Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2)

I move, That the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) be now read a second time. The return of this bill to the House is a welcome step toward a better process for resource management in New Zealand. It has three important objectives: to reduce compliance costs, to provide a better process for national environmental standards and national policy statements, and to strengthen protection for historic heritage. Many of the provisions in this bill are long overdue. The process to improve the Resource Management Act was initiated by the former National Government. A range of proposals emerged from that process, some of which were dropped by this Government because they would have compromised environmental outcomes, reduced opportunities for public participation, and threatened a key principle of the Act—that local government is best placed to make the majority of decisions on environmental and resource management matters. The lengthy and sometimes quite theoretical debate that resulted from these proposals hampered progress on other simple but effective measures.

This bill captures and builds on those simple, necessary, and constructive changes in a balanced and comprehensive way. I would like to take this opportunity to set out a few facts about the process followed to develop the provisions introduced here. The Government has consulted extensively on the issues in this bill. Over 700 submissions, with an average length of seven pages, were received on proposals to amend the Act. Nearly 400 further submissions were received on the changes as introduced in the Resource Management Amendment Bill 1999, totalling approximately 3,400 pages, with 215 submitters requesting to be heard in support of their comments. All the issues introduced in this bill were extensively canvassed in those submissions and subsequent discussions. Considering such a large volume of detailed input is no small task. I would like to thank the Local Government and Environment Committee again for its constructive role in those earlier debates, and for its efforts on the provisions that are new to this bill. I consider that the few changes made by the committee to the new bill are constructive. I support, in particular, the committee’s comments that, for the purposes of limited notification, groups representing relevant aspects of the public interest must still be considered “affected parties” by consent authorities.

The committee has confirmed as appropriate the new provisions relating to national environment standards and national policy statements. I would like to take this opportunity to explain why those changes are needed, and how they are intended to work. The Resource Management Act established a devolved framework for decision making whereby local authorities make most of the decisions on resource management issues. This approach is one I support, as decisions on local development matters should be made by those most affected by them. However, for over 10 years now, local government has tackled implementation of the Act on its own, with little guidance from central government on key environmental issues. One way in which central government can assist is through the development of nationally accepted environmental bottom lines. Unfortunately, the existing provisions allowing for the development of such tools are cumbersome and unlikely to result in the desired outcomes. The changes introduced in this bill will provide a streamlined process—one that will result in a speedier, more effective development of minimum environmental controls.

I strongly disagree with comments in the National, New Zealand First, and ACT minority view, in the committee’s report, about changes to the process for national standards. The new provisions maintain current high levels of public involvement. They ensure that the minimum national environmental controls will not override more stringent local controls. They are designed to produce effective environmental bottom lines, but, if a community seeks strict controls, then it may do so. The development of nationally accepted minimum environmental controls will lead to increased certainty, and, through this, reduce compliance costs. The controls will deliver greater certainty to developers and communities about the environmental outcomes we seek. In doing so, they will contribute meaningfully to the purpose of the Act. We expect to develop a package of national environmental standards, and, potentially, one or two national policy statements. We are currently working with local government and other interested parties to prioritise issues that should be addressed in this way.

The Resource Management Act has now been in place for over 10 years, and during that time a significant amount of case law has developed around key parts of the legislation. One such concept, the idea of a permitted baseline, affects councils’ decisions about whether the effects of an activity are minor or whether a person is adversely affected by a proposal. As currently interpreted, this concept means that councils must disregard any adverse effects that are the same as those of activities already permitted. The bill formerly introduced the permitted baseline, but clarifies that councils may, rather than must, take into account the adverse effects of activities on the environment if a plan permits an activity with that effect. Through the committee’s review of the bill, it has identified that its permitted baseline tests should be codified for decisions about both whether to notify an application and in regard to a final decision. The committee’s recommendations are designed to provide consistency between those two important parts of the process. The new provisions will deliver increased flexibility to councils, allowing them to take into account the effects of other permitted activities where they are appropriate, without unnecessarily restricting their powers of discretion or weakening the intent of their plans. The provisions will provide for a more balanced approach to considering consent applications, and avoid the potential for plans to develop in an unmanaged way.

The changes introduced in this bill, although individually minor, collectively allow for a significant improvement in the operation of the Act. They clarify provisions where necessary, build on experience with the Act, and provide a better range of tools. Most important, they provide a platform for central government to work in partnership with local government to improve further the resource management process. The changes introduced here will result in a significant improvement in the operation of the Act, without upsetting the balance between those for or against developments. I would also like to signal here that they will not be the end of amendments to the Resource Management Act. I am confident that these changes will help to deliver a better environment for all New Zealanders. I commend the bill to the House.

That speech could well be a chapter in Gilbert and Sullivan, and a comedy, were it not so serious. We are in the middle of an electricity crisis. The lights in the corridors are dimmed, and we have a bill before the House that will make the provision of new electricity generation more difficult. We have a bill that will make more difficult the building of roads that are necessary in our largest population centre, Auckland, where traffic congestion is said to be costing a billion dollars a year. We are in the middle of a drought. Communities are wanting to build more water-augmentation schemes so that they might be able to produce the wealth for this nation, and this Government wants to make the construction and the development of those more difficult. This bill is environmental and economic lunacy. Only a Minister living on the wrong planet would claim that this bill will in any way reduce compliance costs, delays, and uncertainty with the Resource Management Act.

I draw to the attention of the House the fast and shonky process we have been through. Would the Government allow a single submission from any organisation that might confirm the Minister’s claim that this bill would reduce costs or uncertainty in the Act? Not one! In fact, that Minister gave a specific instruction to the Local Government and Environment Committee that we were not able to take submissions from absolutely anybody, and that is a disgrace. I commend Jim Peters, Ken Shirley, and National for taking the time to listen to groups that do have some knowledge. I refer now to United Future’s Larry Baldock, who campaigned on fixing the Resource Management Act, but arrogantly shut down the opportunity for anybody to have a say. One might be able to argue that Jeanette Fitzsimmons and members like myself had the opportunity to receive hundreds of submissions. That member has not heard one submission from anybody, yet he expects to come into this Parliament and vote for this shonky bill.

Let us listen to some of the independent—if we could even describe them as that—organisations and what they have to say about this legislation. Firstly, I refer to Meridian Energy. Meridian Energy is the largest energy producer in this country. It is a State-owned enterprise, and it supplied five pages of criticisms of this bill, which are summarised in its submission. It says that there are 24 clauses in this bill that will add to the hurdles and obstructions to building new electricity generation in New Zealand. I challenge members opposite: is Meridian Energy, their own State-owned enterprise, wrong? Is it to be disbelieved? Are we simply to throw into the trash can the submissions of the largest electricity generator in New Zealand at a time when we are in the middle of an electricity crisis? The Government and the United Party would so do.

