Bishop Chris; O'Connor GregRESOURCE MANAGEMENT (FRESHWATER AND OTHER MATTERS) AMENDMENT BILLFirst ReadingHon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'll just start again. I present a legislative statement for the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill. I move That the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Primary Production Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 30 September 2024.For too long New Zealand's farmers have been tangled up in red and green tape which has prevented them from unlocking productivity on their own farm. We need to acknowledge that New Zealand's farmers are some of if not the best in the world. Burying them under unnecessarily and unreasonable burdensome piles of regulations and compliance requirements is harmful for our economy—makes very little sense. This Government backs New Zealand farmers to make sensible pragmatic choices which boost their productivity on their own farms and to protect the environment at the same time.Getting Wellington out of farming is an important part of our plan to get the economy back on track. We are committed as a Government to unlocking development and investment in infrastructure housing horticulture aquaculture forestry and mining whilst ensuring the environment is protected. To enable this growth and to support our primary sector we are delivering on our promise to improve resource management laws and reduce regulatory burdens.As the House knows we are taking a phased approach to resource management law reform. We are currently in phase two and this started with the introduction of the fast-track one-stop shop approvals bill which is currently before the Environment Committee and it's partly because the committee is extremely busy with that bill—Glen Bennett: You can withdraw it if you like.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: What's that?Glen Bennett: You can withdraw it if you like.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No no chance of that Mr Bennett. The electorate for which Mr Bennett used to be the representative will discover that many of the projects and many of the benefits of the fast-track bill apply to the great electorate of New Plymouth as will other electorates around the House.So we've started with fast track and today this is the first of two resource management bills which make urgent time-critical changes to the system. This is resource management bill one: quick targeted changes to give certainty to councils and resource consent applicants to enable economic growth in key sectors including farming mining and other primary industries. Resource management bill two we are working away on and we will have more to say about that in due course—that will be a more substantive bill and will also make targeted changes to the resource management system but also national direction.So let me run through the details of the bill. There are six key changes. The first is in relation to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management (NPS FM). The bill proposes to exclude the hierarchy of obligations in the NPS FM from resource consenting. This will address concerns about the way it's being applied while a review and replacement of the freshwater management policy statement is undertaken. Regional councils will be obligated still to give effect to this—the NPS FM including the hierarchy—in their policy statements and plans. This is about individual resource consents having the hierarchy of obligations applied to those individual resource consent applications. That was never the intention of the NPS FM. There is some evidence that that is what is happening and so we are clarifying that.The second is in relation to stock exclusion regulations. It repeals the problematic and contentious low slope map and associated requirements from stock exclusion regulations reducing costs for farmers. Regional councils and farmers will decide where stock needs to be excluded based on risk and a catchment-focused approach and this will be a good benefit for our farming community.The third thing it does is in relation to intensive winter grazing. It repeals the permitted and restricted discretionary activity regulations and associated conditions for intensive winter grazing from the National Environmental Standards for Freshwater. Regional councils tell us there's been a significant improvement in winter grazing practices around the country. Farmers are proactively making better decisions about where they plant crops and how they manage winter grazing. Sector groups have confirmed their continued and collective commitment to work alongside farmers and regional councils to ensure good outcomes. Winter grazing will instead be managed through freshwater farm plans regional council plans and farmers following good management practices as outlined in the winter grazing module.The fourth thing it does is in relation to consenting pathways for coal mining. The bill aligns the provisions for coal mining with other mineral extraction activities under the NPS IB—National Policy Statement on Indigenous Biodiversity—National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management and National Environmental Standards for freshwater. So the bill extends the consenting pathway for coal mines to new coal mines and removes the sunset clause on consent pathways for thermal coal. This means that coal mines will have to meet the same tests and requirements to manage their environmental effects as similar activities. As the Hon Shane Jones would no doubt point out if he was here coal is required for food production energy security and industrial production such as steel manufacturing. If it's not mined domestically all we do is import coal and steel with potential flow-on costs—increasing greenhouse gas emissions.Fifthly the bill suspends for three years the requirements under the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for councils to identify new significant natural areas—SNAs—and include them in district plans. It also extends some implementation time frames until 31 December 2030. This is so we can do a full review of the operation of SNAs and changes made before the existing regulations are locked in through council decisions. Criteria in the NPS IB sought to standardise the approach for identifying our most important biodiversity areas but there are real concerns amongst many communities that the criteria is capturing areas with less significant natural biodiversity placing undue restrictions on how land is used.We recognise that landowners are already investing time and resources in protecting native biodiversity and we take an approach on this side of the House which works collaboratively and in conjunction with landowners and incentivisation of this work rather than restricting what they can do with their land. Now that's what a property rights - based approach does. I want to acknowledge Associate Minister Hoggard for the important work he is doing in this area as in so many other areas across the coalition between the ACT Party the National Party and the New Zealand First Party. There's a real collective drive and commitment to sorting out our resource management laws.Hon Member: Attack the environment.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Finally—I'm just going to choose to ignore that comment. Finally the bill speeds up the process for—Hon Rachel Brooking: Just like all the advice you're given. Maybe you want to look at the supplementary analysis report.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well it's easy to ignore when you didn't actually hear it but no doubt you'll have your say.Finally the bill amends the process for developing or amending national direction. This is a really important change. The process costs too much and takes too long around national direction. It's typically a two-year process to amend items of national direction as other members in the House will know. We now have a suite of national policy statements sitting under the Resource Management Act across lots of sectors of the economy and it's important that there's an expeditious process for making changes to that national direction. So there are targeted and technical changes to speed up the statutory time frame and evaluation reporting requirements. It streamlines and simplifies the process for amending a national environmental standard a national planning standard a national policy statement or indeed the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement.We intend to progress a suite of national direction changes next year to unlock development and investment in infrastructure housing capacity agriculture horticulture aquaculture forestry and mining while achieving good environmental outcomes.Hon Rachel Brooking: Destroy the environment. Keep going. Fast track's not enough.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I hear the member over the other side going on simplistically and tritely about destroying the environment. This is not about that; this is about simplifying and reducing the red tape that holds our economy back particularly our primary sector from growing. I reject the proposition that you can have the economy or you can have the environment. Actually modern economies that grow look after the environment and modern economies that are growing quickly—that provide jobs and growth for their people—provide the prosperity and the revenue to do all sorts of things in the environment that we would want to do. But much of what the environment requires is investment; is resource.Ultimately when the size of the economic pie is growing investment can go into cleaning up lakes and waters for example in remedying waste sites that have previously been the province of harmful waste. But all of that takes resource. This is why Madam Speaker—Mr Speaker I should say; Mr Deputy Speaker—this is why economies that are poor tend to be the worst environmental vandals. Economies that are wealthy and prosperous tend to look after the environment and there's a direct correlation.So members opposite want to have a trite debate about the economy versus the environment. We have a more sophisticated and nuanced approach on the side of the House. We can grow the economy reduce our emissions look after the environment—all at the same time. That's what this bill does. Thank you.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O'Connor): The question is that the motion be agreed to.