Chauvel Charles: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill — Procedure Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:657;Page:6164] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I will take a call relating to the changes being made to notification in the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. I do not think that the previous speaker Chris Auchinvole was right when he said that the legislation somehow creates a neutral position and I would be interested to hear from the Minister on that. In reading the bill afresh it seems to me that it removes the presumption in favour of notification so that there is now a presumption the other way in favour of non-notification. That means that instead— 
Chris Auchinvole 
: Why do you say that Charles? 
CHARLES CHAUVEL 
: —because it is on the face of the bill I tell Mr Auchinvole—of the council having to notify an application except in certain circumstances a council will now not have to notify an application except in particular circumstances. That is what we call a reversal of the presumption in favour of notification. Under the current provisions of Resource Management Act resource consents they are to be notified unless a consent authority can establish one of three things: that they are satisfied the effects will be no more than minor and approval of the affected parties is obtained; that the application pertains to a controlled activity as defined in which case public notification is not required unless a rule a plan or a proposed plan requires it but notice still has to be served in those cases on an affected person; or that the relevant plan specifically states that notification is not required. 
As I read new clause 68 I see that it will repeal existing sections 93 to 95 and substitute new sections 93 to 95F. Under clause 68 the proposal is that the process for notification be altered so that the following three things occur: the presumption in favour of notification of resource consents comes out—it is gone. So the bill has no general presumption in favour of notification as is the current position. The threshold for when public notification is required is changed in new clause 68 when the effects beyond the immediate environment are “more than minor” and the threshold for affected parties is raised when effects on them are “more than minor” and those are the words in the bill. The bill in new section 95A changes the requirement to notify if the “adverse effects of the activity on the environment may be more than minor;” but as amended by Supplementary Order Paper 39 the requirement is if “the activity will have or is likely to have adverse effects on the environment that are minor;”. That is a significant change. It means that the requirement to notify an application is significantly confined. 
The changes to the notification process that I have just outlined cannot help but reduce public participation under the Resource Management Act because the threshold for notification is set higher. That will inevitably lead to fewer resource consent applications being notified. It was interesting to see kids from Tawa College up in the gallery before. I was out in Tawa last month at a community meeting and the changes to the Resource Management Act particularly the changes proposed around notification and the changes that make it more difficult to access the Environment Court are a real concern to people. People are worried about losing their ability to have a hearing in the Environment Court over local issues that matter to them and that is something that this Parliament should be very very concerned about and very very slow to support. We are lowering the ability of the public to have a say on the adverse effects of an application and Labour cannot support those sorts of proposals. They significantly undermine the ability of local communities to participate in decisions that affect them and this proposal in particular—to remove the presumption of notification in favour of non-notification—increases the thresholds for notification. It is an inevitable way of doing things; if we do the one we get the other. It clearly undermines the ability of the public to participate and members on this side of the Chamber simply cannot support that level of undermining.