Natural Environment Bill

Committee of the whole House

I would like to go first to clause 2, which is “Commencement”, and make a couple of observations on it. One is that whereas the Planning Bill has some provisions having near immediate effect—or one month from commencement, which is going to be very close to the election, I presume—this bill has no such provision. Everything is coming into force either via Order in Council—so who knows when—or the default four years after the Act comes into force. That’s at subclause 2A, the default. It looks like it’s been added in. I would be interested in the Minister responsible for RMA Reform commenting on when he thinks those different provisions that are found in subclause (2) might come into effect—when those Orders in Council might happen.

Now, this is particularly relevant for the insertions of paragraphs (ca), (cb), and (cc), because those all relate to schedules that we were not able to debate during this committee stage. I know my friend Lan Pham had a lot to say on water conservation orders, and there is some real fear that there are changes there that could be regressive in terms of the relationship with land-use consents. There is some real fear about freshwater farm plans not being as robust as they might have been, but we didn’t get to test that. And who knows about coastal matters, because that was also in Schedule 3, which was not touched on. It would be useful for the Minister to set out the thinking of when these various provisions might have an Order in Council around them, and the time frames for when they might be—noting, of course, that there is that backstop of four years, which matches the backstop of the Planning Bill. That’s my question on clause 2. I’ll come back to clause 1 in a moment.

Committee of the whole House

The member the Hon Rachel Brooking is not quite right. Clause 2 is the commencement, which actually brings quite a lot of stuff into force on the day after Royal assent. The default is that everything comes into effect the day after Royal assent, but then there are the exceptions at clause 2(2). Then new clause 2(2A) is the backstop, which is four years—which, the member is right, is new. I mean, at a high level, it’s basically: the law is the law once it gets signed by the Governor-General or the administrator of Government—she’s out of the country—and then there’s a bunch of exceptions in the next four years, and the backstop is the four years.

That’s relatively complicated, at some level, because it’s a complicated piece of legislation, alongside the Planning Bill/Act. The intention is that the national policy direction (NPD) standards and plan-making provisions get commenced immediately, and then the Order in Council process will commence the regulatory functions, including duties and restrictions and consenting once the proposed plans have been notified. So, you start the NPD, move down to the plans, and then we turn on the system over the next few years. That’s the intention. Exactly when that happens will be “to be determined”, obviously.

To clause 2(2)(ca), (cc), and (cb), which the member asked about, I’m advised they’re all intended to commence on the specified transition date, as will everything under clause 2(2). In the meantime, with relation to the regulatory functions, they’ll remain in force under the Resource Management Act (RMA), with amendments made to the RMA by the Planning Bill. It is complicated, but there’s a pathway to get it all into place in the next three years, and whoever ends up in possession of the RMA reform Minister portfolio—which, probably, I venture to suggest, will not exist once these bills come into effect; well, that’s not a decision for me, but—

Lan Pham: It’s even more necessary.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, I think—I’m just going to throw this out there—that we’re going to end up with a Minister of Planning. I’m just going to say that: a planning Minister.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We heard it live today, right now.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I’m going to get myself in trouble now! It’s not my decision, but, I mean, personally, I don’t think it makes a lot of sense to have a—I mean, the RMA reform Minister job has been—you know, we’ve done the national direction. Well, fast track is now in the infrastructure portfolio, but we’ve done the national direction; we’ve now done this package of legislation, the two bills, and the ancillary stuff, and my own personal view is that we should just have a planning Minister, and, probably, the Minister for the Environment should be the—

Lan Pham: Damage control.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: What’s that?

Lan Pham: Damage control.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Let’s just leave it to calls and not have a conversation across the Chamber.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: That’s, I think, unfair. Oh, well, anyway, all of that’s to be determined. Those things are actually outside the remit of the debate and, actually, frankly outside my powers, so I probably shouldn’t have commented on it, but anyway, we are where we are.

