Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. The Green Party welcomes the release of the first draft of the first of three bills to replace the Resource Management Act (RMA) the Natural and Built Environments Bill and like Mr Simpson also welcomes the exposure draft process. It is only a 12-week process—we have to report back by 18 October—so really appreciate the fact that the House has given leave tonight because otherwise the hard-working Environment Committee would have one week less to consider it and report back. The Resource Management Act gets blamed for a lot of things which are not its fault. Any legislation which is at the interface of human interaction with nature—how we use land water air sea space; what human activities we undertake and how we do them—is always going to be a source of tension: conflicts between our responsibilities to Papatūānuku and what many assert as their rights over their land. And I don't think this bill will be any different. It is the fact that we are getting really the purpose and the heart of the bill at select committee to invite public submissions on. We will be wrestling with that same conflict. I went back and just skimmed through Our Common Future which was a report of the Brundtland Commission the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987. That report was really the genesis of the concept of sustainable management in the RMA. The Brundtland report talked about sustainable development but a lot of the thinking back in 1987 was that the environment didn't exist as a sphere separate from humans and it was naive to even think that. But the environment is where we all live it's where development happens as we attempt to improve our lot within this abode of the environment and the report said the two are inseparable. So we will still be dealing with that tension and that's why I think it is really helpful to have in the Government notice of motion the requirement that the select committee collate a list of ideas about how we make the new system more efficient more effective more affordable and less complex. As many have noted a piece of legislation that has grown to 800 pages in length to plans which are whole tomes which are impenetrable to people seeking to undertake activities which are obtuse—we need to really simplify that down. So in terms of new ideas about how we make the system work better I'm reminded of the first district plan which became operative under the RMA which was the Ashburton district plan. The first time the parties had really engaged with each other over significant natural areas it might be said—this was way back in the early 1990s—was in the Environment Court in mediation on appeals that had been lodged on that plan. We need to have processes at the front end of the planning process where the different parties can get together can recognise what they have in common and make it so much easier for the council then to—or in this case it will be the committees that have mana whenua council and other representatives on them—frame that plan. Are they processes like citizens' assemblies where a representative range of people deal with the issues that are causing tension in a region and work out what some of those common solutions are? Commissioners are going to have much more of a role in having panels of commissioners hear the plans. Now some of those commissioners at the moment will be acting as expert witnesses. Presenting evidence on resource consents for irrigation takes one month and then they might be a commissioner on a panel hearing submissions on a resource consent subsequently. We need commissioners to be genuinely independent. That goes to issues I think around their tenure and having a permanent body of commissioners might be one of the ideas that comes up through this process. So I would really welcome submissions from across Aotearoa but from people who have got skills in alternative dispute resolution because we need to find ways of getting to agreement without that adversarial process always of being in front of the courts. The national planning framework which is dealt with in this bill is one of the significant changes I think in terms of the way I understood it might roll out from the Randerson review. The Randerson report was a very comprehensive and commendably clearly written accessible report. It highlighted the need to make sure there was more integration across the instruments of national direction national policy statements (NPSs) national environmental standards and the like. What I see in the exposure draft of the bill the national planning framework is a suite of national direction which will happen through regulations and it's not clear although the Minister did comment in answer to a question in the House today as to whether the independence of a board of inquiry will assist with that process. At the moment under the RMA the board of inquiry process is very helpful in hearing public submissions and providing very cogent advice as the board of inquiry chaired by Judge Sheppard did in relation to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. The fact that then National Government changed that NPS was unfortunate but there was transparency between what came out of the board of inquiry and then what Government proceeded to do. And then of course Minister Parker as environment Minister has subsequently changed it and significantly strengthened it. We need a robust process for ensuring that that national planning framework does provide good direction and that there is good public consultation in it and so we'll be very interested on the submissions that come forward as to how we can best do that. It's only a very slim exposure draft—18 pages—but it does deal with the heart of that first tranche of legislation. I do really look forward to the submissions and to hearing those and reporting back to the House by 18 October to take this step on the road to the major overhaul of our key environmental planning legislation the RMA. Kia ora.