Clendon David: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Clendon David: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:9602] 
DAVID CLENDON (Green) 
: 
 Tena koutou katoa. I am pleased to stand for the Greens this evening in support of the Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill. A relatively small change is being proposed to what is a very substantial piece of legislation. Nevertheless it effects a very useful and positive change to the Act as it stands. 
It is interesting that the words “appropriate” and “necessary” are once again at the heart of a discussion about provisions within the Resource Management Act because those who know the history of the legislation will know that the debate was had as long ago as 1990 when the Act was still in its draft form. Clearly the notion of appropriateness is a very relative term; it is to do with something that might be suitable or proper within a context of a particular situation. Clearly the word “necessary” indicates something that needs to be done must be done and indeed is prerequisite. 
In 1990 the select committee on the Resource Management Bill considered evidence and reported to Parliament. Submitters had expressed concern that some of the terminology used in the old Town and Country Planning Act was being abandoned in the new legislation. Indeed the submitters suggested that the committee agree that existing wording should still be used where it was compatible with the policy interest of the legislation. To quote from the select committee at the time: “In some cases the committee recommends returning to existing wording ‘coastal management’ being one example.” It went on to say that “the committee thought it important to return to the term ‘unnecessary subdivision use and development’ in place of ‘inappropriate subdivision use and development’…”. The question of how different our development patterns might have been—and the outcomes we witness day by day—had the bar been set at “necessary” rather than “appropriate” is now only of academic interest. Nevertheless it highlights that the bar was perhaps set too low and that necessity is indeed an appropriate and proper level. This bill provides an opportunity to tighten up on at least one aspect of resource management in an area where there is now an opportunity to effect some positive change and some improvement. 
We note that the technical advisory group’s report to the Minister for the Environment in February 2009 recommended that requiring authorities no longer make decisions on their own designations but that the relevant council recommendation be the decision on any proposal. The technical advisory group noted that giving authorities power to make decisions on their own behalf may have had some theoretical justification when the authorities were Crown agencies but given that so many authorities now are increasingly likely to be private entities that justification is very hard to uphold. The Greens would have been very happy to support that notion and we hope that it comes back later perhaps in the context of the phase 2 reform. 
More specifically in respect of this bill there are at least two very clear and vivid examples of why reference to “public interest” ought to be inserted into the bill in this context. The first example has been referenced by the proposer of the bill Ms Dyson who noted the successful application of Central Plains Water Ltd to become a requiring authority in order to facilitate the taking of water from the Waimakariri and Rakaia Rivers and storage of that water for later use in intensive dairying. It is inconceivable that that application would meet any reasonable test of being in the public interest. To the contrary the proposed scheme which is still bogged in litigation—and long may it be—was intended to facilitate the development of intensive dairying in a dry area. Although that might provide some useful or positive economic spin-off the social environmental and economic cost would far outweigh such benefit. 
The second example of a very poorly judged approval must be that of Riverstone Holdings who remarkably were given requiring authority status to construct a monorail through conservation land as part of a tourist link from Queenstown to Te Anau. That venture cannot possibly be in the public interest; it is a purely commercial proposition and scarcely a railway—which would be appropriate. Clearly it would not meet a public interest review. 
Those examples illustrate why this bill is timely. It is well conceived. It deserves and will enjoy the support of the Greens. Kia ora.