Smith Nick: Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Smith Nick: Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4905. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson) 
: 
 I want to make a contribution on this bill the Resource Management (Restricted Duration of Certain Discharge and Coastal Permits) Amendment Bill and to make three points. The first of those is that I am quite uncomfortable with bills in the area of resource management that specifically focus on a single resource issue. I have heard the Green Party and others in this Parliament over the years say that we should be very cautious of passing a bill to simply ride roughshod over process and approve a particular development. Equally so Parliament should be cautious of passing a law that is specifically designed to do just a particular job on a particular river. We have an Environment Court and very robust processes for that. If we look over the history of resource management in this Parliament what we have found is that piecemeal legislation—which makes a bit of law for this beach or a bit for that river or a bit for that mountain or a bit for that lake—is actually not where Parliament should be focused. It should be focused on providing really good law so that we can then consistently deal with good resource management decision-making. I think it is a deficiency in this bill and in the contribution by the member who introduced it Catherine Delahunty that it is gunning in on just the issue of the Tarawera River. 
The second point is that the bill does not achieve what the member says it will. The bill says that it is going to put a termination on the “exceptional circumstance” provision in respect of this specific application of the Tasman Pulp and Paper mill and the Tarawera River. The problem is that the Environment Court has granted a 25-year consent. So even if this bill is passed it is a bit of a nonsense to say that it is going to limit the provision to 5 years when the bill is targeted to have a go only at this one river—and that consent has got 25 years to go—and there are no provisions in the bill to override that particular consent. So I think that it is a little bit of misrepresentation to say that this puts a 5-year window on it when it affects only one consent and that consent has got 25 years to run. 
The third issue on which I believe the member needs to satisfy Parliament is that she says there is strong local support for the bill. Well it is my information that the Kawerau District Council which is the locally elected community representative voice does not support it. My understanding is that neither does the Bay of Plenty Regional Council support it. Of course it could have been introduced as a local bill. The Local Government and Environment Committee does consider those when they come through. For the bill to be supported and to claim to have local support we really would want to know that the Kawerau District Council and the Bay of Plenty Regional Council which are elected with the specific role of representing these community issues have the same view as what the member presents. Our information is that that is not correct. 
You see there is no disagreement in this Parliament that we need to raise the bar around cleaner rivers throughout New Zealand. But equally so we need to be asking the question in a very detailed way about how that impacts on employment and costs. That is we need to have a very transparent discussion around if you are going to set the bar at a particular line and a particular time frame the impact on employment and the impact on costs. 
The other part that worries me is that it is very easy to stand up in this Parliament whether it comes to issues of climate change—where the Greens have a policy of 40 percent reduction of emissions by 2020 without any admission of what cost that might impose—or whether we want to have clean air or clean water everywhere at a particular time without being open and upfront with our fellow New Zealanders about what the cost and job implications are of those. In my view if we are to really have an honest discussion all those things need to be on the table. My view is that we should be looking at improving the overall framework of the Resource Management Act and not looking at legislation that picks off a single issue in a single area. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.