Street Maryan: Resource Management Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Resource Management Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12822. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I am speaking to the Committee stage of the Resource Management Reform Bill. Labour will continue to oppose this bill. I do want to mention however Supplementary Order Paper 324 which the Minister for the Environment has put up in recent times and speak to that in particular.The section that my colleague Phil Twyford has just been speaking to is clause 12. It is an amendment to section 76 of the Resource Management Act which applies to district rules. The whole purpose of these rules previously has been to protect trees or groups of trees because of their ecological value and because of not only their ecosystem value but also their ecological amenity and aesthetic value. Some of these trees are in groups or lines or are otherwise collected together across a range of properties. So where it may have been easier to say for example that all of thepōhutukawa trees that line the east coast from the harbour bridge in Auckland through to the top of East Coast Bays could be protected from felling trimming damaging or removal the requirement is now that trees or groups of trees must be identified by a particular address or unit title.In the course of this whole discussion about tree protection—and my colleague referred to the impact as I have before in this debate of trees that are not on one’s property but the removal of which or even the trimming of which may impact on another property—it goes to show that it is not just the trees at one’s own address that have an impact on a house or a property.I do want to acknowledge however as I signalled a moment ago Supplementary Order Paper 324 which the Minister has introduced relatively recently. I acknowledge her efforts at trying to address this concern that we have had and I appreciated the advance notice of the Supplementary Order Paper that the Minister gave me. I think it is constructive. Although we may not approve of the bill in total we would rather see the bill if it is to proceed go with this amendment rather than without it. So perversely as it may sound to some we will support this amendment because it does allow the replacement of the words the “group of … trees are described” in clause 12—and this isnew section 76(4B)(c)(i)—and that means that instead of just referring to “the trees are described” it replaces that with “the group of trees is described”. By that I understand it is the Minister’s intention that this is to apply to groups of trees so that they are not so readily destroyed by the ability of individual property owners to move on their own sections and properties. So I appreciate that effort.Similarly in clause 12 new section 76(4D)(a) has again the words “regardless of whether the tree or trees”—or group of trees—“or the allotment or allotments are also identified on a map in the plan;”. This all sounds a little bit technical but it does provide for a modicum more protection in terms of the words on the page for groups of trees and that effort is appreciated.However if I just back up a little bit having spoken about clause 12 which was one of the clauses that received the greatest number of submissions and some of the most vehement advocacy for trees and the benefits that they give us in our communities one of the concerns that was raised in the course of the consideration of that was the additional expense or trouble that councils might have to go to in order to identify trees or groups of trees by lot or address or unit title in order for them to be protected.There are some local authorities and territorial authorities around the country that have not done such an exercise previously. They have used only aerial mapping and have identified clumps of trees and groups of trees simply by aerial identification. It is going to mean for some councils and some local authorities that they are going to have to put additional effort and money and time and resources of all sorts into this exercise. When I checked with the two councils—one city council one district council; both unitary authorities—in the Nelson area where I live and work this was not a problem in particular for Nelson City Council. It already identifies trees for protection by address and that is reflected in some other territorial authorities’ practices but it is not universal around the country. There will be territorial authorities local authorities that will find this cumbersome and expensive.There is one other clause that I wish to speak to at this point and it is clause 11. It is the bit about it amending section 53 of the Resource Management Act. Clause 11 is entitled “Section 53 amended (Changes to or review or revocation of national policy statements)”. New section 53(2) says: “The Minister may without using a process referred to in subsection (1) amend a national policy statement if the amendment is of minor effect or corrects a minor error.” This has some concern attached to it because it means that if the amendment is of minor effect or corrects a minor error the Minister is able to do that without any consultation process which is usually required for the development of a national policy statement about any environmental matter whether it is the quality of water or air quality or whatever else it is that the Minister wishes to make a national policy statement on. She is able to do that without consultation—without a consultative process attaching to it. So we are left to work out whether or not the Minister’s judgment of a minor effect or a minor error is a sufficient safeguard for people in determining a change or review or revocation of a national policy statement.This is a serious matter and it is one of the things that has caused us concern during the course of this resource management bill. It received a few mentions in submissions. Obviously people were very exercised by the protections of trees and not as many of them focused on this but still in all certainly the Environmental Defence Society did issue a paper quite early on in the process that said that it found this ability of the Minister to amend a national policy statement if she considers the amendment to be of minor effect or to correct a minor error to be of some concern and that national policy statements should be subjected to a consultation process both in their development and in any rescinding or revocation or alteration to those. So that was another matter of concern.But I started to say before that I wanted to back up a wee bit and just go through some of the figures that pertain to resource management consents. Those have been catalogued elsewhere and I will come to those again later.