Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2)

I want to take a call on the schedules because there is an important issue still to debate. The Government has now accepted the changes around the issue of spiritual, cultural, and ancestral landscape. That was to be part of the bill. The National Party, especially represented by Nick Smith, and other parties as well, took strong exception to that, and argued in the committee against the inclusion of those terms. I am pleased that the Minister and the Labour Government have accepted the amendments to take those out. However, it is most unfortunate indeed that the amendments did not include the words “wāhi tapu”, because that is already causing, and will add to, consternation around this sort of legislation in New Zealand. It will cause much anxiety. It has already caused much anxiety, but it will get worse, as a consequence of this legislation.

I have not come across anyone in New Zealand who does not respect burial grounds. There may be some, but I have not come across any.

💬 Shane Ardern: Does the Minister?

I am sure the Minister respects burial grounds. I am sure everybody in this Chamber respects sites where the dead are buried. It is not an issue that belongs to one culture alone. It is a fact that, around the world, people have burial areas—whatever they are called—and they are respected. With rare exceptions, they are supported right across the nation.

What worries me is the definition of wāhi tapu in this legislation with regard to the Historic Places Trust and its interpretation of that term. We have seen examples of that already over in Tauranga, where a wāhi tapu was considered not just to be an area of an acre or a hectare. Eight hundred hectares? A wāhi tapu? You have to be joking! [Interruption] Look, we had the same thing in Northland with the Māori land claim around Dargaville. There were five farms comprising over 5,000 hectares. The argument was made that the land needed to go back to the iwi because the whole lot was wāhi tapu. What a nonsense! That is just idiocy that causes consternation and anguish among the majority of New Zealanders because it gives them a wrong perception of what wāhi tapu is and the value of it to our Māori race. I worry, when we have legislation like this, that it ends up causing dissension amongst the races because it allows wrong interpretations to be put on, and as a consequence causes racial disharmony.

This sort of legislation does exactly that. We should not be in this Parliament passing legislation that will cause dissent amongst races. But I tell the Minister that this bill will. This bill inevitably will affect somebody who has a genuine resource application before the local authority, and the Historic Places Trust or somebody on its behalf will come along and say: “Sorry, forget that, it’s wāhi tapu.”, and the whole thing will be dismissed. What will happen is that the community will get to hear about it and will rail against it.

💬 Hon Tariana Turia: What about the Māori community?

Let me tell the Minister that the unfortunate result of this will be a backlash against the Māori race, and that is unfortunate.

💬 Hon Tariana Turia: It is already against them.

Yes that is true, but the Minister knows that I am genuine on these matters. I worry about them. I do not want to see disharmony amongst races in this country. I do my best to ensure that there is harmony, where I can. I stand here genuinely and work on all sides in Northland to help people. The last thing I want to be is part of a Parliament that passes legislation that in the end could cause dissension. I say genuinely, that I believe personally that this legislation will cause dissension. I am pleased that we have a Hansard that records these words, because in time I will be able to look back and say I was right.

I would like to carry on that point because I think we are all pleased to see the removal of ancestral landscapes, and cultural landscapes. That is a clear nonsense, and what we have here is an admission from the Government that its thinking was astray, and was awry. But the point has been made that we have not removed the reference to wāhi tapu. In fact, we learnt earlier today that the Government has just pumped a whole lot more money—$23 million—so that we can facilitate this process of establishing a wāhi tapu over tracts of New Zealand land. But what is of real concern to me—I am not sure that members of the Committee are aware of the process or how it operates. Clearly the schedules in the bill do not address the problem that we are confronted with, because there is no requirement. The wording specifically says in regard to wāhi tapu that one does not have to specify the area, it can be a general area, and one does not have to specify the reason. That is just unbelievable.

The Welcome Bay example is a classic. A group of Māori landowners adjacent to the site where these four property owners were, applied through the process to have a wāhi tapu declared. It was declared. In spite of what the Prime Minister said on television, it was taken out of the local authority’s hands, and under this bill it is now elevated to a matter of national importance. We know what that means under the Resource Management Act—the local body’s hands are tied. So this mystical designation—one does not have to specify what the wāhi tapu is for, or where specifically it might be—can now be imported on to private land, in that case by a group of adjacent landowners.

