogs up the system and he's acknowledging that we don't want appeal rights in those cases and under that legislation but on the other hand when everyone else wants to subdivide their property or build a house well that's not OK. It's very very confusing and this whole bill—and I mentioned it in my second reading speech—is a confusing mess.We've all acknowledged—we've all said many times—that the RMA has become cumbersome. It's become huge and difficult to navigate. This will be the 19th amendment. It's unwieldly. There's certainly no good development that comes out of it and no good environmental effects. Actually the only people that make any money out of this are the legal consultants. They've done very well. So when the Government announced that they were going to undertake a programme of RMA reform—like they always do with their big announcements—we were quite excited about this because as we all know across the House everyone's in agreement that something has to be done. But what we ended up with was an expert panel led by Tony Randerson to come up with a report that's going to give us an idea of what the RMA could look like—wholesale changes that will actually make a difference—which is not in itself a bad thing but as per usual the report is late. Potentially—well hopefully—it's out before the election. We don't know. But they've spent the first three years like they do with everything kicking the can down the road. All that we have is this bill which is a very small tinkering-around-the-edges bill which for the most part just undoes good changes that the National Party did in the last Parliament to make it easier to subdivide to have less appeals and a few other bits and pieces that made developing more easy and cost-effective to undertake. So you would think that they would have at least waited just until the draft report was out to see whether or not Tony Randerson agreed that these changes were good changes because we don't know. The Minister made the point in the chair that it's going to take many many years to put in place the Randerson report changes but at least he would have had an idea reading a draft report whether or not the changes that he's making today were in line with what Tony Randerson wanted. But no; instead he's pushing forward with this bill which we all know is going to make it much more difficult for people to build houses.One of the main changes that we made at the last Parliament that's being undone in this bill is the rules around subdivision. So the rules were changed by National to increase the levels of subdivision so that we'd have a greater housing supply to streamline the process. We made it so that subdivisions could happen unless they were specifically restricted by a district plan and so therefore you would get more subdivision. Why is this significant? Well it's significant because KiwiBuild was such a massive fail. The Government can't build houses. We know that the way that houses get built in this country is by the private sector. I think Nicola Willis in her second reading speech pointed out that there were 37000 consents granted each year. So it's quite clear that the private sector build houses. We need to make it easier for them to do so. I think I remember Nicola Willis saying in that same speech that in fact yes there are some very big projects that provide lots of homes but actually the incremental effect of lots of people subdividing adds to our housing stock. Here we are reversing the changes that National made at the last Parliament to make it more difficult. Not only are we doing that presumptive right to subdivide but we're actually also now changing the change that we made which was not allowing appeal rights to the Environment Court. So those are being put back. If you're sitting there now thinking "Maybe I might subdivide." you're going to think twice because the uncertainty and the cost and the time really means that it is potentially not worthwhile. As I mentioned before those incremental subdivisions are really what creates housing in this country and here we are undoing it.So all we're doing again is more delays more cost and more time. If that's not enough to stymy development and increase cost the bill also reintroduces financial contributions. We were talking about this just a moment ago in the committee of the whole House stage. In 2017 the then National Government streamlined it so that your local council and the RMA both couldn't ask for a development contribution—it was only the local council. We streamlined that to give more certainty and lower the costs for developers. But here we are putting that back in. So double hit double whammy—so if you're a developer you're up for potentially two development contributions. I mentioned—I think we all mentioned—that this is just petty politicking changes that actually get in the way of good development housing supply certainty and reducing the cost of building. I mentioned earlier about the other two bills that are currently before this Parliament and that is the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill and the Urban Development Bill. What those two bills basically do is set aside the RMA. You can circumvent the RMA to get things under way. So there is an understanding by this Government that the RMA doesn't work—that if you want to get good developments under way you need a fast-track consenting process and you need to be able to circumvent the RMA. They understand that and they know that. But at the very same time we're passing a bill to make it more difficult more costly and more timely. It is such a massively confused approach and I think the Minister—and I said in a number of speeches—needs to say to this House why the different approaches. He needs to come down to the House and explain to us why it is that for his own projects he gets to circumvent the RMA but when Mr and Mrs Smith want to subdivide their property and build another house it's going to be much much more difficult more costly and a far more uncertain process.The points that I've made are firstly that we've got the Randerson report that is due out very soon that we really should have waited for before making any changes. It's just completely weird that we would be here making these little changes that could be in direct contravention to what Tony Randerson says in his report which is due out very very soon. It's just a petty undoing of the very very good changes that we made. It goes against the Urban Development Bill and the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill which acknowledges that the RMA is a hindrance to good development.The last thing I'll say is that in a post-COVID world where we want to create jobs and get construction moving and get more houses built this is a bill that is going to only get in the way of good cheap affordable housing and more of it which this country so desperately needs. For that reason I am not supporting this bill."