I refer now to a major submitter—the Petroleum Exploration Association of New Zealand. Its submission—provided to the rebel committee because the Government would not hear any—represents over 34 large companies involved in petroleum, and states that this bill would make the development of energy resources more difficult. Again, the Government and the United Future party dismissed that, as well. Submission after submission stated that this bill will not work. I challenge Government members to provide me with one independent commentator who will confirm the Minister’s speech that this bill will go any way towards reducing the compliance costs, the delays, and the uncertainty of the Resource Management Act. I say that they will not find one—the bill is uniformly condemned. The National Council of Women of New Zealand, which is hardly some raving right-wing organisation, absolutely condemned this Government in its submissions on the bill for not providing any opportunity for it or anybody else to be able to have a say.

I turn now to some of the loopy provisions that provide for the protection of ancestral landscapes. We—New Zealand First, ACT, and National—ask members opposite to tell us what an ancestral landscape is. They will require that everybody in this country—[Interruption] Mr Benson-Pope thinks this is a laughing matter. He thinks it is a big joke. He thinks it is funny that people are having cold showers. He thinks it is funny that people are locked in traffic jams for hours, and more, in Auckland. We say that the Government needs to define what an ancestral landscape is before it gives directions, under the Resource Management Act, to every decision maker to protect those things. We see the same sort of nonsense with the provisions about cultural landscapes. Can any member opposite define for me what a cultural landscape is? Can Mr Benson-Pope tell me what a cultural landscape is? I say that he does not have the foggiest idea—no idea whatsoever.

This bill has 149 clauses—over 100 pages—and the select committee was given no more than 2 weeks, taking into account the Easter adjournment, to consider it. How long did the Minister for the Environment have to consider the select committee report? She had 100 weeks. Why is that, and what sort of disdain is Parliament being treated with when it is asked to ram through this bill in that sort of time frame? Where is United Future’s mandate to support legalising the protection of ancestral landscapes, cultural landscapes, and the spirits? I would love to know. Could any member in this House tell me how we could protect the spirits?

I ask members look at the fiasco at Ngawha Prison and at the conduct of Ngāpuhi. What will this bill do to remove the “brownmail” that is going on in New Zealand, whereby Māori organisations object, as of right—right through? I am happy to table the documents that confirm that is going on. This bill will make it worse, and that is bad for race relations, bad for the environment, and bad for the economy—and this bill does absolutely nought in that regard. I come now to the dirty tricks part of the bill.

💬 Hon John Tamihere: You’d be a specialist in that.

I would like that member to explain for me why, when the 1999 bill was introduced it had 18 parts and this bill has only two. I will tell members why. The Minister for the Environment gave a specific instruction to parliamentary counsel that this bill would have only two parts. She is so embarrassed and so not prepared to defend the shonky content of this bill that the Government is going to shut down the debate that occurs in this House. That is an outrage, and it is a greater outrage that the “common-sense” party, the United Future party, is going to back that approach to lawmaking. I also draw attention to the sorts of submissions made by major investment groups. Business group after business group, whether it be AMP or the Employers and Manufacturers Association, is condemning the provisions in this bill, and so are groups like the major investors in the forestry industry who want to process forestry product in this country.

We have here, in this bill, chapter and verse not just on examples of lost investment but on how this bill will make those key investments in timber processing in this country more difficult, and members opposite are ignoring the situation. I want the next Government speaker to answer a simple question. The Government promised it would take seriously the business compliance cost report that was commissioned by Mr Swain, the Minister of Commerce at the time. That report had 52 recommendations on changes that should be made to the Resource Management Act, but not one of them is included in this bill. The Government cannot pretend that it is interested in growing the New Zealand economy, or lifting the standards of living of our people, with this sort of bill. Even the limited notification provisions—as weak as they were in the original bill, watered down from that proposed by Simon Upton—will take us nowhere. This bill is a recipe for more costs, more uncertainties, and, sadly, greater delays. This House should reject it.

First of all, I will take up the challenge that the Hon Nick Smith laid down, which was to show what business compliance recommendations are in this bill. One of the most significant recommendations is that of limited notification of resource consent applications. The Resource Management Act is about balancing interests. It is about balancing the interests of people who want to use natural resources—people who want to take water and use it for irrigation, want to discharge pollutants into land, want to build houses or commercial buildings where there are currently none, or want to build dams for electricity purposes—against the interests of those who say they have a right to be involved in the process, say that those decisions, as proposed, are wrong, and want the ability to have an input and say: “If we tweak it this way, it will have less environmental impact.” Those who suggest that the Resource Management Act is fundamentally flawed legislation are quite wrong. It is good legislation. The new procedures that are introduced in this bill have previously had 700 submissions in the select committee process that ended in 2001.

The 70-page bill that is before us now introduces only a small number of changes, which are listed in the select committee’s report. Limited notification of resource consent applications has been reintroduced, and we can thank United Future for its cooperation in advancing that important step. There is the introduction of a more flexible approach to assessment of baseline effects. Another change is that the Environment Court is not the body to consider disputes as to whether something should be notified, and that has been done because there are workload pressures in the court, which are causing a backlog. If there are disputes about limited notification they will go to the High Court. There has been the development of improved provisions for the creation of national environmental standards. That has been a gaping hole in the implementation of the existing Resource Management Act, and the bill will improve that situation. Also, there is a transitional provision relating to the aquaculture moratorium. It is interesting to note that the heritage provisions are the same as recommended by the former Local Government and Environment Committee in 2001.

I want to deal a little bit with Nick Smith’s comments that the Resource Management Act is responsible for the power shortage that we may have this winter. It is not. It is ludicrous to make the suggestion that that is what is behind our current problems. In my area in Otago we are faced with the challenges of the proposed Project Aqua, which is the biggest of the various solutions that are proposed to deal with power shortages. It is notable that the resource management consents have not even been filed yet. There is no way that the Act or its processes are behind delays in that project. The consent applications have not even been filed.

