Seymour David; Parker DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Well further to that point I think possibly the Minister has missed two important considerations that people who actually build houses will be well aware of. One is that they may not necessarily have lodged an application at the present time but none the less invested large amounts of work perhaps millions of dollars of planning activity and a lot of time into master planning a development. So giving them any kind of I guess grandfathering clause which sounds like what the Minister's proposing from the current time or sometime into the future will still sterilise"—is the word that's been used in the select committee—some of the plans that are put in place. The second thing is that the Minister is right in one sense in saying that this is an enabling bill. But one of the misconceptions that seems to have run through the Minister's commentary on the bill and the bill in general is that it's enabling allowing one standard of zoning density across a wide area. Actually in a free society people often choose a range of different schemes in order to fulfil their needs. An example of that: some of these master plan developments have said "We would like to have a lower density in some parts in order to sell sections that we don't have to service at any great level of intensity with our infrastructure." The so-called enablement that this Government is offering saying "Actually no. That's now illegal. You must upgrade all of the density that you had planned." throws out of whack the area structure plans—have you heard of area structure planning; that's really important—all of the infrastructure planning that's been done for a master plan development. So the Minister's got to take this stuff seriously.Unfortunately it's a consequence of the way that this bill was done. The Minister knows this because he's been approached by people who wanted to do more consultation with councils. He thought it was a good idea but he got rolled by Megan Woods—is the sad irony of all this. He knows what I'm talking about. I want to ask the Minister: is he aware that first of all putting back the date for applications that have already been made won't help those that have been planned sometimes for a long period of time at great expense prior to application? Is he concerned he's going to sterilise master planning that's been done prior to application? And does he understand that while the bill notionally is enabling if it becomes effectively illegal to have some areas of some developments at lower density in support of an infrastructure plan for a development he's actually taking away the ability to plan in that way and will sterilise a lot of developments that have been made? Those two questions please.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): No I don't accept the assertion that's made by the member.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): How can the Minister not accept the assertion made by me—I can understand that; we're both politicians—when it's actually also an assertion that's been made by a large number of people whose actual job is to build houses? This is the issue right? He can refuse to accept an assertion by me perhaps but how can he refuse to accept an assertion made by people who actually build homes—you know people that have master plan developments who've come to the committee and said "What you are doing will sterilise or stop the development or severely delay the development of thousands of homes."? So is he just refusing to accept the assertion made by me or is he telling those developers they don't know what they're doing?Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): I'm telling the member that he's wrong.DAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): If it's the case would it be too much of the Minister's time to stand up and just maybe give an explanation just to those people? I wouldn't want people to form the view of the Minister that he's perhaps a little bit aloof or a little bit acerbic—a little bit like the voters of Otago did in 2005 as the Chair will know. So maybe what he could do is stand up and actually just give the people the benefit of his wisdom and say why I'm wrong why it's the case that people who have done a lot of investment in master planning but haven't yet applied won't be helped by grandfathering in applications that have already been made and why it's not the case that we're banning low-density areas of master planned developments which is effectively what the medium density residential standards imposition does is not going to put out of whack their area structure plans their infrastructure plans all of the planning that they've done for these master planned developments. If you'd just get up and—you know if it's so obvious get up and just tell us.Hon DAVID PARKER (Minister for the Environment): Madam Chair I'm happy to say it again. But I actually addressed the same underlying issue when I responded to his colleague Mr Court.David Seymour: No you didn't.Hon DAVID PARKER: I did. What this bill does in respect for example of an area that has been through or is going through a master planning process is it enables the development of the land within that development to be essentially three storied subject to setbacks. David Seymour: Yeah yeah yeah we know that.Hon DAVID PARKER: Well if you know that that's the answer. It doesn't require them to build it; it just enables them to build it and it doesn't stop the master planned development that has been approved. If it's in a planning process and is yet to be approved that process can continue but a variation will probably make it more enabling for that developer rather than more restrictive. It is of course up to the developer whether they choose to take advantage of that more enabling planning framework and build more densely. They don't have to but they'll be allowed to."