Russell DeborahHon Dr DEBORAH RUSSELL (Labour): Madam Speaker thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. I wish to begin by just reflecting on a quote which was offered to this House by the member from the ACT Party a quote which he attributed to George Washington asserting that freedom and property rights are inseparable: you can't have one without the other. I looked at the language of that quote and I thought that language doesn't seem right for someone who is speaking in the 18th century. It just doesn't seem right. So I googled. I googled some more and hunted around. That particular quote is often attributed to George Washington but there is no evidence whatsoever that he actually ever said it. In fact it was an evidence-free quote from the member for the ACT Party.There's a couple of things that come out of that. First of all this happens to be an evidence-free repeal from the National Government. It stems from nowhere but a desire to undo everything that the previous Government has done. That's despite the fact that the National Party itself when it was last in power tried for nine years to get reform of the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) through and couldn't do it. Everyone recognised that there was a problem with the RMA. Now these Acts that we put through when we were in Government—the Natural and Built Environment Act 2023 the Spatial Planning Act 2023—were evidence-based legislation. It was a long and evidence-based process starting with the Randerson committee going through an exposure draft of the legislation an exposure draft that the Environment Committee spent months—years—looking at it in order to make sure the legislation was good legislation.Going on from that exposure draft it went into the actual select committee process. So there was a very long select committee process during which the legislation was improved which is exactly the purpose of a select committee process. There was a whole lot of evidence that sat behind this legislation. It was good legislation and it is being taken away to replace with what? Diddly-squat. Just nothing absolutely nothing. I want to talk about that again because one of the fascinating things about the era in which George Washington was operating in which the founders of the American republic were operating was one of negotiation of consideration of debate of considering issues back and forth. The American Constitution didn't come out of nowhere and it is a document that encourages conversation and negotiation. This is exactly the process that we went through with the legislation establishing the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act—it was a process of negotiation and discussion.Indeed that is the characteristic of most of the legislation that goes through this House—negotiation discussion reflection evidence consideration often done by the incredible officials we have working for us in the various Government departments and expressed in a regulatory impact statement expressed in various ways. But even that was done away with by this Government over here. So the process behind this bill is flawed. There is no conversation about it. It was a simple Let's get rid of it". It's a process that overturns the evidence the hard work the negotiation that went on for nearly six years in order to get it right. We took our time we got it right and we worked on it to improve it as we went through—tossed in the bin by this Government which so far has not introduced any legislation of its own. All it has done is introduce repeal bill after repeal bill after repeal bill after repeal bill undo destroy destruct things completely refuse to negotiate do not engage in a long process that we have established in this Parliament and in this country for ensuring that there is good legislation that governs us governs our property rights governs the way we interact with each other. It is a disgrace and the National Party should be ashamed."