The suggestion made by the Hon Nick Smith, and various ACT party people, that we should cut across resource management procedures, think big, and force through big development projects like Project Aqua is reminiscent of Mr Muldoon and “think big”. The last time that happened was in respect of the Clyde Dam. That is also in my electorate. Let us not forget that the Government’s taking over of the planning process caused many years of delay in the commissioning of the dam, and resulted in a costly power project, whereby the cost of each unit of energy was 14c. Even today Project Aqua, if it proceeds, will have a unit cost of 4c to 5c. So the cost of poor planning was an economic cost, which trebled the cost of electricity. In addition, the scars on the local population down there, a population that I represent, are still very raw. There is a great deal of bitterness in the community that 20 years ago their rights were cut across. Indeed, it has taken decades to get justice for the serious adverse environmental and economic effects that that scheme has caused individuals. It is only in this last year—some 20 years after that project, and 30 or 40 years after the Roxburgh Dam was put in further downstream—that those injustices have, for the first time, been able to be aired through Resource Management Act processes, which protect citizens.

This bill will improve the implementation of the Resource Management Act. We will hear complaints from some people who will say that the limited notification provision does not go far enough. Others will say it already gives councils too many powers to not fully notify issues. In my submission, those positions are both a little extreme. With the introduction of limited notification, I think that we have plotted the correct middle course. Some of the statistics that are quoted about how few applications are already notified have to be read with care. A lot of those applications that are not notified are for things like a building alternation when it falls within the statistics, but if it is a building that falls within the district plan, it does not need to be notified. I commend this legislation to the House, and I hope that others support it.

The Resource Management Act has been with us for over a decade, and, as the Minister has already stated, it has been the subject of precedent, decisions, and many, many hours—almost years—of planning by local authorities over the past decade, virtually without help from Government, apart from the national coastal strategy. Almost at the end of the decade, in 1999, the Resource Management Amendment Bill was introduced. One of the queries I have to raise immediately is why this bill sat from May 2001 for almost 2 years, somewhere in the bowels of this place, waiting to come back to the House with four supposed improvements.

What happened in that time? Well, something happened with regard to legislation. We passed the Climate Change Response Act recently and last year the Local Government Act. Other Acts also have impacted upon the Resource Management Act. Yet not one recognition of the changes in legislation implemented since May 2001 is seen in this bill before us today. That suggests to me either a lazy Government, a lazy Minister, or, more likely, a Ministry for the Environment beset by some of the issues that beset anybody who looks at this Act as it is today, and at the amendment bill before us.

One of the issues that is quite correct in the assumption already stated in this House, is that of uncertainty weighed against the evident need for certainty. That certainly extends right down to every New Zealander who is involved in development of any sort. Whether one is building one’s first house, a boat pontoon, a school, a factory, or whatever, it is a central factor of life that one has to undergo the rigours of the Resource Management Act and this amendment bill in the future. So, as a newcomer to the House, the most surprising thing to me was that a Minister could come to this House in March, present a bill, and assume that, because three out of the 11 members of the original committee had heard the exhaustive and substantial submissions on the bill, it should be sufficient for the present Local Government and Environment Committee to look at the bill and, after all consideration, make a judgment on it. I am not quite sure whether that is a new democratic stance the minority Government has in mind, but it was certainly not in the mind of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, who stated this: “If the Government passes the amendment to the Resource Management Act 1993, it will derogate from the public’s right to participate in decision making. The RMA is New Zealand’s most significant environmental legislation, and any opportunity for public participation in this area should be strengthened, not weakened.” Exclusion means “weak” not “strong”. In this case, there was a deliberate act on the part of the Minister and the Government to exclude all submissions. Even written submissions were not to be considered by the committee.

I turn to those people who are most concerned about these matters—the people who are involved in the administration of the Act every day—namely, the councils. One mayor who wrote to the Minister for the Environment said: “I am writing regarding your press statement that the above bill should be passed urgently, with only the briefest time for it to be considered by the Local Government and Environment select committee. I must concur with New Zealand First on this issue. The Resource Management Act is a far-reaching and complex piece of legislation, impacting on every New Zealander. Much has been said and written regarding the bill and its shortcomings. I would also suggest that there are a large number of very positive features of the current Act. To this end, I believe that a review of this Act is one of the fundamental issues facing Government. It should not be rushed. Any rush to enact changes is likely to lead to confusion or ill-considered approaches.” That is the point that one mayor made, and it is the point that New Zealand First makes, as well. We should have taken the time to discuss the bill properly, and we should have got it right.

The fact that the Minister can come to the House and mention in her second-reading speech that after 2 years four minimal suggestions have been made in the bill, and that it is right and proper that the bill should come to the House without the select committee having heard any further submissions, is just not sound governance and practice. However, having been here last year for the debate on the Local Government Act when we had the same extraordinary experience, I say that it is becoming almost par for the course with that Government.

We have heard about the limited notification of resource consent applications. We have heard the Minister say that that was significant, and I have seen her press statements. However, when a group of concerned members of this House met people over the last fortnight, that was not their experience and it is not mine either. I earnestly believe that this limited notification provision alone is an illusion—whether or not it is deliberate. The illusion concerns the fact that last year in this House, in sections 77 and 78 of the Local Government Act, we passed these kinds of thoughts. First, in section 77(1): “A local authority must, in the course of the decision-making process,”—which could be a local hearing—“(a) seek to identify all reasonably practical options for the achievement of the objective of a decision; and (b) assess …” so and so. Under section 78(1) of that Act, local council officers acting under authority or delegation, must, in the course of decision-making in relation to a matter, “give consideration to the views and preferences of persons likely to be affected by, or to have interest in, the matter.”

That states very, very clearly indeed that limited notification, which has been much trumpeted as a remarkable change, is nothing more than a slight, and I concur with those people who met us in saying just that. But they had not looked at section 78 of the Local Government Act. I venture to say that this year that section, which relates to the notification or non-notification of resource consent, could be, and will be, construed as placing a stronger obligation on local authority officers to approach persons who are likely to be affected by resource consent applications, and to give consideration to their views and preferences.

What does that say about the much-trumpeted limited notification, which has somehow been conveyed to the business community—after all, that community has to have a few sops; it has not had many from this Government—that it will help to speed up the process. That is wrong. It will not speed up the process, because if one looks at the Local Government Act one sees that a higher standard and greater threshold of understanding is required by local authority officers when they go about making any decision at any time.

