Shirley Ken: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Shirley Ken: Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:608;Page:5491] 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY (Deputy Leader—ACT NZ) 
: 
 Some very good points have been made in this debate on the title Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2). The real question we should be asking ourselves is what on earth happened to the No. 1 amendment bill. The history has just been outlined very well by the member for Taranaki - King Country. That bill was introduced way back in 1999. Unfortunately we needed the No. 1 amendment bill long before that and I regret having to say that. 
The original bill was introduced in 1991 and it was blatantly obvious quite early in the piece that it was fundamentally flawed. I say that as one who was closely aligned to the resource management law reform process through the late 1980s and indeed co-chaired the first Resource Management Bill along with Philip Woollaston before it was passed. We did not pass it as a Government as we went out of office in 1990. Thank God we did not pass it. It was fundamentally flawed and that was why that Government did not pass it. We were philosophically deeply split on it by that time on the basis of the evidence heard. However it went for 9 years without amendment when it was screaming out for amendment. Simon Upton I have to say was very thorough. I had a huge respect for his thoroughness. He consulted widely but in a way he never got the job done. 
He spent too much time talking about it when he should have driven those changes through. Perhaps he did not anticipate the change of Government. None of us anticipated how bad it would actually be with the change of Government. The Government then referred the bill to a select committee chaired by Jeanette Fitzsimons I believe. The 16 recommendations that Simon Upton came forward with—which were all necessary and important but not sufficient to the extent that they did not address the fundamental flaws in the Resource Management Act but were just process measures—were all overturned. I think the Greens had a huge influence on that because as members will remember they were holding that Government to ransom. The committee reported back in May 2001. We are talking about the No. 1 bill which sat there week after week after week languishing on the bottom of the Order Paper bouncing along the bottom. From time to time members might recall we used to ask questions. But oh no the Government was deep in thought. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It was going to be passed by October. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Oh yes the Government promised at one stage that it would be passed by October. It did not happen. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It was going to be passed by October 2002. 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: Yes 2002. The Governmentpromised it would be passed by Christmas but forgot to say which Christmas. Clearly the Government knew there were problems and it knew that the select committee had been captured by the Green influence and all the measures had been overturned. This relates specifically to the title because this is the No. 2 bill. My question is: why is it the No. 2 bill? What happened to the No. 1 bill? That is the key point. 
Then all of a sudden the Government found a cosy new friend United Future. They were green—not in the sense of this lot of Greens but in the sense of wet behind the ears. The Government knew it could use this little bunch of patsies and it did. So immediately that it knew it promised United Future members they would get standing. 
I remember Peter Dunne bailing me up in January—I think it was before the House started—and saying “I’ve got standing I’ve got standing. Fantastic. Isn’t this wonderful?”. I think he was confused with limited notification. He was totally confused. But he sold it to his wet-behind-the-ears new chums whose numbers in Parliament astounded the whole country I think. Anyway that is why the passage was cleared for the Government to ram the bill through. Then the Governmentsaid it had a problem because there were actually 18 parts. It knew the Opposition parties would oppose it so it wondered how it could be sneaky. It cancelled the No. 1 bill. That bill disappeared and the Government came up with the No. 2 bill which states on the front page under “Background” that it is virtually identical to the No. 1 bill as reported by the Local Government and Environment Committee. They are virtually identical but a whole new bill needed to be introduced—but then the Government did not refer it to a select committee. There was no select committee process. 
Judith Collins 
: Why is that? 
Hon KEN SHIRLEY 
: The Government did not want it exposed to scrutiny. What other reason could there be? While the Government claims that there have been all those weeks of submissions the new measures were never heard by a select committee.