Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to take a call on the Natural and Built Environment Bill. There certainly is agreement across the House that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is broken and it does need to be repealed. I think every MP in the House will have had constituents who've approached them with the frustrations that they've had through trying to get resource consents for a range of things. Unfortunately the legislation is absolutely the cause of those problems and I think what's exacerbated it often is the enthusiasm and the vigour with which council officials have taken their roles on to interpret what the legislation means on the ground the processes that are gone through—whether a report is good enough or not—before you get through the stage of getting a consent actually approved or declined. And let's face it any of this legislation should not be just about allowing people to do what they want it has to meet limits—and those limits are best decided at the community level and I'll come back to that a little later.Examples of things that really have perverse effects: mobile phone towers often end up being put in the wrong place because the consenting authority says No it can't go on that it's better to go on that one" and actually everybody's worse off because the original place that they wanted to put it in would have had a far better mobile phone coverage. So it has a real impact on everybody's lives—in fact in some cases it's a safety issue. The Port of Tauranga which was mentioned before by my colleague Sam Uffindell and the issues they've had—also I know Timaru Oil Services which is a relatively new petrol retailing and importing company wanted to have an import terminal or build some tanks at least in Tauranga; and they couldn't get a resource consent. So we will be debating another bill at some point this week around competition in the fuel retailing space. And actually the issue in this part is being held up by the RMA. So competition is there but it's constrained because of the RMA. We had the same issue with the supermarkets and all of the covenants put on land and around those areas so other competitors couldn't come in. I think some of the real doozies though are the Christchurch flats that were declined permission to put a turning bay within their flats because it would have a visual impact for pedestrians. I mean these are the sorts of decisions that can come across it. But I think another one that's of real interest to this debate is the suburban hospital in Auckland that for four years has been trying to obtain a resource consent to build more capacity much-needed capacity but it's been held up by one objector. I think you may well have heard this person's name—the objector is Tony Randerson QC.Hon Scott Simpson: KC.STUART SMITH: Oh sorry—KC it is now. That's quite right. Hon Scott Simpson: Not the same one that chaired the committee?STUART SMITH: Well it's the same name isn't it? I think it might well be it might well be. So what hope do we have of a legislation that is going to avoid those sorts of nimbyism—or the power of the nimby not being curtailed? I think it's probably highly likely that that's not going to change at all. I'd like to also talk about—it says under section 5 "[Protecting] or [restoring] the ecological integrity mana and mauri of the air water and soils; the [coasts] wetlands estuaries lakes and rivers … and biodiversity." Fantastic—you know I think we'd all agree that those things should be protected. But then it goes on to saying "[reducing] greenhouse gas emissions." I don't know what this bill would have to do with greenhouse emissions. That is covered under the Emissions reduction plan it is covered under other legislation—why do we need another piece of legislation just to muddy the waters just to add more complexity? In fact climate change is the new religion actually in a way—it has to be put up in every bit of legislation it has to be referenced in every speech practically by the true believers or they're not doing their bit. And I think this will do nothing to help climate change whatsoever. It also is recognising the relationship of iwi and hapū and the exercise of their "kawa tikanga—including kaitiakitanga—and mātauranga in their… [ancestral] lands sites wāhi tapu wāhi tupuna" and other taonga. I don't have an issue with that; no issue at all. But I'm the fifth generation on my family's farm. I'm no longer living on it but my family are there. If my children were there they'd be the sixth—my nephews are the sixth generation on that farm. My ancestors broke that land in; they developed it. They tamed the rivers they planted willow trees to contain the rivers within their banks something that hadn't been done—that's the Canterbury Plains; I come from mid-Canterbury. Those rivers wandered all over the plains that's how they were formed—when people wanted to develop the land they needed to contain them. All of that was done without a resource consent. I would argue that my family and my wellbeing is tied to that land—why am I not mentioned in this legislation? We are in a country where one law is there for all. We are all equal under the law but this seems as though some are more equal than others and I don't like that—and I don't think New Zealanders like that either and I don't think it should be in the legislation. Harete Hipango: Ahi kā Stuart.STUART SMITH: Yeah well it can be called whatever it likes but it's still the same. But I think that everyone has a deep relationship with their past and I think that to single some out from others is unfair. It's interesting that we now talk about in the legislation outcomes rather than effects—and I think that's fantastic; that's what we should be doing. Outcomes are what is important and congratulations for doing that Minister I think that's a good thing. However it still refers to effects quite a bit throughout the legislation so I'll look forward to going through the select committee process for the practitioners that have to deal with this to see what impact that will have—if any—on the bill and how it is introduced and whether it will have some impact on it. I don't know whether it will or not. As has been mentioned it certainly looks like the ground is being laid for co-governance. I certainly from the National Party standards am absolutely against that in this sense of the word; co-governance as far as the Treaty settlements that have gone before it are concerned are a different thing. I thought that we should come up with another name for it rather than co-governance because I don't think that's exactly what that means. The bill says "to give effect to the [Treaty] and the [Treaty] principles"—the Treaty principles are actually up for debate! We asked actually when the officials were in "what are the principles?"—and they said they don't know because the principles are still evolving.So that is putting this RMAs reform on a foundation of sand if we don't know what the principles of the Treaty are. I don't even know why this should be referred to quite frankly in that we have other methods for dealing with those sorts of issues. Tāmati Coffey spoke before and I think I absolutely agree with him about having access to their lands; and I think what a pity what a pity that the Labour Party did not support the Te Ture Whenua legislation that was put up which would have dealt with that and enabled Māori to have access to their land access to their assets for their own betterment and wellbeing—but no they didn't and I think that was a great pity.I see the Minister has set limits for the national planning framework for air indigenous biodiversity etc.–including coastal water estuaries freshwater and soil—and may also set limits in other aspects of the natural environment. Well what a job! So we have to accept that the Minister is going to have the wisdom of Job; the wisdom of biblical proportions to make those decisions. Quite frankly that is a disaster waiting to happen and guess what—we all pay the price. In fact the biggest issue New Zealand faces outside of the tyranny of distance is actually the economies of scale that we face in New Zealand and the one thing we could be is nimble; this legislation is far from that. Thank you Madam Speaker."