Hon Rachel Brooking: Keep going—keep going.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, no—no, no. I’ve said too much—I’ve said too much. It’s about a three- to four-year transition window, and it’s actually relatively straightforward when you think about it.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I specifically have questions on clause 2, as well. Thank you, Minister, for clearing up one of my questions, which is the insertion of new clause 2(2A) around the backstop of four years.

I am now curious, because the Minister responsible for RMA Reform has kind of opened the scope to discuss the responsible Minister, because we see that in here. I just want to check with the Minister: if it’s not what the Minister has suggested and the Resource Management Act (RMA) reform Minister may no longer be around once this finishes, who will be the appropriate responsible Minister in that case?

I want to look at a couple of specific ones relating to clause 2(2). There are a number of subclauses in here which relate to regulations or specific areas. I have two questions, the first question being: how much of this is already in existence and is simply rolled over under this new bill? A lot of these provisions we have seen already exist in the current RMA. Do they need to be in here if it’s simply being rolled over from the existing one? For example, I think clause 2(d) is something that we discussed yesterday, around section 128 provisions for wildlife approvals. That’s something that already currently exists. What’s the reason, if there’s a carry-over, to require another Order in Council in this particular instance?

The one I want to focus on is actually clause 2(2)(h), which relates to clause 323B, and that’s not so much in terms of a regulation but the ability for a person who’s got contaminated land or land use for hazardous activities to report. I wonder why that needs to be in the Order in Council for them to report, presumably, on something they are reporting on currently. Now, when they’re not taking effect, that requires an Order in Council for that to then take place. What happened to this sort of limbo grey area? Does that mean that people will still be reporting or there’s now suddenly no reporting requirements?

I believe, in clause 323B, there was a comparison to a previous clause in a 2023 amendment to the RMA. I wanted to know, with clause (2)(h), do they still need to report despite the Order in Council not having gone through for the enactment of that particular provision?

Committee of the whole House

I inadvertently widened the scope of the debate.

Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan: I’m just curious—I am curious.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Yeah, yeah, well, so am I—so am I. I’m just taking—

Arena Williams: “Planning Master-General”!

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Eh?

Arena Williams: Call it the “Planning Master-General”!

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I’m just taking some further advice.

Hon Rachel Brooking: On that?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Definitely not on that. As I understand it, previously, Acts used to specify who the responsible Minister was, so they would say, you know, “The person responsible for this Act is X”. We don’t do that any more; responsibility for legislation is a Cabinet Office process, as I understand it, and so exactly who will be responsible for both Acts will be a decision for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. That will all be worked through.

I suppose I was just indicating that it makes sense to have a planning Minister responsible for planning and a logical place for the Environment Act would be the environment Minister, but that may also not be true. Anyway, that will all be worked out. It’s actually not that material, to be honest, for the purposes of this discussion. It’s not actually that relevant to the legislation. The point is there’s going to be an Act, and there will be a Minister responsible for the Act.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to ask the Minister responsible for RMA Reform about clause 2(2). I understand why the Minister has opted for a system which comes in in a staged way. It is a difficult thing to transition to the new regime—we accept that—but this goes significantly further than the kind of on/off in a staged way that he has described. If that was the intention, the legislation would set out a staged way. This allows maximum flexibility for the Government to decide, by Order in Council and with very few criteria, what dates will apply, and it could all be at the end of the four-year period anyway, or even extended from there.

The problem, really, is a rule-of-law problem, where he’s now given the executive of Government even more power to turn on and off rules within areas. It could be the case that the Waikato is operating under old rules and Auckland is operating under new rules for a longer period of time, and that is, simply, a really difficult position to put any system users in, and a very beneficial one for Government to be put in. It’s particularly detrimental to those seeking to exercise Māori rights and interests in this system, because when you have system users who are already at a disadvantage because of the development difficulties with their land—where they’re already at a disadvantage because they are not yet entities that are recognised as entities which are appropriate to exist within the system, like settled iwi— you then create another barrier where they have to work their way through a myriad of rules which are not known and not knowable. That is just another way where it is harder and harder for iwi to make sure they’re at the table in decisions which this Government sees it as completely appropriate for them to be involved in. Yes, there is a legitimate debate about what those areas are, but in areas where we all agree, it should be a duty for the Crown to act honourably and to ensure that those iwi are able to participate in those things in the easiest way possible.