The interesting thing is that they were engaged in exactly the same activities on their land, and did not want the potential for those four landowners to perhaps do a subdivision or development in what is essentially a prime near-coastal environment. It was an anti-competitive measure, nothing more, nothing less. Here we are, right at the end of this debate, addressing the schedules. Although the Government has been beaten into submission on the nonsense and nonsensical definitions that it had, it was not prepared to go to a select committee, because if it had, the submitters would clearly have pointed out the appalling wording that the Government had. Finally the Government has backed down.

It is a trophy for United Future; clearly its members have been working overtime, because I read Mr Baldock’s press release yesterday. He obviously had it in the bag at that stage—

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Two trophies this week!

That is right. And taxing sherry yesterday was a United Future little trophy—self-contained in the silo outside the Budget! But getting back to the wāhi tapu, we still have that term in this bill, and under the procedures of how that is designated it is now “national importance”; one does not have to specify where it is. One does not have to specify what it is about, and it can be imposed on private property. That is an outrageous provision. The nonsense of it all is that the Minister in the chair says that this bill is all about facilitating and streamlining the process of resource management. That is even stated in the introductory comment to the bill. Who in his or her right mind believes that that is the case? This measure will be abused up and down the country. So even at this late stage I implore the Minister. She backed down on the ancestral landscapes, she backed down on the—what was the other one?

💬 Brian Connell: Heritage—

Yes, well they are both heritage provisions. But surely one can see the nonsense that is proposed to be imported into this legislation with the wāhi tapu measure.

I invite the Minister to perhaps take a call. If she will not, then could she explain to the Committee why she is not prepared to do that. Perhaps the Minister could respond to the comments I have made in terms of the way wāhi tapu can be declared with no specification of what it is about or where it is. It can just be a general area and a general request. That is not good enough when we are dealing with other people’s property rights. It is just applied right across anywhere in this country, and it will be used as a tool for non-competitive measures. That was the case at Welcome Bay in Tauranga. A group of landowners virtually wrote in and said: “We want to declare this a wāhi tapu area.” Some of the depressions they claimed were in the land were actually an old fence line.

I take the opportunity to speak on these very unfortunate schedules in this very unfortunate bill. While the Minister for the Environment is in the chair I call upon her once again to take a call. Given that these schedules are in place removing so much of the bill that she has talked about as beautifully written and beautifully balanced legislation, is it not the “Resource Management Compression Bill”, reduced from 18 parts to two parts? Can the Minister sincerely say to landowners and farmers up and down New Zealand that these schedules are beautifully written and beautifully balanced?

Yesterday we had this biotechnology task force report that talked about regulation, of which her colleague the Hon Peter Hodgson said that this was a high-quality report. The report concluded by saying that regulations must be efficient, must be cost-effective, and equal to international best practice. It also stated that they must be transparent and predictable. Is the Minister willing to finally get up, face the Committee and the people of New Zealand, and say whether she sincerely believes that this legislation, which is so important for New Zealand, fulfils those criteria?

I am really calling upon the Minister for the Environment. This is a test of her integrity. All she has to do is to confirm to the Committee that this bill has a regulatory framework that is efficient, cost-effective, transparent, and predictable. I do not believe that she can do that. I do not believe that any members here in this Chamber can really look into their hearts and say that this legislation, which is so important to New Zealand, fulfils those criteria.

While the Minister for the Environment is in the chair I would also like her to comment, as the Minister on the watch who presided over the decision for the Hampton Downs dump—the biggest dump in New Zealand to gain a consent. It will take refuse from the upper half of the North Island into quiet, rural Waikato land. This is the Minister who was given the opportunity through this bill, which she said is beautifully written, to use her call-in powers. Even though this is of such huge national importance, she said: “No, this is a local issue, and I will not use them.”

I would like the Minister to take a call to tell us why she has gone up and down the country talking about waste minimisation, yet in this instance raw rubbish will be deposited in this monument, a legacy to her, that will last in New Zealand for something like 60 years. How can she sit there and say nothing about it when in this bill her Government has put in these historic heritage provisions that talk about cultural, historical, spiritual matters, wāhi tapu, and so on? Surely that means that on the one hand the Government comes up with the rhetoric, yet on the other hand, when it is convenient, it totally ignores it.