However, I go to another matter. The Minister said this bill will bring certainty, and she pointed out that the historic heritage features were there in the bill presented by the select committee in May 2001. If ever there was a major area of uncertainty it is the elevation of that whole provision relating to historic heritage, apart from one term, which has now been taken out of the principal Act—another issue to be considered—and has instead been placed in the major part of the bill as a matter of national importance. If it were so, would a concerned Minister, who wanted to give clarity of interpretation and intention, not put that in the actual interpretation clause? No—not one word covers the cultural landscape or the meaning of wāhi tapu. And why not? It is an area that has been much covered with regard to local government over a decade now, and is understood. This bill has elevated it, so why, therefore, is there not a legal definition? Why is there not an interpretation? Not one of those new features is there at all. Time was the only issue that precluded that from happening. We had understandings and meanings from the Historic Places Trust, but not one of those appear in this bill.

In conclusion, I say that the much-trumpeted minor changes are indeed very minor, apart from this clause, which is major. It really is a matter of thrust and intention that a Government that has fallen out of favour with the business community is no longer concerned about development—whether great or small. This bill is not the suitable amendment to a major Act that it ought to be.

When I observe members of this House who have been here for some time, I begin to wonder just how wise it is to remain in this place for a long period of time. After listening to the speech made by the Hon Dr Nick Smith, I am left wondering how he has gone through such an amazing change, from representing the National Party when it introduced this bill to becoming the leading opponent of the Resource Management Act in this House. It has become far too popular to be engaged in Resource Management Act - bashing around New Zealand.

I believe that the Act is in need of reform, and that is what this bill is all about. It is involved in a process of reform so that it will work better and better as time goes by. The member David Parker made an excellent comment when he said the Resource Management Act is about striking a balance between those with competing interests—those who wish to make the most of economic opportunities on the land, and those who wish to protect the land for future generations. The Act takes that challenge and addresses a very difficult situation.

In listening to some of the speakers who spoke before about what has been known as the rebel select committee process and the submissions that the Local Government and Environment Committee listened to, one wonders really whether those submitters were dealing with their frustrations with Resource Management Act per se, or whether they were dealing specifically with this amendment bill. From my discussions with a number of people who submitted to that rebel select committee, I would suggest that their frustrations were being vented towards the Resource Management Act rather than this specific bill. This bill does contain some excellent improvements to the Resource Management Act process, which we in United Future support. However, it is difficult for us to know exactly what some of the submitters had to say during that rebel process.

I am grateful, though, to the New Zealand Herald, which sent along a reporter and was able to give us some insight into just how much concern there was in relation to this bill. In the 25 April edition of the New Zealand Herald Irene Chapple wrote: “More than 30 submissions were received, and 20 will have been orally presented after the committee continues on Monday.” So it seems that not a great many people turned up to the initial meeting. In fact, she said: “All but three of the 20-plus audience seats were left unwarmed as quietly spoken submitters competed with air conditioning to have their views heard by the sprinkling of media.” She went on to say: “At least one oral submission given yesterday, however, was squeezed from someone who said he was there only because Smith had asked him to be.”—desperate to get the numbers up at the rebel select committee—“Others appeared surprised that the media had turned up, one saying he thought it was going to be a consultation meeting rather than a mock select committee. The first-up duo of Beca Carter Planners presented views not always aligned with the cosy threesome running the show. Beca’s Don Lyon suggested that some noise over the inefficiencies of the RMA could be seen as scaremongering.” I suggest that that is a great deal of what has been going on through this process. We need to have rational debate and rational discussion, not scaremongering, which, he concludes, “… could create a risk that we ‘turn off investment by picking up a few examples of bad practice in New Zealand … and it is bad practice, not necessarily a legislative problem’ ”.

Two often we hear old stories—it is like hearing old war stories—about things that have gone wrong with the Resource Management Act, but they are not necessarily current problems with its implementation. That particular submitter then admitted—and I will read from the article—“a private view that the nod to social and cultural values was, ahem, quite good really. ‘We should be able to plan ahead,’ he said. ‘For our major infrastructures, for the future of our towns and cities ... We are meant to be creating a society 50 years out.’ ”

I truly believe that the people of New Zealand are more interested in progress in the reform of the Resource Management Act than in the process we are going through. I believe they will welcome the passage of this bill through the House in the next few days, so that we can get on to some other very important amendments that we know need to be made. Some people have expressed concern and frustration that this bill does not go far enough, and I have met various groups that have expressed that frustration. United Future agrees. That is precisely why we have cooperated with the Government to pass this legislation, finally, so that we can work on the next Resource Management Act amendment, which will address more business and community concerns.

One of the things we in United Future are very interested in, comes from one of the recommendations referred to earlier—that is, that we may have direct referral to the Environment Court for projects of national significance such as power and road projects. I am sure Meridian Energy will be very interested to see that passed into legislation so that it can get on with the provision of power for business and communities across this nation.

We have heard a great deal about heritage sites. I understand that as part of the original bill heritage sites would be given a prominence of national significance. Changes to some of the definitions surrounding heritage issues occurred during the select committee process, but the idea that heritage sites would take on a position of national significance was there in the original bill, and we in United Future agree with that. The preservation of our natural and historic heritage is of very great importance to us as a nation. Recently, through coverage of the war in Iraq, many of us have seen some very awful images of the looting of Iraq’s national museum and the destruction of priceless possessions that have lasted for thousands of years. Surely the Opposition is not suggesting that we should allow those kinds of historical, cultural, or spiritual values in our country, or sites that represent them, to be wiped out. Nick Smith talks not about spiritual sites but about spirits, and that was never intended in this bill. The bill talks about sites of spiritual significance, which occur in nations all across the world. Surely Jerusalem would be considered a site of spiritual significance.

💬 Hon Ken Shirley: Mecca.

Yes, Mecca also. I certainly would also agree that the birthplace of Jesus Christ, or the tomb from which he arose, would be sites of spiritual significance. When one listens to Nick Smith and his rantings and ravings, one wonders whether he would want to see the sites bulldozed down and a condominium built in their place. It is very short-term thinking not to take into account these issues that are addressed in this bill. Of course a balance needs to be found, and of course we do not want more frivolous objections going to the Environment Court, but we do need to take notice of the things we have now so they do not disappear and are no longer there for our grandchildren.

United Future believes that as these sites are of national importance—and I think we will find that that was part of the original bill, as I have said already—they should be paid for out of the national purse. We will be promoting in the next amendment to the Resource Management Act the protection of private property rights. However, we cannot move on to the next amendment bill until this bill is passed. We supported the introduction of this No. 2 bill into the House as a reformat of the No. 1 bill, because the issues it contained had already been the subjects of submissions. It therefore made no sense to use the very important and costly time of the House on an unruly 18-part bill when the legislation could be handled in a much more compact and concise way in two parts.