This sequencing provision here, where it is going to be quite unclear when an Order in Council is anticipated to become in force, is a real problem, especially for the things like freshwater farm plans, for wildlife approvals, for natural resource permits. Those are things where iwi want to be at the table, but it’s unclear when they will have to be able to do that.

If you take the system design for users with users in mind, which is what the Government should have done, then there should be criteria for those dates to be set so at least people can see what kind of improvements they need to make to their own systems, in what kind of time frames. It has been the habit of this Government to require other system participants, like local councils, to respond to it within, say, 90 days. That is a precedent which has been set. That is what will be expected. Only really the largest and most resourced participants will be able to make those deadlines. Everybody else will be screaming along behind the Government, jogging along, trying their best to keep up, for the next four years.

Then we might see the Government introducing all of the rules in four years because it’s not ready either. It should have picked a later date. There are plenty of options on the table and Amendment Papers by my very able colleagues who have participated in this debate in good faith and have been themselves jogging along behind the Government, trying to keep up with the amendments, trying to keep up with the changes that have been introduced at the last minute.

This is an incredibly difficult way of doing lawmaking for anyone who is trying to do their best, do exactly as the Government has asked them, play along by the rules, and respect their environment as well as use their economic rights. But they will get it wrong. They will get it wrong over and over again. And the Government’s response has been to up the penalties and to make it harder for them to participate in hearings, to make it harder for them to access their procedural rights. This is a design where it is very, very difficult, for whether the planning Minister is called the “Planning Minister” or the “Planning Master General” or the “Chairman of the State Planning Committee”, that person will have all of the power to introduce rules when and where, and everybody else just has to lump it.

Committee of the whole House

Well, thanks for that, comrade. We’ll sing “The Internationale” together. Goodness gracious me.

A few sort of inaccuracies there. I mean, the starting point of all of this stuff is that it is difficult, OK, because we’re in a once-in-a-generation, once-in-a-30-year transition from the old to the new. That’s the sort of starting point, and there’s a number of ways you can approach that. You can do a decade, which is what the previous Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA) and Spatial Planning Act (SPA) process was going to take, which I think most people thought was too long. I would agree on that. Then you can do the kind of different regions turn on at different times approach—again, that was the NBA approach. That’s not perfect either. There was some logic to that, notwithstanding Arena Williams’ comments around how that would be silly. That is theoretically possible under this transition, but it’s not our intended approach. The member is right: it would not be good to have Auckland and Waikato with different rules at different times. That would be very complicated and confusing. That’s not the intention. It’s theoretically possible, but that’s not the Government’s approach.

We’ve gone for, again, as I think I’ve said a number of times throughout this debate, a balanced approach, which is: you’ve got the backstop of the four years; some things come into force immediately—kind of quick win - type stuff; a backstop of four years; and then a staged transition approach throughout it, and we’ll just work our way through that.

Should there be an approach of laying out in dates exactly when each provision comes in? I mean, well, there’s an argument for that, but then the trade-off with that is the flexibility around the system not keeping up, around some people not being ready. You do need that flexibility, and I think we’ve taken the right approach with that.

I can tell the committee there will be extensive material prepared. The Ministry for Cities, Environment, Regions and Transport is already working around that communicating. They’ve already got various different stakeholder groups set up. They’re working with Local Government Professionals—Taituarā, I think they’re called; the old SOLGM, Society of Local Government Managers. They’re working with the Resource Management Law Association. There’s an erstwhile alumnus of that organisation in the Chamber. They’re working with the New Zealand Planning Institute—great people who will be in this donkey deep in the next four years or so, Liz Moncrieff and the team. There’s a lot of people invested in all of this stuff, and there’ll be an extensive amount of workshops and stakeholder engagement and material publicised, and all of that will work its way through regardless of who the Minister is, obviously.

