Seymour David; Rurawhe AdrianDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT in opposition to the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill. Resource Management Act (RMA) reform is one of the most important policy issues facing New Zealand. And yet this bill amounts to a surrender and abdication by the Government saying it's too hard to fix so we're just going to let a few favoured projects through before the election.People need to get a sense of the scale of this bill. The Government's press release says it will create 1185 jobs. Well we heard from Eugenie Sage that there's actually still going to be extensive consultation and I wouldn't mind having a wager. I'm going to take a bet with Eugenie Sage from the Greens on the one hand and the Labour Party on the other about whether there'll be more jobs created building these projects or involved in the consultation. The Green Party want to tell you there'll be more people involved in consulting 11 projects than the jobs created from building them. That's the reality and we need to reform the RMA more substantially for a number of reasons. Here's one: the price of a median section in Auckland in the period we've had the RMA has gone up 900 percent. That's compared with inflation of 60 percent over the same period. That's the legacy of the RMA.People may remember before the last election that Auckland was nearly cut off from fuel supply because someone put a digger through a pipe. Let's give an example of that. Well the reason it was a problem is that there was only one pipe. And why was there only one pipe? Well simply because the oil refinery knew under the RMA that they didn't have a snowflake's chance of building a second one. I find that particularly interesting because we've got parties in this Parliament saying they're going to move the port to Auckland when they know it's not even possible to build a second pipeline to Marsden port. We can't build homes. We can't even build a pipeline in this country.That's why we need Resource Management Act reform but not this way. What this Government is saying is it's all too hard. They've had 2½ years they haven't done the work and yet they are prepared to rush legislation through the House so they can get a few favoured Government projects on track before the election. New Zealand deserves better than that. It deserves a Government that is committed to doing the real work of reforming the Resource Management Act so that the private sector can get projects done too not just a few Government projects before an election when it's convenient.I'd put it to you that it's not just sections in Auckland it's not just pipelines from the oil refinery down to the Wiri Terminal. Up and down this country there are projects where it takes longer to get consent under the RMA than it takes to actually complete the project. The funny thing about that is that those are the brave people that go ahead and get consent anyway. I'm much more worried about the people who contemplate projects and don't even bother under the yoke of this legislation. And I'm more worried still about the culture that we have where people are bound into a form of stasis because they actually realise it's just too hard. If this Government had the courage to do real resource management reform we could have thousands of jobs—maybe even enough to make up for the 37000 lost last month. But instead we've got a piece of legislation rushed through before an election to get a few favoured projects done so the Government can look good as it goes to the polls.Hon Stuart Nash: Such a cynic.DAVID SEYMOUR: And the member here says it's so cynical. I agree with Stuart Nash: it is cynical and he should be ashamed because he's one of the few people in the Labour Party with some character. But what has he done to improve this legislation? Nothing. What a shame.That's why the ACT Party is opposed to this bill because New Zealand deserves better. Thank you Mr Speaker.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I call Kieran McAnulty five minutes.