Bishop ChrisFAST-TRACK APPROVALS BILLFirst ReadingHon CHRIS BISHOP (Minister responsible for RMA Reform): I present a legislative statement on the Fast-track Approvals Bill.SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found also on the parliamentary website.Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I move That the Fast-track Approvals Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill. This is a momentous day for the coalition Government which is up to day 99 of our 100-day plan of action since the election. This bill continues the Government's continued commitment to deliver on its coalition agreement with New Zealand First and at the outset I would like to acknowledge the work of Matua Shane Jones Minister for Regional Development in the development of this bill. I also want to acknowledge the hard work of my colleagues the Hon Simeon Brown the Hon Tama Potaka and the Hon Paul Goldsmith. It would be fair to say that Ministers and officials have moved at extraordinary pace to develop this legislation. There were many long nights devising this and it has been put to me by people who know this sort of stuff around the town that Ministers and officials have done about two years' worth of work in about two months and it's something that I think is worth commenting on.I would like to also acknowledge the hard work of the officials at the Ministry for the Environment; the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment; the Department of Conservation; Te Arawhiti the Office for Māori Crown Relations; the Infrastructure Commission; and almost certainly I have left an agency off there. This has been a joint team effort as readers of the Dominion Post will know. We're going to say thank you later on this afternoon.I'm very proud of this legislation. I have believed and the coalition Government has believed for a long time now that it's too hard to do things in this country. It's not just my belief that that's the case; we know from the facts that it is. To quote the recent Infrastructure Commission report: The time it takes to consent a major project has doubled across a five-year period."—that's 2014 to 2019. We spend $1.3 billion—Hon David Parker: Who fixed that?Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well you didn't fix it—that's the whole point. That's partly why you were thrown out. We spend $1.3 billion in resource consent fees per year. It is just too hard to do things—too hard to build houses too hard to build roads too hard to build public transport too hard to build geothermal and wind power stations too hard to build mines for the future too hard to get aquaculture projects up and running—and this is part of the Government's process of unclogging that.We're viewing resource management reforms in three phases. The first was to repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act; we did that before Christmas. The second is to introduce a fast-track consenting regime and make targeted amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that we've returned to to make it easier to do some of the things I've just been talking about. Then the third part of our reform agenda is to replace the resource management regime with one based on the concept of property rights which some members had previously decided is sort of by definition anti-environment. But actually proper respect for property rights and using market-based frameworks can do a lot for the environment and improving things. I'll have more to say about that in due course.But to return to the bill what it does is set up a process which is firstly a one-stop shop but also a fast-track regime. What we are doing is setting up a process that will put nationally and regionally significant projects in the fast lane. Projects become eligible for the fast track through one of two ways: either through a referral by the joint decision of the Ministers of infrastructure regional development and transport upon an application or by being listed in Schedule 2A of the bill. Once a project has been referred into the fast track it will be considered by an expert panel. Essentially we have adopted with some modifications the regime of the COVID-19 fast-track expert panel process that the previous Government introduced in its wisdom as a response to COVID. As I pointed out during question time earlier in the day the difference between our bill and the previous bill is that this bill doesn't actually contain any projects in it. To the contradistinction of what has been some rumours around the town the bill does not include any projects. So projects become eligible either by referral or through being put in Schedule 2A and then it goes to an expert panel and their job is to apply the relevant consent and permit conditions.I as Minister for Infrastructure—it's me currently; hopefully for a while. The Minister for Infrastructure will appoint a panel convener and the panel convener will appoint the various relevant members of the expert panels. The panel convener must be a High Court judge—either current or former—or an Environment Court judge. Notably what we are doing is we've changed the regime from the COVID-19 legislation—the fast track—in relation to the expert panels. So as I understand it in the COVID-19 framework expert panel members had a daily rate and the evidence that's been put to me is that that was a bit of a disincentive for the relevant RMA experts and practitioners and planners and lawyers to participate—the exact sort of people you'd want doing these sort of panel hearings—because frankly they could make more money doing other things other than sitting on the panels. So instead what we've gone to is a market-rate system. So simple supply and demand simple economics—if you let the market clear then it will clear and if you let people pay what is required then we'll get more people into the system to run the regime. I think that's a sensible step forward.So they will apply the relevant consent and permit conditions. We've also set a time frame of six months. The project will then be sent back to joint Ministers. Now there's been a bit of debate in the Parliament about: is this a constitutional overreach? I see my good mate Gary Taylor going out there saying it's the worst Government since Rob Muldoon and all sorts of other nonsense. He needs to get with the programme and members who believe that need to get with the programme. We are deliberately making a policy-design decision to give the executive Government more power over this process. So that's not a criticism. That's actually a design-policy choice by the coalition Government and I believe it's possible to get to a sweet spot where Ministers essentially refer projects to a panel the panel applies the conditions around the environment and around conservation and then it goes back to Ministers for decision making.The reason why the schedules don't contain any projects is we felt on reflection it was better to run a process that was insulated from Government and insulated from Ministers and where Ministers could have the ability to assess the advice of an independent panel about what projects should be included and what projects should not be included and then ultimately the projects will go to the Ministers and go to Cabinet for approval. The bill—it's not as I say wildly dissimilar to what the COVID-19 fast-track regime did. That bill included 17 from memory and potentially 19 projects which were automatically referred.We've also put in place Schedule 2B which is best described as projects that are shovel worthy but not quite yet ready for consents. What we're trying to do is deliberately create a pipeline of projects. What I would like to see flowing out of the fast-track regime is lots and lots and lots of projects that have resourced consent and are ready to go. They're on the shelf; they're ready to go. What we do in New Zealand too often is we spend all this time and money getting things ready to go and then we get the money together—whether it's public or private—and everyone goes "Righty-o this is good." and then we go off to get resource consent and seven years later we wake up and the resource consent hasn't happened inflation has improved the cost of everything and all of a sudden the project's not necessarily viable or economic. What I want to do and what the Government wants to do is reverse that. So we have a whole lot of stuff that is consented part of a pipeline on the shelf and ready to go. It may not necessarily be economic right now it may not be economically viable in five years' time but it may be economic in the future depending on the people's deployment of capital and depending on the capital deployment of Government. That is part of building a modern functioning 21st century economy with infrastructure that actually works.Part of the problem in this country is we've become the obstruction economy and what I want to say is that there is a better way. We don't have to become a country which has a "can't do" attitude; we can become a country that says yes to growth yes to more roads yes to geothermal power yes to wind energy yes to farming yes to mining yes to housing growth and yes to growth. Because that's the problem with this country. We've got a slow-growing economy; we've had productivity growth problems for 30 years. It's too hard to do things in this country and I'm proud to be a member of a Government that is changing the obstruction economy and saying yes to growth. So many problems in New Zealand could be solved by more economic growth more projects more roads more mines more renewable energy more building stuff that will actually improve the economy and get things going. I commend this bill to the House."