The concerns that Opposition members raised regarding the lack of their opportunity to debate the bill have already been addressed by the Speaker’s ruling that extra time will be given to them in the Committee of the whole House. I support their right to be able to say everything they wish to say about this bill, but it would be ludicrous to spend 40 hours of the House’s time in passing the bill in its 18-part format.

The select committee, as it was empowered to, made some changes to the definitions in the No. 1 bill. The only way a member of the public could have had input into those changes in the previous bill would have been via the MPs themselves making amendments during the Committee stage. That right will still be afforded them as we enter the Committee stage under this new, rewritten bill. Other matters that have been addressed, and that other speakers have referred to, will be dealt with as we go through the Committee stage. They include such a matter as clarifying the national policy standards.

ACT opposes this bill. It is a failure of process and a failure of content. I think I am the only member in the Chamber who was here during the resource management law reform process in the late 1980s. I was quite closely involved with that. I chaired a committee, and I became increasingly concerned at the way in which that process was becoming captured by interest groups. Let me shed a bit of light on what the Resource Management Act was meant to be. It was meant to be part of deregulation. It was meant to be effects-based, a one-stop shop. It was mean to be a streamlining. Who today really believes that it has lived up to any of those intents? It clearly has not. By the time it was passed by the National Government in 1991, it had already been captured by interest groups and all sorts of extraneous matter had been appended to it; and we have now had 12 years of utter dysfunction in this country.

Business groups up and down the country, and indeed, this Government’s own advisory group on compliance cost, have identified the Resource Management Act as a major obstacle to investment, growth, and job creation in this country. All the evidence that the Opposition parties called together, other than that of a couple of planners, referred to by United Future—of course, it is very much interested in self-perpetuation—highlighted the real major problems that we face. There has been any number of tinkerings with the bill.

We had the Owen McShane review in the time of Simon Upton in the previous National Government, and the Mike Holm review. Indeed, in the bill as introduced by Hon Simon Upton in the National Government in 1999, all those proposed measures were important. I believe they were all necessary, but they were insufficient because they were really still tinkerings of process.

No one has grasped the basic failure of the premises of the Resource Management Act. Let me run through those that are, in my mind, the three key ones. Firstly, it was always intended to provide for the sustainable management of natural and physical resources, essentially taking the place of the old Water and Soil Conservation Act and the Town and Country Planning Act, with the Clean Air Act appended. They were the three core statutes. But, oh no, the interest groups appended all manner of social engineering to it—economic well-being, cultural significance, and phrases like “kaitiakitanga” that have never been defined. There they are, right up in the key principles that need to have notice taken of them, but no one has ever defined them. What they have meant over the 12 years is whatever one wants them to mean—stewardship, ownership, the right to impose on private property rights. It is the biggest obstacle to investment.

As the Hon Nick Smith pointed out, this country is facing yet another energy crisis. The evidence is overwhelming that the Resource Management Act is one of the biggest obstacles to new generation being built in this country. People say that there will never be another hydro dam. Do we have no more significant water bodies? They are saying that the Resource Management Act process would kill it, and they are giving up before they even start. Sure, Project Aqua is under way, but it still has to run the gauntlet, and it is quite an exception.

The process that this Government embarked on was appalling. First of all, on becoming the Government in 1999, it referred Simon Upton’s bill to a new select committee, chaired by Jeanette Fitzsimons, which overturned every one of those important, necessary, but insufficient proposals for change, and then added on another one for “heritage aspects”. We now have things like “cultural landscapes”. Who knows what a cultural landscape is, or ancestral lands? Can anyone put hand on heart and say that he or she can define what an ancestral land or a cultural landscape is? They are meaningless, nebulous terms that create nothing but uncertainty and confusion, and become vehicles for extortion. Time is money in the business world, so any investor looking to invest and process our raw materials looks at the Resource Management Act, and says, “Why would I go to New Zealand? They’re facing an energy crisis and their planning laws are chaotic.” We know that Australia can, in 7 months, process through its planning procedures what takes us 7 years to process. It can take 7 years to get through New Zealand’s planning proposals.

The Government has totally failed to address any of the key principles that needed to be addressed. The first one is that the scope should be narrowed and the focus sharpened so that it is brought back to the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. It should not deal with taonga and all those other spooky things that are now frequently heard at resource management hearings—things that no one can understand, like the taniwha holding up the works on State Highway 1 at Meremere. What sort of metaphysical society are we coming to? Taniwha are not natural and physical resources. They are metaphysical. People are entitled to their spiritual beliefs, and I will defend their rights to hold those spiritual beliefs, but they are not put into planning laws. What other country has put them into their planning laws? I suppose the Taliban of Afghanistan would have come the closest to that. That is the sort of path we are going down in this country.

The second key thing we need to do is give compensation when the public, as is its wont, identifies a particular piece of private coastline or landscape and says it wants to socialise it, either by putting the land into the Department of Conservation estate or by opening it for public use. The real test and discipline on that is when compensation must be paid in order to do that. Instead, we have organisations like the Department of Conservation using the Resource Management Act as a back door method of socialising property rights. Members from Northland will remember the significant natural areas exercise, where, essentially, the Department of Conservation grabbed a black crayon and circled every block of land on a big map that it could think of, and then gave it to the local council, which put it up as its draft plan, so that clumps of gorse became significant natural areas. Then, of course, the property owners got to fight it. They had to spend their money, which they could not then invest in their farms, fighting the council, which is also spending their money as ratepayers, to take their cases right through to appeal. That is the sort of process in which we have become bogged down in this country.

Those are just a few suggestions as to why this bill is an utter failure. It does not address that basic need for overhaul and reform of the basic premises of the Resource Management Act. Rather, it is a mere tinkering of process. We have had 12 years of that, and none of it has worked. I put it to the House that all the measures in the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2) are backward steps. They are not adding to the streamlining or greater coherence of the Act. They are actually making matters worse. ACT will be opposing this bill right through all its stages.

In conclusion, I reiterate the appalling aspect of the cultural heritage provisions and the way they were brought in. They were not in the original bill, and no one has had an opportunity to submit an objection. The chair might get up and say that submitters made submissions in favour of them. Sure, there are plenty of those who want to use the Resource Management Act as a vehicle, but at no stage was it advertised that those provisions were in the bill so that people who were concerned by them could have gone to the select committee and opposed them. They have never been heard. That is why the Opposition parties held their own hearings. This Government, in the most arrogant example I have ever seen, brought in that substantial legislation and measures and refused to even put it to a select committee, and that is after sitting on it for 100 weeks. The bill was left languishing on the Order Paper for 100 weeks. All of a sudden, bang, the Government whipped it in. There was no select committee. ACT will be opposing these appalling measures.

