Bishop ChrisThird ReadingHon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): I move That the Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Bill be now read a third time. I want to start by saying thank you to members from all sides of the House for the constructive way in which we went through the select committee—sorry no select committee on this one; the committee of the whole House. Sorry it's been a tiring three or four weeks. In fact it's been a tiring year. I want to thank all the members. I think it was a constructive way through.All of the issues have been well canvassed I think in the first reading the second reading and the committee of the whole House. The Government remains committed to sensible changes to our planning regime that make it easier to get houses built get aquaculture under way and get infrastructure built whilst protecting the environment. I think there is a widespread consensus that that is not the case at the moment. The replacement regime that we are repealing today—the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act—was a well-intentioned but unfortunate and misguided attempt at fixing our planning regime and many people consider it would not have worked. The select committee heard submission after submission from people from councils from developers of infrastructure from renewable energy providers—and the member who is the Labour Party environment spokesperson whom I like a lot and have a lot of time for needs to be aware of her conflict. The Hon Rachel Brooking was a member of the Randerson panel that begat this nonsense so it's fair enough that she's now in the position she's in. She became the Associate Minister for the Environment but she was a member of Randerson panel so to use an equity term she does not come at this with clean hands. And I don't say that in a particularly pejorative way.Hon Dr Megan Woods: Are you suggesting an honourable member is not honourable?CHRIS BISHOP: No no no. I was just making a law joke. Chris Penk found it funny even if others didn't. The Government's accepted an amendment to the legislation on the floor of the House so I thought we'd get more joie de vivre from the Opposition but anyway.Hon Scott Simpson: Where's the Christmas joy?CHRIS BISHOP: Christmas spirit and Christmas joy. I'm proud of this legislation. I'm not proud that we had to do it under urgency.Hon Dr Megan Woods: Proud of what you've repealed.CHRIS BISHOP: Well yeah I'm proud of all the stuff we're repealing. As I've said multiple times including in public when something is not a good piece of legislation by definition repealing it is good. If it was good it would stay on the statute book.The members opposite have this really quite odd attitude that everything the Government must do has to be constructive and we have to pass elaborate pieces of legislation and we have to—Hon Dr Megan Woods: So you've got to be destructive. That's all right; we get it.CHRIS BISHOP: If repealing something that is destructive by definition actually is positive in the sense that it will grow the economy and make it easier to do things by definition that is constructive. So that's my point—the binary is a false one. Repealing things can take the country forward. To take an example that the Labour Party members opposite might have some sympathy for the Labour Party spent most of the 1990s saying the Employment Contracts Act was a disaster. They then repealed the Employment Contracts Act and the Labour Party back then didn't go around saying Oh well we're repealing it. Oh no this is not good." They were proud of the repeal. This is what Governments do. Governments change the political cycle goes things come and go. We came to Government with a mandate to go through systematically and repeal stupid pieces of legislation passed by the last Parliament by the last Government and that is what we're doing. We had fair pay agreements last week 90-day trials once we get through this; we've got the Resource Management Act we've got the clean car/ute tax and trust me there's more coming in the new year and I'm looking forward to it. Getting stuff off the statute book is by definition positive right if it reduces the size of Government and takes the country forward.Parliament legislates too much stuff and one of the problems with the last Government was they just legislated all the time—elaborate complicated complex regimes that stuff the statute book with complexity. Actually we need a smaller Government that reduces down the size of the statute book.Anyway I somewhat digress.Hon Dr Megan Woods: I look forward to it.CHRIS BISHOP: Megan says she's looking forward to it.As I've sort of advertised we're keeping the fast-track consenting regime which was developed by the last Government. We're developing our own regime and work is under way at pace. Simon Court my Parliamentary Under-Secretary for infrastructure and Resource Management Act reform is working on that alongside our coalition Government parties.We are as I've said to the member Rachel Brooking interested in spatial planning and how we get that more properly equipped. I've decided to keep the Spatial Planning Board and we'll work through the roles and functionality of that in due course. I do agree with the member the point she made at various points that spatial planning does have a real role to play but I think it is really important as I said during the committee of the whole House stage that we do that in a coherent and structured way that sits alongside other Government priorities alongside water reform. And at some point in due course we will have to consider the future of local government reform as well and of course it sits alongside our reforms in infrastructure funding and financing which as the member knows and the member sitting next to her knows is fundamental to getting more houses built in New Zealand.I think of the housing challenge as like a trifecta. You've got to get the land-use policy done in a comprehensive way. You've got to get competitive urban land markets. You've got to get the infrastructure funding and financing arrangements right and you've got to get the council incentives lined up so that councils don't just see growth as something to be ambivalent about or—frankly many times—hostile to.They've got to see growth as something that's a good thing because housing growth is in all of our interests not least the Government's and in 20 or so minutes the Minister of Finance will present the mini-Budget and the Half Year Economic and Fiscal Update. I'm not breaking any Budget secrets when I say that the previous Government spent an enormous sum of money every year on housing subsidies—around $4 billion a year once you add up income-related rent the accommodation supplement and the tragedy that is emergency housing—and in due course we will have to do what we can to sort that out.Our planning laws affect almost every aspect of our lives and it is really important that we get them right. I acknowledge the contribution from Rachel Brooking—the letter which I will ponder and consider over the summer break and we'll come back to her around our sheer desire to create a better New Zealand and a better planning regime. But for now we have come to the view that the regime put in place by the last Government would have been a retrograde step. We sought at the election a mandate to get it off the statute book. I regret the use of urgency. I'm not a fan of urgency in a general sense but I think it is justified in this case because there's a 10-year transition window and if we hadn't got it off the statute book by Christmas people would spend an enormous amount of time and money over the Christmas period and the new year—spending time and money on a regime that the Government made clear wasn't going to exist at some point in the future.So it's better to get it off the statute book now and start again and that's what we're going to do and that's what the Government is seeking a mandate for from the Parliament and with that thank you very much Madam Speaker."