Smith Nick: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 5) Electricity Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Readings 
Smith Nick: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 5) Electricity Amendment Bill (No 3) — Third Readings 
[Volume:627;Page:22334] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 That was a fitting valedictory speech from the Associate Minister for the Environment for the mess that he made of one of New Zealand’s most important statutes. One need look only at the traffic congestion problem in Auckland or at the concern in every one of our daily newspapers about the security of electricity supply and one needs only to read the magazines of small business and farmers to understand that this Government has made a complete hash of the Resource Management Act. Six years ago when Labour came into Government it rejected a very important bill to reform that Act. It said in the words of Marian Hobbs that the Act was beautifully written was beautifully crafted and was not in need of any change. That in fact was the policy of the Government for that 3-year period. I notice the Minister is running to hide. 
Jill Pettis 
: Oh! 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Well he is. I tell the Minister that he is an embarrassment in terms of the way in which he has treated the House in respect of this amendment legislation. 
The great irony is this. Labour has put out repeated press statements stating that National is going to take away the rights of people to be able to be consulted and have a say in decision making. 
Jill Pettis 
: That’s right. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: Can the member who has chipped in explain this to me: why did the Government this morning introduce Supplementary Order Paper 389 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope which included 45 pages of changes? Today the Government introduced and passed 140 clauses. The silence is deafening. This Government says we should do as it says not as it does. If the Government wants to change the law it puts forward a bill rams it through Parliament and tells everybody else to get lost. But a council a farmer or a small-business person will have to consult for months—for years—before being able to make any of the important resource management decisions. 
The Minister says we are brewing up and exaggerating the problems with regard to the Act. Well let me give members some information about the Government’s own reports on it. In 2002 the Government commissioned a compliance cost report with all its cronies—all its people—on the committee. They came back and said that the No. 1 concern in respect of compliance costs in New Zealand was the Act. Then we had the IMD study which was an international study that ranked countries in terms of their competitiveness. Overall New Zealand went down under this Labour Government. That is not a surprise but what was surprising was the fact that in the area of environmental lawmaking New Zealand ranked bottom—No. 60 out of 60. If that is not a message for reform I do not know what would be. 
One of the really important industries for New Zealand is our forest industry. We have a wall of wood that is coming on and I do not know any New Zealander who does not want to see that timber processed and have value added to it in New Zealand rather than be exported as logs. What is interesting is that we have a greater forestry industry our near neighbour Australia. Right now Australia has 21 new major timber mills being built and in New Zealand we have none. If we were losing an All Blacks game to the Aussies by that sort of margin there would be nationwide uproar yet that is what is occurring in one of our most important industries. 
I will give some good practical examples of what occurs. Transit New Zealand which is given the job of building the roads told a parliamentary select committee that it now takes 7 years on average to get a consent for a new highway. Can we wait 7 years to fix the traffic problems that are affecting cities like Auckland Tauranga Hamilton Nelson and Wellington? Of course we cannot. I also have some little examples. A boating club in Auckland wanted to put in a boat ramp. It cost the club $160000 to get consent for a boat ramp that cost $35000. The stories go on and on and this Government does not understand what is occurring. 
Then we have the issue of the speedway. It is just an example but it really does bring home the attitude of this Government. Fifty-thousand people signed a petition to try to ensure the survival of the Western Springs Speedway but the Government chose to give $28000 to 34 residents every one of whom had moved in and bought a house after the speedway was there and in January the residents using taxpayers’ money successfully shut down the speedway. Now the Auckland City Council unanimously—the councillors are Labour members; hard-left members—wants to have the power to be able to change the council’s district plan. Under this Government legislation that will take 3 years. The Western Springs Speedway will be well and truly dead and buried in 3 years so during the Committee stage I put forward a very simple amendment. It simply stated that we would empower the Auckland City Council and every other council in New Zealand to be able to make a change to its plan with effect straight away if it so wished. It was designed to empower councils. The interesting thing was that not one Labour member got to his or her feet and explained why he or she opposed that amendment. Effectively today the Green Party and the Labour Party have killed the Western Springs Speedway. I acknowledge New Zealand First United Future and ACT for supporting that amendment but I would love to hear from a Labour member as to why Labour does not trust councils to have discretion in respect of those plan changes rather than automatically applying the most stringent provision to them. It does not make sense. 
Then we have the Government’s approach to try to clog up the Environment Court. This legislation provides that every single little one of the 50000 resource consents—and that is far too many—is now able to be appealed to the Environment Court on notification. I have never heard of such a dopey idea. Yet that is what we have put in the law and it will make the delays the uncertainties and the blackmail that occur under the Act even worse. 
Every person in this Parliament would know that the most important speech that has been given in the term of this Parliament was the brave speech made by Don Brash at Orewa in respect of how we deal with relations between different sorts of New Zealanders. Don Brash said that all New Zealanders should be treated equally in the law. But in this legislation we have a continuation of the situation and that will make it even worse. 
Jill Pettis 
: Tell us what that means. 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH 
: The member Jill Pettis the retiring member for Whanganui asks me to explain. National says that the Act should be colour-blind. Whether one is a Maori an Asian a Pacific Island or a Pakeha New Zealander one should be treated absolutely equally under the Act—and that provision will be in a bill that we will introduce to this House as a new Government in a few weeks’ time because that is what New Zealanders want for their future. This legislation from Labour introduces co-management whatever that is. It will mean that people will have to write out even bigger cheques in order to be able to deal with those who claim that taniwha live in the neighbourhood when one wants to build a road or something of that sort. 
In no area of policy has National been as explicit as in outlining the 22 changes that it would make to the Resource Management Act. National wants to have high environmental standards. We want to make sure that this country uses its resources wisely but we want to end the gravy train the waste the costs and the uncertainty that has grown around the Act. This legislation is a big disappointment. It is noteworthy that the single most significant change—as said by the Minister himself—in this legislation has subsequently been rejected. This legislation is a dog. It takes us nowhere. I know that the people of New Zealand are looking forward to having a Government that does know how to fix the Act and ensure that New Zealand has a clean environment and a prosperous economy.