I rise to support the second reading of the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2). I believe that the issues covered in this bill have been debated and that they have been before Parliament for a very long time. They have been discussed quite considerably. We have had people discuss the changes that they think should be made to the Resource Management Act. As my colleague David Parker says, the changes brought forward by this amendment strike a very good balance, bringing together environmental concerns and the ability to progress on economic initiatives. I support the bill.

The House has worked itself into a frenzy—Government and Opposition members alike—about industry’s complaints that the Resource Management Act imposes unacceptable compliance costs on developers. It has assumed the status of Holy Writ, yet when one asks for examples, there are, in fact, rather few. We know from practical examples that many of the delays are caused by the applicants not providing all the necessary information, or postponing hearings at the Environment Court because they do not have their case ready. We know that the delays due to court overload have reduced considerably since a new division of the court was created a couple of years ago.

I would like to inject a few facts into this debate. In 2001 the OECD published a study of regulatory burdens on small to medium-sized business in 11 OECD countries. It found that overall compliance costs for New Zealand business are substantially less than such costs in the other OECD countries surveyed, particularly, in Australia. That was particularly so for environmental consents, where fewer consents were needed under the Resource Management Act than were required for businesses in most of the other countries. Further, in New Zealand environmental compliance costs are less than compliance with other laws. Of the total compliance cost here—already less than in the other countries surveyed—42 percent comes from meeting tax requirements, 32 percent from employment legislation, and only 25 percent from environmental standards.

Many people have forgotten that under the previous legislation, separate consents and hearings were needed under the Town and Country Planning Act, the Water and Soil Act, and a host of other legislation that was replaced by the one-stop shop Resource Management Act. What is more, a much greater proportion of applications was publicly notified under the Town and Country Planning Act than under the Resource Management Act. That brings me to the question of notification. The key changes between the No. 1 bill and the No. 2 bill—and the most controversial—are to notification.

As I outlined in the debate on the first reading, the heart of the Resource Management Act is about the right of the public to bring evidence to a hearing on the effects that an application will have. Alongside the evidence from the developer, this enables the council or the Environment Court to make an evidence-based decision on whether the application meets the requirements of the Act. It is this right that is now restricted in this bill. Currently this right applies in fewer than 5 percent of all cases, anyway. Ninety-five percent of applications are considered without any public submissions and without any hearing. That is because permitted or controlled activities are exempted from notification. In the remaining cases they are exempt if the council decides the effects are minor and if all parties the council deems to be affected give their written consent. So the figures show that councils are currently deciding that fewer than 5 percent of all applications for resource consent have effects that are more than minor. That is certainly counter-intuitive when one looks around at the changes that are happening; the steady loss of biodiversity, the steady loss of unspoiled coastline, the accumulation of pollutants, the loss of views, and the loss of amenity. But that is what councils are deciding.

Let me list just a few of the cases where councils have allowed consent without notification: a multi-storey apartment building in Wellington that caused a neighbour’s house to collapse; Tasman District Council’s decision to allow the top of the Kina cliffs to be removed and the spoil dumped on a coastal reserve, leading to a public outcry; the largest poultry operation in the Southern Hemisphere built on wetlands between a river and the sea, with a significant effluent discharge; a flock mud landfill at Waipu, since found to contain toxic waste; and a coastal permit by Wellington Regional Council to farm Undaria pinnatifida in Wellington Harbour—an invasive seaweed that the Department of Conservation is trying to eradicate from Stewart Island and Bluff at considerable cost. This is by no means the end of the list of sites for which councils have allowed non-notified applications where the effects were not minor. Sometimes these cases are picked up when a neighbour refuses consent and the current law requires full notification. Groups like the Forest and Bird Protection Society have often heard of major vegetation clearance or wetlands drainage or coastal development, when a non-notified consent has been opposed by a neighbouring landowner and notified. That is the safeguard the Government is now removing. Unfortunately Jim Peters’ suggestion that this is overridden by the Local Government Act is not correct. The Local Government Act applies only where this legislation does not have more specific provisions.

The only study of this, involving three local authorities with 60 applications that were notified, showed that 25 percent of them were notified only because the applicant did not obtain consent from those affected. If that is typical, we can expect that under this bill the proportion of cases in which the public has a say will drop from less than 5 percent now to about 3.5 percent. We know that some councils are not observing the law in the way they determine both minor effects and persons affected. We have High Court decisions reprimanding councils for the way they already restrict notification. Time allows me to quote from only one. Justice Randerson in King v Auckland City said: “The discretion to dispense with notification should not be lightly exercised, and consent authorities should be wary of making assumptions as to the likely nature and extent of potential adverse effects without the benefit of the views of those who may be affected. Cases such as the present demonstrate the desirability of erring in favour of notification where doubt exists as to the proper course.”

But those cases that got to the High Court where the councils were reprimanded comprise only the tiniest tip of a very large iceberg, because the cost of going to the High Court is prohibitive and most people give up. It is not just the $1,500 court fee and the few thousands of dollars of fees to file; it is the fact that there can be no redress for a wrong decision if one waits for a court hearing. The only way to stop the bulldozers obliterating a wāhi tapu, a historic building, or an ecologically important wetland, or even undermining one’s house, is to seek an injunction while the review is heard. That entails a mandatory undertaking that if one wins the injunction but loses the eventual case, one will pay tens of thousands in compensation to the applicant for lost time on the project. Then, of course, there are still the costs of the case itself, and this is when most people give up.

Simon Upton came to see me in 1999 when he introduced the first Resource Management Bill. He outlined to me the careful balancing act he was introducing. He was also concerned that councils were wrongly withholding notification in some cases. He proposed that reviews of notification decisions should be heard by the Environment Court, which is more accessible, cheaper, and, most important, versed in the concepts of resource management and much better able than the High Court to decide whether effects on the environment are minor. The High Court itself has recommended this change. Simon saw this as balancing limited notification, where failure to gain the consent of affected parties would trigger only a limited hearing rather than full notification. In some ways it was not an unreasonable balance. The previous select committee retained that provision.

The major decision between that No. 1 bill and this No. 2 bill is that limited notification has been reintroduced by the Government, and review by the Environment Court has been removed. So this Government has rigged the law even further against the public and public interest groups than National was prepared to do. This Government has given its support to councils that are breaking the law on notification and getting away with it. The Government knows that judicial review is not a remedy that is available to many, but it claims lamely that delays in the Environment Court prevent it from taking on this extra workload. I am looking forward to National members supporting my amendment to reintroduce Simon Upton’s provision for review by the Environment Court.

