Swarbrick ChlöeCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green—Auckland Central): E te Māngai tēnā koe. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I'm sorry to break the very fragile consensus that appears to have broken out in the House this morning but I do think as we've all found in our time in this place that having the opportunity to be the squeaky wheel gives us the opportunity to draw attention to some really important issues. So throughout my speech this morning I'll be laying down why the Greens at present cannot support this bill in its present form. We did of course foreshadow that at what I would like to agree with other speakers was an incredibly collegial and collaborative transport select committee process and stage. I want to particularly shout out to the officials who dealt with many annoying questions about what was actually being proposed in this legislation and how that compared to the current regulatory framework how that interacts with the likes of the Resource Management Act (RMA) Auckland Council planning regulation and otherwise. But this is not a small bill. I've seen a few in my five years here and I do need to acknowledge as others have also said that this does go a long way to updating our civil aviation law. But as I've already acknowledged it leaves a huge gap. The huge missed opportunity which is reflected in the Greens' differing view in the select committee report points particularly to three key things: that being our opportunity to take action proactively and baking that in now with regard to the climate also with regard to community impacts and finally around conservation. As far as that goes I'd really like to draw the attention of anyone who happens to be tuning in to the submissions of the Waiheke Local Board to Quiet Sky Waiheke as well and to the Federated Mountain Clubs. All of those reflect things that have been pushed for for a really long time as well by the likes of Quiet Sky Waitematā by the Waiheke Local Board Aotea / Great Barrier Local Board and by the Waitematā Local Board. I think again just to kind of unpack all of this what civil aviation law has tended to focus on—and we see that reflected in the bill in its present form—is our airports understandably. It's where we tend to think of airspaces and we tend to think of aircrafts coming in and landing. But the kind of missing piece of this law as presently drafted is in thinking about those community and conservation spaces where an increasing number of private aircrafts are utilising that shared airspace the airspace of all of us above our homes above our forests and above our open and shared space that all of us like to enjoy.So to give a little bit of an illustration about how all of this stuff interacts—because I never thought that I'd know so much about the interaction between the RMA the unitary plan the Hauraki Gulf district plan and civil aviation law—we currently have a situation which some may have seen presented in the media as concern about the proliferation of particularly private helicopter pads in the Hauraki islands. So to unpack this we kind of have two main core kinds of pieces of legislation that don't really talk to each other very well. The first is the RMA and from that comes the Auckland unitary plan and also the Hauraki Islands District Plan. Of course here I'm speaking primarily about Tāmaki-makau-rau because of course that is the home of Auckland Central. From the RMA the Auckland Unitary Plan and the Hauraki Islands District Plan we have effectively the process that people go through to get consents for these private helicopter pads. As soon as those private helicopter pads are consented for the genie is effectively out of the bottle for the utilisation of the private aircraft that utilise those helicopter pads and their consents. They're supposed to be governed by Auckland Council who don't have the resources as my many discussions with outgoing mayor Phil Goff and incoming mayor Wayne Brown have indicated. That then leaves a space for the Civil Aviation Authority.The Civil Aviation Authority under the current legislation—as reflected and carried through into the new legislation that we are debating today—provides the Civil Aviation Authority with the opportunity to create what are called special use airspaces". That is effectively governance of through introduction of new criteria and monitoring of special airspaces that are designated. However in my interactions with the Civil Aviation Authority and through the likes of the applications from the Waiheke Local Board and Quiet Sky Waiheke what we have found is that the Civil Aviation Authority actually just doesn't have the resources to do this stuff particularly in these private airspaces. We also have the opportunity to set noise abatement rules and again this is something which I put to officials throughout the select committee stage asking them actually quite explicitly. As is reflected in advice which has subsequently been tabled and available for all to view publicly the noise abatement rules which have been asked to be strengthened by these community and conservation organisations actually as officials tell us are not any stronger in this new legislation. In fact they are about the same. So this is where we get to the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that are on the Table from the Greens. The one in my name is basically trying to shift that focus from the kind of voluntary state where the Minister "may make" noise abatement rules and instead moves that into a space where the Minister "must make" those noise abatement roles considering the community and the conservation efforts in those areas. There are also two SOPs in the name of my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter around those environmental and climate impacts. But this is kind of the unfortunate situation that we're posed with. I want to acknowledge the Minister in his willingness to meet with me and to talk through these issues. I'd note that he said that he thinks that there is still the opportunity to address them through that kind of voluntary scheme. But none the less in its current form we unfortunately are not able to support it and hope that at the committee of the whole House stage we are able to make these amendments to improve things not just for those who are out in the islands like Waiheke and Aotea / Great Barrier where we're experiencing this proliferation of helicopter pads but also notably for those of us who live in the city centre where I'd note that 45000 people live within the motorway boundaries in Auckland Central and to that effect as we consider more and more housing density there is a real need to consider the use of the airspaces above that dense housing. If any of us have been on the Facebook community pages of our communities—particularly in Auckland—we've probably heard quite a bit about the use of helicopters in those community and neighbourhood spaces. So just again to summarise I'm really grateful for the engagement of the Minister on this so far. But there's a lot further to go when it comes to particularly the integration of consideration of the climate of conservation and of our communities and the Greens will keep fighting that fight."