Just, finally, in relation to—I understand Ms Pham had a question for the chair when I was away: how much of this bill is rolled over from the Resource Management Act (RMA)? It’s a good question. These bills draw on the RMA in places which are efficient and reduce litigation risk of using new terms. Ultimately, they are new bills. They are new bills; different scheme; different framework; funnel approach, obviously, which we’ve talked about; a variety of different instruments and tools throughout it. But we have kept some of the RMA nomenclature, and I think that was important. That was actually one of my criticisms of the NBA and the SPA: big new terms that have not been used before—clearly there has to be some of that in the new system, but as much as you can, you want to try and use terms that people are familiar with, because that helps the transition.

Committee of the whole House

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to start by talking about commencement in clause 2, because it’s really important. This framework, in terms of a functional resource management system, is so critical to the entire country and particularly all those people who live in this country and all of those people, particularly, whose jobs it is to interact with it and plan for it and just be part of it. What really pains me about this commencement section is how necessary a functional framework is, but then I can’t help but be so struck how dysfunctional this system is.

Now, when it comes to commencement, the simple fact is these bills should not commence, and they shouldn’t commence because the Government has got it so staggeringly wrong. Why it’s staggering is because we had all the people who actually know, who are actually involved in these systems, putting in front of us the solutions that could have made it functional. Why didn’t the Government listen? Why didn’t the Government take this opportunity to get something right?

My title that I think would be much more appropriate for this bill in particular is the “Natural Environment Dysfunction Bill”, because even at the highest level, the Government have failed to even understand the concept of integration, where we cannot separate the built environment from the natural environment. It doesn’t work. It’s been spelt out time and time again that this is completely illogical, and there hasn’t been a clear justification as to why it’s split.

That’s where the dysfunction starts, but it continues through so many aspects, including the fact that the Government is claiming this is a fit for purpose 2026 framework, when the environmental limits themselves are not even environmental limits. That does not make sense, and it’s actually shameful for a country like New Zealand, where so much of—this Government purport to be all about economic growth and our exports and everything—

Grant McCallum: Jobs.

LAN PHAM: —and jobs, and all of that depends on the backbone of our economy, which is our environment, and we’re selling it off in these bills.

Another aspect that could be considered by this Government is that this is the “Natural Environment (Delay till we Die) Bill”. The delay, the delay, the delay is consistent throughout climate, throughout environment, and by the fact that, for example, the Government just introduced last-minute amendments that mean that regions of this country will not even have environmental limits—noting that they’re not even real environmental limits. These environmental limits don’t even come into play until the 2040s.

We are getting nowhere fast. We are in a race to the bottom with this bill, because the environmental protections that New Zealanders know have, ultimately, not even managed to protect the environment so far. They’ve been so drastically eroded and weakened, and any tools that could have progressed these things are gone. We are seeing agricultural industry lobby groups coming straight in and dictating the terms of this reform. It’s not even serving our best farmers; it’s serving our bottom-of-the-barrel farmers. It’s letting the most polluting farms off the hook in a totally unfair way where the good farmers have to pick up the tab, and we’re not even enabling catchment groups to take charge and be part of this. Those who know and understand the dysfunction of the system oppose this. These bills should never commence. It’s such a missed opportunity, and I’m extremely disappointed about the whole process and the duty of care that this Government’s failed on.

Committee of the whole House

It is strange to be here speaking on a title clause of a bill that has many of the same parts in it as another bill that we’ve just been discussing a day or so ago. That is because this Government has, for some terribly weird reason, decided that the natural environment can somehow be separated from land. It is this view of the world that you can put everything into little separate boxes, and you can say, “Oh, no, it’s fine for people to do whatever they like on their land. That won’t have any consequences on the natural environment.” But of course, we know that that is a total fiction. What you do on your land—if you dig it up, and then there’s a rain event and that dug-up material gets washed away into our rivers and our coastal environment, it stops the seaweed from growing and the fish from flourishing. We know that those two things are related, so to try and separate them is madness, and it is a madness that this Government embraces.