Once again, justice at high cost is justice denied, and this is why the Greens cannot support this bill. That gives me considerable distress. After the huge amount of work I did: chairing a select committee for a year, hearing 400 submissions, travelling to seven cities, negotiating some real improvements to the bill, building on the cost and time savings and limiting the reductions in democracy, having reported back a bill that was a good balance between the needs of developers and the rights of the public, and having agreed to a number of compromises that would not have been my first choice, I was looking forward to voting for it. Instead I have watched the Government sit on it for 2 years and now change it in ways that are essentially undemocratic. The Greens are left having to decide what to do with a curate’s egg. We do not wish to vote against the many sensible changes. We cannot vote for limited notification without a proper review process for notification decisions. We will be moving some amendments at the Committee stage and will abstain until we see whether those amendments are adopted.

I rise to take a short call in support of this bill. As has been mentioned by others, one of the bill’s primary focuses is to reduce costs and delays associated with the consent process. As some members know, I come from a background where one of my jobs was with the mining industry, and I can say that the Resource Management Act, as implemented by the National Government, cost people in Otago several millions of dollars because of consent process delays and backlogs in the Environment Court. I am pleased—as I know my colleague David Parker from down that way is—that this bill reduce delays, reduce costs, and clear backlogs, as the Government initiatives have already started to do. We see that over 500 cases in the Environment Court are being cleared, and further backlogs will be cleared as we proceed.

I thank United Future members for their cooperation in respect of the limited notification provisions. Those provisions will go some way in assisting all players to expedite matters through the consent process in the Environment Court, without undermining the objectives of protecting the environment or undermining the ultimate objectives of the Resource Management Act. I think this is a good bill. I think we should get on with it and support it.

I will start by saying that the comments made by the Labour member Clayton Cosgrove show just how out of touch he is with this legislation when the mining industry, which he said he has some knowledge of, was powerfully presenting before the rebel select committee, saying that this bill does nothing to assist its industry. Clayton Cosgrove can now go back and talk to his industry. That industry is not happy, at all.

I want to recall the contribution made by Jeanette Fitzsimons today. She said that her party will not vote for this bill. Let New Zealand be aware that if this legislation passes, it will pass with the support of United Future. United Future has sold out on what it promised to do about the Resource Management Act. Today, that party will assist the Government in passing this bill, which does nothing to solve the problems that this country has with that Act.

I well remember the lead up to the last general election, when one of the main issues that was discussed time and time again at election meetings throughout this country was the fact that the Resource Management Act was a hindrance to further development and wealth creation in this country. On every platform that I spoke on, at which a United Future member was present, the United Future member said that United Future was the common-sense party and it would ensure changes to the Resource Management Act that would fix the problem. Those United Future members are today selling out completely on the commitments they made. This legislation does very little. It is an abuse of process, such as I have never seen in this Parliament before, and it will pass into legislation because United Future will allow it to do so.

As we listen to the debate, many contributions made by Labour Party people suggest to me that they have forgotten what legislation we are actually discussing. We are discussing the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2). David Parker from Otago can stand in the House and talk about the submissions to this legislation and the submissioners. If he does so then he is either seriously mistaken or he is—other words that I will not use, Mr Speaker, because you might not like them.

This bill was delivered to Parliament with an instruction that the bill was to be referred to the Local Government and Environment Committee for the purpose only of the committee receiving a briefing from officials. The instruction precluded the committee from calling for submissions and hearing evidence, and the committee was required to report back by 28 April 2003. Never in the time that I have been in this Parliament has such an instruction been given to legislation that specifically said: “Officials can speak to a select committee, but other submissioners cannot.” I congratulate the initiatives of my National Party colleagues, New Zealand First members, and ACT members when they said that this legislation is of such significance that submissioners have a right to be heard. They did the work that the Labour Government and United Future people were not prepared to do. They sat at select committee hearings up and down the country. On one occasion here in Wellington I sat at a hearing through the day. Whilst I sat on that select committee, one clear and concise question was put to every submissioner, and I think we saw about eight submissioners that day. The question was: “Will this No. 2 amendment bill improve the process?”. Each and every submissioner answered that question by saying: “No, this legislation will actually make the process worse.” [Interruption] Larry Baldock says that he does not agree with me. He was not prepared even to come to these select committee meetings. That lazy member, here doing the Government’s work, was not interested in hearing the truth. After National Party, New Zealand First, and ACT members had done the work and heard the submissions, we then went back to the main select committee. We had to fight like hell to have our minority report included.

In this regard the Standing Orders are quite specific. The committee has a right either to accept or not to accept a minority report, but it does not have a right to write the words. However, National Party members, supported by New Zealand First and ACT, had to fight viciously to make sure the minority report was included, but not before the chair herself took the opportunity of insulting each and every one of those submissioners.

The minority report that I wanted included listed the names of the people who had made the effort to come before the rebel select committee to state their views. The chair, Jeanette Fitzsimons, said that those names were irrelevant to the process. Today in the House I say that AMP Investments, Beca Carter, the Construction Industry Council, the New Zealand Contractors Federation, the Employers and Manufacturers Association, Foodstuff (NZ) Ltd, the Forest Industries Council, and the New Zealand Forest Owners Association are not irrelevant. They are the organisations that provide the jobs for this country.

But they are only some. Another hugely interesting submission was heard from Sharon and David Waine. They came from just outside Nelson. They tried to establish a business called Maze N Maize. These people wanted to establish 4 to 5 acres of maize. As an attraction, so that these Kiwi battlers could make some money, they wanted to cut a pattern through the maize and make some money by selling tours and entertaining people—both tourists and New Zealanders. They told us of the hassle they had had with the Resource Management Act, and this legislation does nothing to fix that hassle. They have spent $23,000 on having their application notified publicly, only to have it rejected by commissioners, who also happen to be councillors on the Tasman District Council. The interesting thing about their case is that if they had decided not to charge an entry fee they could have done this project without even having to get resource consent. However, under the Resource Management Act, because they wanted to make some money they had to get resource consent and notify.

I always understood the Resource Management Act to be about environmental effects. How could the charging of an entry fee be significant to the effects that this enterprise would have on the environment? The answer is that it could not. However, these people wanted to prove something. They actually opened this attraction on a Sunday, for no charge. Over 4,000 people descended on the property to enjoy Maze N Maize. There is a lesson there. The environmental effects were increased because they did not charge an entry fee on that day.

