Wagner Nicky: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Wagner Nicky: Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:661;Page:9606] 
NICKY WAGNER (National) 
: 
 The National Government promised to review the Resource Management Act as part of National’s pre-election promises in 2008. National promised to review it because we were aware that after 18 years since the Resource Management Act had become law there was growing criticism about the slow and costly plan preparation and consenting processes. 
Our reform was designed to maintain environmental protection but to improve decision making and reduce costs and delays. Slow overly bureaucratic processes do absolutely nothing for the environment. The people were very clear. They wanted and needed a better and more efficient system. Within 100 days of taking office the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill was introduced into Parliament by the Minister for the Environment the Hon Dr Nick Smith. 
That bill was phase one of a comprehensive reform of the Act. It covered areas such as the removal of frivolous vexatious and anti-competitive objections; improving planned development and planned change processes; improving resource-consented processing which has been needed and was neglected over the last 9 years by Labour; improving workability and compliance; and improving national instruments which were also neglected under the Labour Government. The bill also created an Environmental Protection Authority. All this is relevant to the Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill which we are debating tonight because during work on the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill the whole issue of designations and requiring authorities was considered and the members of the Local Government and Environment Committee as has been mentioned tonight by Shane Jones looked long and hard at these issues. The issues are complex and involve several different Acts of Parliament and a series of tests to determine who can become a requiring authority and what projects can be covered by this legislation. However we do agree with the Hon Ruth Dyson that changes need to be made in this area. Therefore the area of the Resource Management Act we are looking at—sections 166 to 186 in Part 8 including section 167 which the Hon Ruth Dyson has selected to amend entitled “Designations and heritage orders”—will be reviewed in phase two of the major reform. 
The work to make these changes is well under way. The changes will be comprehensive and will be integrated into the larger reform of the Resource Management Act. This bill which deals with only one section out of a total of 433 sections and 10 schedules is a pointless exercise. I understand the principles that the Hon Ruth Dyson is keen to promote and it may be that they will be included in the final reform. But it would be foolish to send this bill to a select committee when a technical advisory group and the Ministry for the Environment are already working on the issue and a more holistic reform is already under way. 
The member will of course be able to have input into the second phase of the resource management reform legislation and can be involved in the passage of that bill through the House. I invite her to join us on the Local Government and Environment Committee during the passage of the bill. Therefore National does not support the Resource Management (Requiring Authorities) Amendment Bill because it is unnecessary. Thank you.