Brownlee Gerry: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5566] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (NZ National—Ilam) 
: 
 The issue raised by the Leader of the Opposition and then spoken to by Dail Jones is a very important issue. The provision is one that not only would prevent frivolous objections in the case of resource management applications but also would have the potential to protect ratepayers when a large proposal is put to a council about a particular project. Perhaps many many hours of hearings may go into the proposal. Perhaps at the end of the day because the application was put in on behalf of the shelf company the bill has not been paid. Then finally if the project does not go ahead the local authority—therefore the ratepayer—will be out of pocket because there was no security-for-costs provision awarded against the applicant. 
That is not uncommon. I would have thought officials would give the Government some advice about the frequency with which security for costs are ordered against applicant bodies. It is very very regular; it is a normal practice and it protects ratepayers. I think that the amendment to remove section 284A(1) should be supported by the Committee. The provision should be taken out of the legislation. 
I commend my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith for putting forward an amendment that would insert a right for a big project to go directly to the Environment Court. Everyone knows that this country has at the moment a crisis in electrical energy—in other words a massive shortage. The worst thing is that it is not hard to see that that could become a year-on-year circumstance. We have not had any significant new generation built in this country in the last 4 years. Between 1996 and 1999 we had about 1200 megawatts; since then we have had 166 megawatts—most of which was started in construction prior to the current Government taking office. Just to illustrate how problematic that is let us consider that this country with its current rate of growth needs about 150 megawatts of new generation each year. I look at an answer given to me by the Hon Pete Hodgson that states that there are generation proposals on the books now—what he calls “probable options”. I hear that tomorrow he is to announce a whole new list of “probable options”. Every one of those options will require resource consent. 
There is some talk that there will be a proposal that has a cumulative amount over some 5 to 10 years of 2000 megawatts. That is less than what we need on an annual basis. But each of those megawatts is dependent on the resource management process. How much simpler it would be if on an issue like energy direct appeals or requests for consent could be made to the Environment Court. That does not in any way take away the environmental obligations that those who propose these generating projects face. It does not take away the right of objectors to make their points known but it does remove some years of the bureaucratic process that goes into the ultimate decisions around those types of consent which by and large end up being referred to the Environment Court anyway. One can see that there is a whole layer of bureaucracy that could be cut out by those particular projects being allowed to go direct to the Environment Court. So I hope that Parliament will sensibly support the amendments moved by Dr Nick Smith. 
Let me make it very clear. On the books at the moment we have hydro wind geothermal gas and what are described as “various other options” for new electrical generation in this country. Tomorrow the Minister will stand up and tell the whole country that we have another 2000 megawatts proposed as well. But none of that will come on stream unless it gets a resource consent quickly. The earliest we will get new generation in this country is likely to be late next year but that is because that generation already has a consent. So every one of those projects and every one of the projects the Minister will talk about tomorrow is realistically 5 to 7 years away. Supporting Dr Nick Smith’s amendment in order to shorten up that process would be a good idea. That could reduce some of that lag time to 3 to 4 years and this country desperately needs that generation.