I want to finish very quickly by mentioning the Federated Farmers report to the select committee. They were horrified at the historic heritage positions that have now been put into this legislation. As every member of the Government knows, no select committee process has had the opportunity to receive comment on them. Federated Farmers said to us that if we thought significant natural areas were bad enough, these heritage provisions would be far worse for the private landowners of New Zealand.

I rise to support this bill. I support it for a number of reasons, one of which is the greater flexibility that the bill will allow in the Resource Management Act process. One of the positive benefits is that local authorities will be able to delegate to their employees the power to decide resource consent applications. Currently, they can delegate this power only to a hearings commissioner. This bill will allow greater flexibility, better response times, and more surety and certainty for people who need to access the Resource Management Act processes. I support the bill and I look forward to its rapid passage through the House.

I rise to speak in opposition to the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2), as have other National colleagues, for a number of reasons. The first is that this bill absolutely abuses the parliamentary process, and there is no doubt in my mind about that. Others have said they have never seen such an abuse of the process, in some very long careers. I think the Hon Ken Shirley said that. He has been here for a long time and I agree with him, in the sense that this bill first came into being in the name of Simon Upton, with 16 proposed amendments to the principal Act. We now have a bill with two amendments, both of them at odds with what Simon Upton proposed initially—110 clauses, and 18 parts, which have now been reduced to two parts. If that is not an abuse of the system, I do not know what is.

The Local Government and Environment Committee in the forty-sixth Parliament received 400 submissions, travelled to seven cities, spent 80 hours on the process, and at the end of that process had a recommendation that was, by and large, changed by the forty-seventh Parliament. At that point in time the process was hijacked by the suggestion that the new Local Government and Environment Committee, made up of members who support the Government—the United Future party—who were not on that select committee during that long process, should not hear any further submissions, particularly around the substantive changes that were made.

I would like somebody in the Government to tell us how that is not an abuse of Parliament, an abuse of this process, and an abuse of the 400 people who chose to submit. The United Future party should sit down with the Greens at some stage, I suggest, and ask some questions about how to negotiate with a Government that one is supporting. The Greens, I would suggest to United Future, knew how to do that, and got much better deals with regard to trade-offs than United Future has in this instance. During the last election they campaigned up and down the country, and, like some of my colleagues, I spent a lot of time on platforms up and down the electorate with United Future party members talking about how they were going to bring about amendments to the Resource Management Act. If they have not rolled over in this instance, then somebody should suggest to me where there is an example of somebody rolling over. They have absolutely gone back on what they campaigned on, and have not delivered in any way on what they promised the electorate when they said United Future was the common-sense party and would bring about amendments, particularly to the Resource Management Act, that would make development in business and job creation in this country so much easier.

The Government itself allowed these amendments to sit on the Order Paper for 100 weeks. That shows members how much priority the Government has given this legislation. This single issue was raised at every political meeting. I cannot believe that the Cabinet Ministers who went to political meetings during that campaign did not have exactly the same issues raised. One can only conclude that they have totally ignored the overwhelming view of those who were at those meetings, who said that the Resource Management Act was the single biggest barrier to growth and development in this country, and the single biggest issue.

The Owen McShane report brought forward 12 recommendations. Simon Upton had a look at them and changed them to 16 recommendations, in terms of the legislation that was in place. The Resource Management Act itself, when it was first introduced by National, was hailed as very significant legislation. In fact, I think it was said to have been the best world-class environmental legislation at the time. The way that legislation has been abused is an absolute indictment, I have to say, on local authorities and New Zealanders at large. It was enabling legislation, and the way it has been abused is something that I guess would be a lesson for most members of Parliament, in terms of putting in place enabling legislation.

It was interesting to listen to David Parker, the member for Otago, a few minutes ago, talking about the ”think big” projects, and in particular the Clyde Dam, where people’s private property rights were trampled over by previous Governments. To some extent he is absolutely right. That is what did happen, and that is where the Resource Management Act came from. As a response, the Resource Management Act was created.

But let us have a look at how stupid it is today. The Clyde Dam just recently had to go through a full consent process to have its consent renewed, to allow it to continue to generate electricity. I say to the Government that if the Clyde Dam had had its consent revoked, how would the energy crisis in this country be solved today? If the Clyde Dam had been put through that absolutely nonsensical, expensive process, how would it proceed to generate electricity if its consent had been withdrawn? How could that happen? The Minister should take a call and explain to us how that process is sensible, and why it should be allowed to continue. This bill is the most nonsensical legislation that has come before Parliament in recent history.

Let us just have a look at some of the suggestions that were put forward by the various groups that submitted. Federated Farmers submitted that the legislation will slow progress and, particularly with regard to the heritage provisions, will substantially increase costs to our primary industries up and down the country. There are examples after examples of that. The collective of the mayors of Auckland said, I think to a person, including Bob Harvey, that this legislation will slow down progress with regard to fixing Auckland’s roading problems. Here we have a Government, on one hand charging extra taxes and putting in place a whole lot of extra cost to industry right across New Zealand to fix the undoubted problems we have in Auckland, and then on the other hand passing legislation that is seen as the single biggest barrier to that situation being overcome. How can that be? How can we comprehend that the two things could happen in one go?

Subpart 2 outlines the principles and purposes of the bill. I ask the House, if the principles and purposes of the bill are put in a subpart, what would be put in a whole part? What would be significant enough to go into a part, if a subpart is the principles and the purposes of the bill? That is a question that absolutely astounds me. I do not have an answer to that, and I wish that one of the Government members would take a call and suggest to us how he or she thinks that will help in this situation.

With regard to Sky Tower, it took 6 years to get the consent for that to go ahead, and it took 2 years to build it. That is just one example. Now some could argue that Sky Tower should never have been built, and I am sure there were views on both sides of that, but it is there; it did go ahead. It took 6 years and a huge cost for that process to be negotiated and for an agreement to be reached, and it took 2 years to build it. That demonstrates how out of kilter our environmental legislation has become. The legislation we are debating here today will not fix that problem. In fact, it makes it worse, to the extent that those who wish to object to that type of development and others like it—whether it be roading, individual development at a private level, or significant structural development—will now under this legislation be granted legal aid to object. I suggest to the House that that amendment is clearly not one that is going to improve the consent process. It will actually do the opposite, and slow things down. Carter Holt Harvey and others in the forestry groups submitted to the select committee in the forty-sixth Parliament that this process is flawed and should not be allowed to continue.