SpeechHon SHANE JONES (Minister of Forestry): Tēnā tātou katoa. Before I start this speech I want to clear the air. I want to acknowledge today that a remark I made within question time has caused considerable disquiet amongst some of my colleagues in the House that in some way I was trivialising or demonising those folk who may from time to time suffer mental hardship. So I apologise. At no point did I ever imagine that I was deliberately attacking the member who sits in Nelson. I largely see him as one of the more—Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! I'm just going to make this ruling first and hopefully I've taken care of that. The correct way of addressing such issues Mr Jones is to seek leave to make a statement to the House. You do not use your contribution to this. It is bound to create disorder and by implication of what you have said I don't blame the Hon Dr Nick Smith for wanting to take a point of order. I'll hear his point of order.Hon Dr Nick Smith: I find it grossly offensive that a man would make any such accusations in this Parliament without a skerrick of evidence. It reflects very poorly on the Minister and on the Government.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I agree and the member should stand withdraw and apologise.Hon SHANE JONES: I withdraw and apologise. I shall now move on to my speech but my remarks will be recorded.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): No no no. Once you've withdrawn and apologised that's it. You do not comment on the ruling or what has happened. You go on to your speech.Hon SHANE JONES: Thank you David Parker for correcting the long record of failure by Nick Smith. Thank you David Parker for bringing forward a piece of legislation that has been attacked by Nick Smith in infamy as he rests under the shadow of failure for nine to 12 years. Thank you David Parker for bringing a set of reforms that were thwarted under the last Government by the Māori Party and the belief of Nick Smith that he could treat Māoris like lackeys and they would vote for his version of a resource management reform process that diminished the role the status of his coalition fellow travellers.The reason that the Resource Management Act failed in the time of Nick Smith is because he had a very diminished impoverished and prejudiced view about his fellow travellers. He sought to bully them. He sought to monster them.Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. Not five minutes ago this member had to apologise for offensive remarks. He has subsequently accused me of treating Māori New Zealanders in a way that I find offensive. He's gone on to accuse me of being a bully and other comments that I think are not appropriate in the context of the debate.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't need any help. I came in as that was happening. What I would say to the member is we are speaking to the first reading of a particular bill and I would ask the member to focus on the bill and not on individual members of Parliament.Hon SHANE JONES: This piece of legislation has been brought forward by one of the greatest parliamentarians of my time in contrast to other Ministers for the Environment including the member who has taken offence to the most modest—most modest—of critical remarks. The last nine years shows a littered trail of failure of dashed expectations and quite frankly betrayal to the business and the economic estate. It has taken David Parker to bring forward a mix of a remedy which shows how hopeless and useless the old Minister for the Environment Mr Nick Smith used to be—the man who went on RNZ National trying to justify how much cow dung was in the water and that human beings perhaps very closely related to him could drink it. That was his contribution.Now this bill is actually an overdue development and will fast track a host of infrastructure developments. I am happy that Nick Smith with his colleagues have found it within themselves to vote for this bill. This bill no doubt will go through a challenging process before it is finally passed but what it acknowledges in the post-COVID environment is that this side of the House is able to cobble and sustain a coalition of support unlike that side of the House. That side of the House promoted suggestions and amendments but could not command a majority in this House.The Minister for the Environment of that time drinking too much water riddled with cow dung as reflected in most of his comments to this House could not cobble together a sustainable majority to pass. The only thing he was able to pass were the honohono agreements. The honohono agreements is close to the word—actually I won't say it in Māori for fear of being set down but it means to procreate. The only coalition he could get together was to worsen the brown tape in the Resource Management Act. The honohono agreements hand over powers of gatekeeping to unelected irresponsible small cabals from the iwi community.Now we love Māori participation on our side of the House but we want it to be responsible to drive the development of our nation. We do not want the separatism agreed to by the former Minister for the Environment as he sought to seduce the sadly but gladly extinct Māori Party. Now I accept that he thought the best way to make improvements was to sell out the soul of the Resource Management Act to buy six months more of power. That is a tawdry—that is a—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Order! The Standing Orders are very explicit that you cannot imply in your speech that anyone is under the influence from outside.Hon SHANE JONES: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. When the former Government was in the unholy alliance with the Māori Party Mr Dunne and Ken from Epsom—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Is there a point of order here?Hon SHANE JONES: The point I'm making is that it cannot be suggested that I am asserting anything untoward when coalition parties—DEPUTY SPEAKER: That is arguing with my ruling. That is not a point of order.David Seymour: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. As you well know it's unparliamentary to refer to a member by anything other than their title or name as that member just did to me. But I also say I may represent Epsom but originally I'm a Northlander and as the member's going to find out we Northlanders don't like oafish dickheads.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well that is not particularly helpful in all of this so if I could just continue with—the original point of order that the member took isn't a point of order; it is a debating point. I just ask the member to focus on the bill that's before the House and try and keep within the Standing Orders.Hon SHANE JONES: I apologise for referring to the political doll of Epsom as Ken. However let me now come back to the essence of the bill. It enables overdue projects to be consented via (1) the passage of the bill and (2) a process where the Minister may through Order in Council refer projects to an august body led by a jurist comprised of people including an iwi representative. So the suggestion that my speech is not touching on the elements that comprise the heart of this bill is unfortunate. However in going forward it's important that the Māori dimensions of this bill be not allowed to spread as they did in the time of the former Minister for the Environment to thwart and overwhelm the actual thrust of simplifying resource management statutory consents to drive economic activity whilst still recognising the importance of the environment. In fact I look forward as this bill works its way through the House to inviting that small group of unelected Māori relations of mine to come and see the various projects in Aotearoa that may or may not find their way through this bill.This bill is a tremendous response to the COVID—post-COVID should I say—environment. It has been carefully considered. It has been developed by obviously the best environment Minister since Geoffrey Palmer although the bar in the last regime is not very high to pass. So our party will support this bill. Our party wants to see both grey and green infrastructure proceed. Our party believes that it is very important that we address the overarching issues pertaining to water water storage water resilience in provincial New Zealand. We accept that these are matters of considerable sensitivity to various members of Parliament and elements and stakeholders in our community.But this is a day of celebration. After nine years of earlier attempts to change the Resource Management Act this bill delivers a profound set of changes. No broken promises no exaggerated rhetoric—such a thing would be quite foreign to myself. This is going to deliver obviously infrastructure projects but who knows what projects will find their way to the Minister for the Environment? Who knows what projects will be passed in this expeditious manner? This shows that this Government is cutting red tape. This Government is not bowing down to the privileged over-preening interests that thwarted the last Government. The Minister for the Environment of the former regime will pass as the worst Minister for the Environment that the history of New Zealand has ever seen.