Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'm pleased to take a call on the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill. I'm going to say from the outset that National supports this bill. We supported it at first reading and we support it again today. I want to just start by thanking officials. I need to do this because they worked at breakneck speed over a very short period of time and they did an exceptional job. They did this on the back of another bill that we had the log traders and forestry advisers bill which we also did at breakneck speed over the course of a week. So they absolutely need to be acknowledged because they did a fantastic job. I think we met seven out of eight days on this bill—so that just goes to show you how much hard work went into this bill—including at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. So I do absolutely need to acknowledge them. I just want to start by saying we understand this bill is under urgency and that's understandable. It's a little bit curious though—I just want to point out that it wasn't introduced under Budget urgency. Instead under Budget urgency we got the log traders and forestry advisers bill. But here is a bill which actually in its title and in its purpose goes to the very heart of the problem that we're dealing with that the Budget spent billions and billions of dollars on helping to improve our economy as we recover from COVID yet it wasn't introduced under Budget urgency; we get it under normal urgency. It's just a strange anomaly that I wanted to point out because it is very confusing to us why this wasn't introduced under Budget urgency. This bill has the aim of supporting employment and boosting local economies by the acceleration of nationwide projects and activities and what better bill to have introduced under Budget urgency?This bill is an acknowledgement that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is broken. The consent process is long it's expensive and it's open to appeal which can see projects delayed made far more costly dragged out and often not got off the ground at all. And in times of crisis like the Christchurch earthquake like the Kaikōura earthquake and again at the moment this bill and what we're putting in place will very much help our economy get back on track. Fast-track consenting is required for job growth. It is required to create legacy projects that have ongoing economic benefit. Like I say we've used similar legislation in the past and we support legislation today to assist our economy to recover from COVID-19. The bill achieves its purpose as we heard from the Minister for the Environment in three ways: by listing projects 11 projects under Schedule 2 of the bill; by having projects referred by the Minister to a panel; and allowing agencies like the New Zealand Transport Agency and KiwiRail to carry out specific work on existing infrastructure without the need for a resource consent. So works would then be limited to operation of maintenance of replacement of and minor upgrades to existing infrastructure located in rail and road corridors. At the first reading I made the point that while we support the bill and its intentions are worthy this bill lacks vision. In fact we said in our minority view after the select committee process that it is a wasted opportunity. The fact that there are only 11 projects listed in Schedule 2 means that there was an opportunity here to create some legacy projects that would have ongoing economic benefit for New Zealand that had great vision and instead we got 11 projects of for the most part relatively small scale. While in themselves not bad projects and we agree with them where was the vision from this Government to create long-lasting projects with ongoing economic value that we can look back on and say that out of the ashes of COVID-19 this is what we were left with: some fantastic legacy projects. We had the opportunity for example to fast track the Katikati bypass the Waikato Expressway extension the Dunedin Hospital redevelopment and many many more projects. And we will take the opportunity today to put forward amendments by way of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to inject some vision into this bill. We've got a number of them on the table. We will speak to them later. But it will be up to the National Party today to inject that vision and the real economic growth that will come from this bill by way of our amendments. This bill exemplifies—I would say it's one of those bills that exemplify the very uncomfortable relationship between New Zealand First and the Greens. This was made very clear at the select committee process. There is a project that was listed in Schedule 2 a very good project. It was called the Kopenui Water Storage Reservoir at Kaikohe. We all know it as the Ngāwhā dam project. In fact the Minister in his speech talked about water storage projects being listed in Schedule 2. But to be fair when this bill came to us in the Environment Committee there wasn't a water storage project. It was a hole in the ground. The reason that it wasn't a water storage project was because the Ngāwhā dam in fact was only for the construction of the dam—just a hole in the ground. It specifically said that it was not for water-related consents. So you could dig a hole in the ground but you couldn't fill it full of water and you couldn't take the water out of it so it wasn't a water storage project at all. It was a big expensive hole in the ground. Now New Zealand First were very aggrieved by this because there was a fair amount I suspect of Provincial Growth Fund funding that went into these projects. And here we have a project in Schedule 2 that was just for a hole in the ground. Now we know very well—we can suspect where this came from and we could only imagine that it came by way of the Greens not wanting water storage projects.Now let me remind the House of the importance of this project. Not only is it for horticultural developments in the area and for iwi projects it's also for potable water for Kaikohe. In the midst of a drought the likes of which they have not seen before they need drinking-water. And this was an extremely important project that the Greens clearly have got their little fingers all over by not allowing them to fill it full of water—Hon Jacqui Dean: Shame.ERICA STANFORD: —or take water which as Jacqui Dean is saying is absolutely shameful.Now I'd just like to point out that the National Party came to the rescue at select committee because this would not have been changed in select committee to allow for the filling of the dam and the water takes out of the dam if it wasn't for the National Party because when the amendments were put by Jenny Marcroft from the New Zealand First Party the Greens abstained. They knew that they didn't have the numbers on that side to get this through and it was the National Party that came to the rescue for Kaikohe and for the people of Northland.Hon Nathan Guy: It was actually Matt King.ERICA STANFORD: It was. In fact I do have to acknowledge Matt King because the hard work on this was done by him in his electorate and fed down to us and we came to the rescue. Matt King came to the rescue for the people of Kaikohe when it comes to this amendment. We made these changes so this consent will now go to the expert panel. The other thing that the National Party wanted to put through because we heard from Mayor Goff in select committee and he made the very good submission that Auckland was in the midst of a drought like we have never seen before and there would be water restrictions for many many months perhaps years to come—he talked about the number of jobs that would be lost in Auckland because of this—was an amendment to the select committee; we put it forward twice actually. It was one that Nikki Kaye drafted. She'd done a lot of work in this area. We put it to select committee to add the Auckland water take from the Waikato River to Schedule 2. It was voted down by all members of the Government: the Labour Party the Greens and New Zealand First all voted it down. That was on a Friday. Over the weekend there were many reports in the media from Shane Jones backing this project saying that he wanted to see it in Schedule 2 in fact. We thought Well this is great. We've going to have the numbers in select committee to then add this very important project for Auckland to Schedule 2." So we on Monday after the weekend and after the media tried to put it forward again. I asked for leave and the chair of the committee did not grant it so we weren't able to vote on that. We do understand now that Minister Parker has called the project in under a different mechanism under the RMA. So he has very much bowed to the pressure of Nikki Kaye and Mayor Goff—the very good work that Nikki Kaye's done on this. He's bowed to that pressure. He knows it's important thanks to the work of the National Party again. We hope that the process that he's putting this through will work. If it doesn't when we are next in Government after September we will ensure that Auckland gets the water that it so desperately needs if that process doesn't work. I'll just finish by saying that I have a very good SOP also to push this out from two to five years and I look forward to speaking to that at committee stage."