Roche Denise: Resource Management Reform Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Roche Denise: Resource Management Reform Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 11 December 2012. Volume:686;Page:7346. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DENISE ROCHE (Green) 
: 
 I am going to focus my remarks mostly on how this bill the Resource Management Reform Bill impacts on Auckland. I guess if I were to summarise the provisions in this bill that are about Auckland I would have to say that this bill shows that Wellington hates Auckland. This National Government hates Auckland. Having dismantled democracy in Canterbury having ripped the guts out of local government with the Local Government Act 2002 and having forced the amalgamation of Auckland this Government is now set to slip through another piece of legislation that enshrines the power of the Government to interfere—interfere—in local government. 
This bill will do to Auckland what the Canterbury earthquake achieved in Christchurch—that is the handing over of power and control of the future development of the city to the National Government’s agents. It is outrageous that this bill allows the Government to appoint the hearings commissioners who will hear the first Auckland Unitary Plan—the combined plan. Just to remind the House that combines the regional policy statements regional plan city and district plans and regional coastal plans. These hearings commissioners also set the terms of reference for the whole plan. 
We have seen this before from this Government. When it forced through the amalgamation of Auckland and it put that legislation in place it also set up seven council-controlled organisations and it appointed the directors of those council-controlled organisations. One of them was Auckland Council Investments which oversaw the board of the Ports of Auckland. The Ports of Auckland I remind the House has seen the worst industrial dispute on the wharves at Auckland since the 1951 lockout. That is what happens when this Government appoints its cronies to positions of power. This bill once again allows the Government to meddle with and interfere in Auckland. It includes the provision that the Ministry for the Environment will audit the planned economic and environmental analysis before the plan—the combined plan—can be accepted. It is another example of the Government parachuting in its people. 
The Government makes no apology that this bill once more reduces citizen participation in local government issues once more aimed at reducing local democracy. The regulatory impact statement says it really baldly. It says the bill will “provide greater central government direction on resource management”. So this bill and its impact on Auckland is the streamlining process for the Auckland Plan. That includes the 3-year deadline. There are pros and cons about that but it has got to have it done and dusted within 3 years. There is only a 20-day period for the council to decide whether to accept or reject the hearing panel’s recommendations and then there is a whole raft of very complicated processes that have to happen if it does reject it. 
Then there are also the provisions in the bill about unilaterally deciding to cut submitters from the process—for example if they miss out on a pre-hearing meeting without giving reasonable excuse and it has not defined that. It sets out to punish councils in New Zealand with penalties if councils do not get the resource consents through in the 6-month time period. That is despite whatever the size of the project is. Given the deregulation that occurred in the 1980s and the whole leaky building saga that councils and the Government have had to deal with in the decade since one would think it would be fairly short-sighted to introduce legislation that once more means we will not be taking care with how developments proceed and with what kinds of restraints we should have on them. 
I guess to sum up the Greens will be opposing this bill because it weighs heavily in favour of developers and does not give enough recognition of or care for future generations in the development of our cities.