Court Simon; Parker DavidSIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. To the Minister: what part of the resource management reforms that the Minister has announced will drive councils to lift restrictions on the availability of land for housing and thereby deliver more affordable housing because if we look back to 2017 the Speech from the Throne was quite clear there was a commitment from the Labour Government to remove the metropolitan urban limit in Auckland. It was recognised as putting an artificial constraint a scarcity on the supply of land for housing. We've seen reports that for an average Auckland house there is a $50000 premium applied just because of that one planning restriction. We only have to look at Christchurch in the wake of the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes zoning a large amount of suitable land for housing. The average house price in Christchurch is about $550000 whereas in Auckland $1.14 million is the median house price. So the question that the ACT party has is: how will the Government's resource management reforms deliver more land for housing and more affordable housing?Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I thank the member for the question. I actually largely agree with his proposition that artificial constraints on land supply have driven up land prices and that those increases in land prices have flowed through to the cost of all housing because it's the marginal cost of the new that effectively leads the market. Now the way that we've approached that under the Resource Management Act (RMA) is through the only tools that we have under the RMA which are to issue national direction requiring councils to make room for growth essentially.Where I might slightly disagree with the member—and I don't want to put words in his mouth and he might actually agree with me on this—is that actually in terms of building opportunities it's important to make them available both within the boundaries and on the boundaries of growing cities so that we have to allow the intensification that will actually naturally occur if we let people intensify. We also have to allow a release of the pressure on the boundaries of cities by making more land available for new building opportunities.How we're going to achieve that under the new system is through a combination of national direction carrying that forward; some positive national direction in respect of housing which will go to some of those issues as to land supply; and additionally signalling to both councils to central government and to the private sector where the big chunks of development are likely to come as a city grows. That will be done through the Strategic Planning Act which will then flow through into Natural and Built Environments Act plans and I'm happy to answer further questions on that.SIMON COURT (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. So there are many environmental bottom lines outlined in the resource management reforms and we already have a host of national environmental standards and national policy statements which constrain the use of land and make it quite difficult—if not impossible—to obtain consents for certain types of activities which you have referred to such as disturbing wetlands. So a question that the ACT Party has is how will the resource management reforms proposed by the Government make sure that more infrastructure can be built where it's needed and when it's needed without having a huge hurdle in terms of resource management consenting that currently means that really good projects—like irrigation and water storage for example—fail to meet the regulatory test and do not get consent in the Environment Court like the Ruataniwha dam for example? So would the Minister care to shine some light on how infrastructure might be delivered better?Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): The Ruataniwha dam was declined for the reasons set out in the judgment and that was the correct decision. I think that those decision makers made the right decision. We've consented a number of water storage projects already—or at least one; I think there's another in process—through the fast-track consenting process under the RMA.More broadly in respect of infrastructure provision there will be positive national direction in the national planning framework. There will also be shown future arterial corridors for example in a Strategic Planning Act which will flow through to Natural and Built Environments Act plans and they may well be then a permitted activity. Once it's come through those things—and the controlling of the adverse effect is more likely to be done through standards relating to siltation for example rather than through bespoke rules and a complex application.