Street Maryan: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 17 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13373. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]6.Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour) to theMinister for the Environment: Has she ever received any advice that the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council Plan Change 6 which paves the way for theRuataniwha Dam proposal in its current form does not meet the requirements of the Resource Management Act 1993 for plan changes and would not achieve the requirements of Part 2 of that Act?Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister for the Environment): I am advised that none of the advice I have received makes those statements. Furthermore I note that the advice on which I based my decision is publicly available on the Environmental Protection Authority website. I also note that questions of whether the proposal meets the requirements of the Resource Management Act including Part 2 is a matter for theindependent board of inquiry considering the proposal. The board operates independently of Ministers and is tasked with considering the full range of Resource Management Act matters including technical matters raised in submissions to it.Hon Maryan Street: Has she received any advice that plan change 6 in its current form does not give effect to the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management the New Zealand Coastal Policy Statement 2010 or section 67 of the Resource Management Act which requires regional plans to give effect to the regional policy statement?Hon AMY ADAMS: To the best of my recollection no. But what I can tell the member is that those matters she has raised are not matters that the Minister is properly able to take into account. The decision that has to be made by the Minister and in this case joint Ministers is consideration of the matter set out in section 142 of the Resource Management Act which is very specifically related to whether the matter is one of national significance and whether it should be called in and the appropriate body hear it. The matters that the member referred to in her question are matters for the independent board of inquiry hearing the proposal to turn their minds to.Hon Maryan Street: Does she think that her colleague the Minister of Conservation who was appraised of this information should have shared the advice he had received about this plan change with her given her responsibilities for the Resource Management Act?Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The member has claimed in the question that I had access to a report which I did not until I heard it on Radio New Zealand National this morning.Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order. It is very much a debating matter but it is certainly within the hands of the Minister to now answer the question.Hon AMY ADAMS: Well I have no ministerial responsibility for what advice or information my colleague had but what I can tell the member is that both myself and the Minister of Conservation properly turned our minds to all of the appropriate matters under section 142 of the Resource Management Act when we made our joint decision that it was a matter of national significance and that it should be referred to an independent board of inquiry.Hon Maryan Street: Given that the advice has just been tabled today in the House by Russel Norman in considering that information—Hon Dr Nick Smith: A draft submission. A draft.Hon Maryan Street: —draft or otherwise—is it her purpose in proposing to change Part 2 of the Resource Management Act and prioritise development over environmental protections to allow such plan changes as this one to go through more easily with fewer legal objections regardless of environmental impacts?Hon AMY ADAMS: No.Hon Maryan Street: I seek leave to table in addition to the other material I was going to table which has been tabled a report from the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser calledThe role of evidence in policy—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is a document that is available to all members.