Sage EugenieHon EUGENIE SAGE (Associate Minister for the Environment): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to take a short call on the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill. Erica Stanford the previous speaker talked about all of these projects and National have given us a lot of exercise during the committee stage bouncing up and down to do party votes. The proposals they put forward including the four-laning of highways without any assessment of effects is exactly the sort of ad hoc lawmaking that National in Government was renowned for. To the previous speaker there were 24 projects which were put forward by Government agencies for listing in Schedule 2 to be on the fast track in the bill. Those projects were assessed against the purpose of the bill which is to create employment and to be within the context of sustainable management. So they were assessed against the purpose. They were assessed against the criteria that the Minister must use when he or she refers a project to an expert consenting panel and of those 24 projects 12 were found to meet those criteria and therefore they were put in the bill. So it was a measured process not the quick process that the National Party was proposing during the committee stage. It is a mix of transport projects—road and rail ferry and cycling projects—and that water supply for potable water for Kaikohe. These will provide employment but the Green Party was concerned as were many submitters about some key issues: public participation and the constraints on that; climate change; and the environmental bottom lines and safeguards. So I really commend the work of the Environment Committee for responding to submissions and the Minister for responding to our concerns which have been articulated throughout the development of this bill—doing what a constructive Green Party has always done in Government which is seeking to improve legislation. That work that negotiation and the work of the select committee have resulted in changes to the bill which have strengthened the references to Part 2 in relation to the expert consenting panel which have increased the organisations which are invited to provide comments to the Minister in terms of the fast-track one and which have also strengthened the references to preventing greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change—so making a stronger reference in the bill to climate change. The challenge for any promoters of projects for the fast track will be that they recognise that dealing effectively with natural resources and planning effectively means doing a thorough effects assessment and knowing what natural resources we are dealing with in order to assess effects and then plan and design the project to avoid those. There was one project in Christchurch on the Ōpāwaho Heathcote River some years ago. There's a big loop on that river through Woolston that meant that floodwaters go more slowly to the sea so the engineers thought they would do the Woolston Cut so that floodwaters would go more quickly. They didn't assess the fact that the saltwater wedge would go further up the river. That led to a much greater tidal influence it led to the banks crumbling and it led to trees dying because of that saltwater influence. So the engineers by failing to take into account basic ecology then had to build the Woolston barrage to prevent the water going that quickly to the sea. So nature needs to be taken into account. The Greens have worked to strengthen the environmental safeguards in this bill. There are still issues that we have concern over such as the fact that it's not councils that are making decisions but it's the expert consenting panel and the restrictions on public participation but throughout we have worked constructively to improve this bill. Thank you.