We just had the Minister responsible for RMA Reform tell us that he thinks there should be a Minister for planning. Maybe you’d have one sort of low-ranking environment Minister as well, and they would be low ranking because the Minister for the Environment has been outside of Cabinet for this whole term of Government and has had zero participation in this legislation—even this bill that is supposedly the one that deals with the environment. That just demonstrates how this Government thinks of the environment. It does not think of the environment as the most important part of our economy. All of our primary production totally relies on our environment, and I see the Minister for Trade in the House and the Minister for Tourism. What does that rely on? It relies on our environment, and what are we doing to the environment in this bill?

Hon Todd McClay: Protecting it.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, somebody said protecting it. If only—if only. That member—I think it might have been the Minister for Trade—has not been in the House during this debate, I suspect, because—

Hon Todd McClay: I said it as the Minister of Agriculture.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, as Minister of Agriculture—definitely not protecting the environment. I say that because the Minister of Agriculture might have been listening to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform who has told everyone this is great: “This is great new legislation. We are going to have environmental limits. For the first time, we’re going to have proper environmental limits.”, he says. He seems to have forgotten about the limits that were in the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management and various national environmental standards. “It’s going to have limits.” So then we interrogate those limits in this House, and what do we hear? “Yeah, some human health limits. We can measure those. They’ll be there.” But these limits for the environment, limits for our water quality, these limits that go to whether there can be mahinga kai—so not only the eel in the river but are we going to be able to eat the eel in the river? No, none of those. Or “maybe”: “Maybe we can have the odd environmental limit, but we’ve got to be very clear about much it’s going to cost, and somebody’s going to have to pay for it.” That is what Simon Court told us last night. That means that this title of this bill, as the Natural Environment Bill, is misleading. It gives us the idea that it might do something for the natural environment, but instead, that promise, from the Minister responsible for RMA Reform, about the environmental limits—those limits and any protections they’re in—have been dissipated to the four winds.

So, I think much better names for the bill would be the “Natural Environment (Doesn’t Matter to this Government) Bill” or the “Natural Environment (Enablement of Pollution and Biodiversity Destruction”—both those two things—“Bill”. This is the “Natural Environment (But Only if the Community Pays) Bill”, and my last contribution on this debate is that this bill is the “Goodbye to the Natural Environment Bill”. Mr Chair, haere rā.

Committee of the whole House

Well, those are all interesting suggestions, but they are clearly not going to meet with the Government’s approval. The bill does what it says on the tin, which is a bill called the Natural Environment Bill. It’s a complementary, ancillary piece of legislation to the Planning Bill, which we debated on Tuesday, Wednesday, and I suspect a touch of Thursday as well. They’re appropriate titles for the bills, we’ve discussed the commencement of the bill at length already, and I think there’s not much more to say about it.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 1 be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 51

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 1; Kapa-Kingi.

Clause 1 agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that the Minister’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 710 amending clause 2 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment to the amendments be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 51

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 1; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendment to the amendments agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Arena Williams’ tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 710 amending clause 2 is out of order as being the same in substance as a previous amendment.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 710 as amended be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendments as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 51

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 1; Kapa-Kingi.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): The question is that Hūhana Lyndon’s amendment to clause 2(1) set out on Amendment Paper 739 be agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That the amendment be agreed to.

Ayes 51

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 1; Kapa-Kingi.

Noes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Amendment not agreed to.

A party vote was called for on the question, That clause 2 as amended be agreed to.

Ayes 67

New Zealand National 48; ACT New Zealand 11; New Zealand First 8.

Noes 51

New Zealand Labour 34; Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand 15; Te Pāti Māori 1; Kapa-Kingi.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

Bill to be reported with amendment.

Emergency Management Bill (No 2)

Committee of the whole House

Part 1 Preliminary provisions, and Schedules 1 to 3

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): We come to the Emergency Management Bill (No 2). We start with the debate on Part 1. Part 1 is the debate on clauses 3 to 13, “Preliminary provisions”, and Schedules 1 to 3. The question is that Part 1 stand part.