Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5505] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
:  
The coming into force of this bill in 2003 lies at the heart of the anger many of us feel about the process that has occurred. Nearly all the measures in this bill which should have come into force in early to mid-2001 were in the No. 1 amendment bill. The Government’s obsession with limited notification caused it to sit on the bill for 2 whole years until it could get support from United Future for the Government’s earlier decision to shut the public out of many resource management decisions and ensure there would be no challenge to councils that do not comply with the law on notification. 
There are many sensible measures carried over from the No. 1 bill that councils applicants and submitters have been crying out for over the last 2 years and that could have been in place and working during that time. As there was no debate on the No. 1 bill before it was discharged and as I chaired the Local Government and Environment Committee for a whole year looking at the No. 1 bill I want to go through some of those measures—measures that are entirely relevant to the commencement date. 
Currently extra cost and delay are caused by the requirement to consider an application under both an operative plan and a proposed plan. This practice is confusing as well as time consuming. The amendment we agreed to in 2001 which has remained unchanged provides that if a provision in a proposed plan is beyond challenge if submissions have closed and either there have been none or they have been resolved then that rule becomes operative even before the proposed plan as a whole is operative and there is no need to consult the older operative plan on that matter. Applicants and councils could have had the benefit of that for the last 2 years if the bill had been passed when we reported it back to the House. 
At present if a consent authority finds part-way through considering an application that it needs more information the time allowed for processing the application starts again from scratch once that information is provided. That provision can be abused by councils by keeping a developer waiting. Simon Upton’s bill proposed that the applicant could refuse to provide further information but would have to live with the consequences if the consent was refused because of it. The committee felt that was potentially a waste of effort for everyone and instead provided that if more information is required the clock stops while it is collected but then restarts from the same place. In other words we hit the pause button rather than restart. This will save developers time and costs during the processing of a consent and it could have been saving them that time and those costs for the last 2 years. 
Combined regional and district plans as well as combined regional plans and policy statements are now allowed turning two documents into one where that suits the council and streamlining the consultation process. That has also been held up for 2 years. Consents that have not been acted on currently lapse after 2 years. We extended that to 5 years recognising that many large projects take some time to raise finance and get started after a consent is issued. How many people have had to apply specifically to have their consents extended because that clause was delayed for 2 years? Appeals under section 274—typically made by those who agree with the decision of the first hearing but then want to join an appeal when the other side lodges one in order to protect their position—can currently occur right up to the time of the appeal hearing. That creates uncertainty and costs for everyone. Now they will have just a month to lodge a section 274 appeal but they will be full parties so that if the party they joined pulls out they will not be affected. That is another useful measure for everyone which we have had to wait 2 years for. 
Those are the sorts of sensible measures that reduce costs and delays for applicants and that the previous committee—far from gutting the bill as the Opposition claims—worked hard to implement. It is unreasonable that we have had to wait 2 years for the House to progress them and there are many applicants and councils that will remember who caused the delay.