Willis Scott; Bishop Chris; Tuiono TeanauSCOTT WILLIS (Green): Thank you Mr Chair. My question is to the Minister responsible for Resource Management Act reform. I'm concerned that scrapping the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act together with the rest of the Government's work programme puts us on a fast track towards climate chaos rather than wellbeing for people and planet. I'm concerned that we'll see destruction of the environment through oil and gas exploration along with destruction of laws such as this action to repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act.The Minister has asserted I think that we don't need improved natural and built environment plans to regulate the way in which the regions' resources will be managed or how environmental limits and targets will be set locally or how to enable infrastructure and development or how to resolve conflicts between outcomes because the assertion is that the repeal will allow the fast tracking of renewables and just get on with it.So cancelling the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act whose purposes were to improve the workability and speed of resource consenting and to enable good decision making is more like a ram raid on our Public Service because we've spent six years of intense work by hundreds of staff; thousands of submissions by iwi hapū and numerous stakeholders; and a quarter of a billion dollars—that's all going down the drain as we take yet another leap backwards towards an out-of-date Resource Management Act. It seems like destruction and a waste.At the same time the Government of National ACT and New Zealand First is sending a signal to the market that electrification of the economy is off the menu because we're going to have dependence on oil and gas and the volatile Middle East renewables continuing into the never-never by ending the Clean Car Discount or cutting off funding for active public transport getting rid of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund and opening up oil and gas here.So the promise of the fast-track provision isn't any help when demand is being killed off. I'm concerned that the Government is offering us more Ford Ranger utes and continuation of a dirty industry rather than respect for our rivers and our taiao. So many wind farms are already consented and are not being built and there are issues with our consenting regimes. The bigger question is an opaque market structure. I've heard the member suggest that I need to understand the market a bit better and I agree. I've been an adviser to the Electricity Authority and I've sat on the Innovation and Participation Advisory Group at the Electricity Authority and I know I need to know a lot more. But I also ran New Zealand's first peer-to-peer electricity retail for two years and like so many attempts to challenge the status quo we couldn't break the stranglehold of the big four gen-tailers over the market which they used to kill off competition.So I'd like the Minister to address the real problem. It is not the need to fast track renewables. Why change a law we've already got to establish something that already exists?Will the Minister commit to reform of the electricity market to get off his high horse to challenge a sensible regime and do something useful and open up the market so we can have real real competition?Hon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): Well I thank the member for those spirited remarks—somewhat away from the bill but fair enough I will attempt to deal with them. Let me take them in reverse order.On the electrification the member asserted that the Government was opposed to or making electrification of the economy harder. Quite the contrary: we have very bold and ambitious targets around the electrification of the economy because New Zealand's great comparative advantage is that we have plenty of wind and we have plenty of water and you know sometimes we have plenty of sun. Actually the real issue is how we design a planning system that takes advantage of our abundant renewable resources mixed with our equally abundant non-renewable resources—which we are going to need in the future as we transition to that renewable future.So we are very focused on that and I've already made mention of our plans around updating the national policy statement for renewable electricity. There's a range of work we need to do around transmission and distribution as well. We've also committed through various agreements to an electric vehicle charging network to supercharge the ability for people to transition to electric vehicles. Happy to talk to the—Hon Dr Megan Woods: Well this has gone wide.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: What's that?Hon Dr Megan Woods: This has gone wide.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well I'm just answering the questions.Hon Dr Megan Woods: Thank you Minister.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I'm not sure that helps you.Hon Dr Megan Woods: Oh it does!Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I mean I'm actually rebutting—OK well that's your view.Secondly on the cost: yeah a lot of time and money has been spent on it. I acknowledge that right up front. But you know it's classic sunk cost fallacy. I mean this is where the last Government got into with the Inter-island Resilience Connection deal—just chucking good money after a failing project in the vague hope that it would be successful.On the first point the member asserted that the intention of the Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA) that we're repealing was to make things more workable and to improve speed and enable quicker decision making. Yes that was the intention of the bill but just because that's the intention of something doesn't mean that that is the reality of something. I sat through the select committee process I've talked to a range of experts in the planning and infrastructure space alongside the renewable energy space and there's very few people out there who would tell you that the NBA will be an improvement. In fact most experts say it will do the opposite: it will make things more difficult; it will make life more complex more complicated; and make it harder to get things done.So yep the intention of the bill was sound. Most bills that Parliament passes have a good intention. But you know as Milton Friedman used to say: you should judge policies by their results not by their intention because Government spends a lot of time doing well-intentioned things. Intention is not the point; results matter. Thank you.CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Thank you. Members just as a reminder—and I do note the enthusiasm in the room and also with the Minister as well—that we're on the debate on Part 1: clauses 3 and 4 Preliminary provisions"; and Schedule 1."