Sage Eugenie: Resource Management Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSage Eugenie: Resource Management Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12835. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]EUGENIE SAGE (Green): Speaking to Part 2 of the Resource Management Reform Bill after quite a truncated debate on Part 1 it is about the Auckland Unitary Plan process. I endorse the comments made by Phil Twyford and David Parker. It is interesting that the Government is all about simplifying streamlining fast tracking and providing certainty for applicants but in terms of providing any certainty of regulation having the unitary plan apply when it is notified and having the rules have weight on notification rather than when the whole process is finished of course the Government does not want to do that and so it has not made that provision in the bill for the rules to have weight when it is notified which we oppose.I would like to talk about the whole plan process and the appointment of the hearings panel because the bill has got quite specific provisions around the unitary plan in order to streamline the plan process and to reduce community input. It gives the Minister for the Environment and the Minister of Conservation very significant control of the process because of course it is the Ministers who are going to appoint the hearing commissioners. They will determine how much they are paid and they will set the terms of reference for the hearing commissioners not Auckland Council even though it will be Auckland Council that is paying those commissioners. The whole fast-track process that the bill provides for the unitary plan is certainly not one that the Green Party is enthusiastic about but it has accepted and not opposed it because of the wide range of public support for that and for getting a plan finalised in order to recognise that the bigger Auckland now needs a plan promptly.The bill provides with the Ministers having control of the appointment process an example again of the very centralised anti-democratic decision making that this Government is becoming. Part of its whole image now is of very centralised decision making shutting out the public. Our preference is for the Auckland Council notMinisters to appoint the hearings panel. I have proposed a very modest and reasonable compromise in Supplementary Order Paper 281 that the Ministers and Auckland Council jointly appoint the hearings panel. I would like the Minister in the chair the Minister for the Environment to say why that is not a reasonable proposal because it would be much more democratic given the mandate that Auckland councillors have from those who elect them and that it is Auckland’s plan not the Ministers’ plan. The joint appointment process would much better represent a partnership between central government and local government than the very command-and-control approach that is this Government’s favoured modus operandi.If you look at the departmental report it says that Ministers should appoint the hearings panel to ensure that the panel is “fully independent from the Council” so that “the panel’s recommendations will not be biased towards the Council.” But having a panel appointed by just Ministers risks its recommendations being biased towards those whom the Ministers and the Government will favour. The joint appointment process in Supplementary Order Paper 281 would avoid that. So that is why we are asking the Minister in the chair to seriously consider this joint appointment process and say why it is OK for the panel’s recommendations to be biased towards those that the Government would agree to but not that it be biased towards the council. This whole appointment process is yet another example of the disdain that this Government has towards local democracy and how it is grasping and grabbing power for the executive and centralising decision-making. It has become a real hallmark of this Government.The other issue I would like to talk to is the whole way in which the scope of submissions operates in the bill because it is clause 125 that puts a new provision in the Local Government (Auckland Transitional Provisions) Act to allow the hearings panel on the unitary plan to make decisions that are beyond the scope of submissions on the proposed plan. It can effectively make a decision on any matter that the panel identifies through the hearings process. This is an extraordinary broad power and it is a very substantive and inappropriate departure from existing law. All of the 31 submitters who commented on this provision expressed concern about it because it is giving the hearings panel unfettered discretion. When you combine that with the fact that Ministers are appointing that panel that is giving it huge scope to influence Auckland’s future by the decisions that it makes recognising that the Auckland Council’s ability to appeal those decisions is very limited and is only on the basis of the decisions that it disagrees with.When you have got a power of the Environment Court to make recommendations outside the scope of submissions parties are given an opportunity to comment on and respond to those recommendations but the bill does not provide an equivalent provision for the hearings panel to invite such comment when it is proposing to go beyond the scope of submissions. That is a very broad extra power that is going to this hearings panel. It blurs the whole boundary between adjudication which is a proper role of the hearings panel and plan making which is the Auckland Council’s role. So Supplementary Order Paper 283 in my name seeks to limit the hearings panel to making recommendations that are within the scope of the submissions by deleting this decision-making power to go beyond the scope of submissions. That would make the whole decision-making process much more robust because the hearings panel would have to base its decisions on issues that were raised by submitters and that had been the subject of evidence that was presented by the submitters and tested through the submission and hearing process.The other issue I would like to comment on is the whole status of the Auckland Spatial Plan the Auckland Plan and section 140 in clause 125. You have got the Government talking about simplifying and streamlining. If the Government wasgenuinely interested in that rather than in promoting an anti-democratic anti-environment anti-community agenda it would have responded to the submissions of Local Government New Zealand and the Auckland Council asking that the hearings panel give more weight to the Auckland Plan than simply ensuring that regard has been given to the spatial plan as section 140(3) in clause 125 currently provides. We need to ensure that the unitary plan is consistent with the spatial plan because of the very high level of public and community support for that plan and because of the way that it is an integrating document. As Local Government New Zealand identified in its submission you have got a problem in local government planning because the Local Government Act the Land Transport Management Act the Local Government (Auckland Council) Act and the Resource Management Act do not talk to each other yet the spatial plan does that integration and seeks to have much better planning because of that integration.The spatial plan is quite a comprehensive and long-term strategy for Auckland’s development. It looks at the present and future mix of residential business industrial and rural activities within specific geographic areas of Auckland. It looks at how you integrate that with essential infrastructure services and investment with transport with open space and with water supply and waste water. The unitary plan is the critical tool to ensure that Auckland Council can achieve the outcomes that it set out in the spatial plan and that spatial plan was developed through quite widespread engagement with the community and with stakeholders. Simply ensuring that the hearings panel just has to have had regard to it is not giving it enough weight. It should be that the hearings panel has to actually ensure that its decisions on the unitary plan are consistent with the spatial plan as Phil Twyford highlighted because of just how that plan will shape the future of the city.The other issue I would like to comment on that will affect the way in which the Auckland Council operates is just the way in which the bill in Part 1 looks at how environmental reporting will be done. We want robust environmental reporting and we want independent environmental reporting but we do not like what the bill does here because it will give the Minister the power to use regulations to specify what a council will monitor and how it will do that what environmental indicators the council is required to monitor and what standards or methods will apply to each of those. There is no opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny on those measures and given the opportunity for the ministry and the Minister to influence that through regulations—