When United Future holds the balance of power in this Parliament and its members say: “Let’s put an amendment.”—as was pointed out by John Carter and Ken Shirley—“to remove those particular areas of historic heritage, spiritual and cultural.”, suddenly the Minister bends again. Where is the sincerity? Unfortunately, the all-pervading theme around this bill, compressed into two parts from 18 parts, is one of absolute insincerity on the part of the Government and the Minister when they are really viewing the important things for New Zealand and the important things that this bill was aimed to protect.

I rise to speak on the schedules for this reason: hundreds of people have spoken to this Minister—I will not exaggerate; I suspect that it may be thousands—about the concerns they have with the way this process has been handled. Yet here we are debating the schedules today after having all of those submissions made to the Minister, and the Minister doing nothing about it.

I want to remind the Minister of some of the statements she has made during the period that this submission process has gone on. She said: “I don’t think the Resource Management Act is a particularly friendly Act to the average New Zealander.” She is right. She also said that the Resource Management Act is a beautifully written and beautifully balanced piece of legislation. I know that in her former occupation the Minister was a teacher. Perhaps she could take a call and explain to me what the term “oxymoron” means, because I believe that those two statements are an oxymoron. They are in direct contrast with each other, absolutely, and I am astounded by that.

When we look through the schedules, we wonder how those two statements can stand without their being in contrast with each other. I would really enjoy a call from the Minister on that topic, because I am absolutely perplexed about how that could not be so. “Increased flexibility for business and more opportunity for public participation have been major aims of the RMA. Responsible businesses have embraced those opportunities, finding that doing their homework and getting their neighbours on board has let a smooth process and good outcomes go, and not just for business, but also for the environment.” That is another quote from the Minister. Well! I just need to remind the Minister of that, when we look at things like wāhi tapu.

I absolutely share the concerns of my colleague John Carter, when he spoke earlier on. He represents a large Māori population in his electorate, and so do I—23 percent of my electorate are Māori and I do understand the concerns of Māoridom. But I also feel that putting in legislation the opportunity for racial divide, such as we are putting in this bill, will not be a positive thing for New Zealand. I honestly and sincerely believe that what we are putting in this bill will not be a positive thing for New Zealand. I honestly and sincerely believe that, and, like John Carter, I am pleased to have those words recorded in Hansard, so that in time, when that comes to be the case, we can go back and say that we did forecast that that would be an issue.

The Minister does have, at this “eleventh and a half” hour, an opportunity to amend some of that. She still has that opportunity before this bill is passed today, or whenever it will be, and receives its royal assent.

The removal of the Environment Court’s power to give security across cost, particularly in the schedules, when it comes to vexatious claims using the Resource Management Act, will be a major issue going forward, not only for big business, but for the ordinary mum, dad, “Joe Hardworker”, or mother of seven from Glenfield, as my colleague Maurice Williamson often quotes. Those people will pay the price for this legislation. There are many examples here where various developers and city councils and the like have talked about the likely impact on the cost of the ordinary section, subdivision, and development, as a result of the passage of this bill—not of any other legislation. The United Future party, which campaigned up and down the country on family values and common sense, cannot have overlooked that. I do not believe that its members are so naïve in their entry to Parliament that they will not have had that pointed out to them and totally overlooked it. So one can only conclude that they have decided they will roll over. They will not stand up for those principles. They are the two things that actually got them into Parliament in the first place—common sense and family values—and they will not stand firm on them. They will roll over.

What we are doing here will affect mum, dad, and “Joe Hardworker” out there, when it comes to the price of their small business, the price of their section, the price of any subdivision or extension they want to put on to the house as the family grows, or any other minor development—that is a key point here: it is a minor, insignificant development.

I have come down to the Chamber to speak to the schedules of the Resource Management Amendment Bill (No 2). I have done so to give credit to the work of a number of members of Parliament. Some members may not realise this, but this bill has been most unusual, in that massive amendments have been made to it: amendments introduced by the Minister, who then decided that it was not necessary to send it to a select committee. I think we need to record that, because if the Minister had been right, then the bill would have gone through with no amendments whatsoever. Would that not be right? If what she had amended did not require any amendments, there would have been no change. Well, the ACT member of Parliament, Ken Shirley, and I understand—and I have read here in the minority report—that the National Party member and New Zealand First member, I am not sure who those members are—

💬 Brian Connell: Nick Smith.

Was it Nick Smith? And who was the New Zealand First representative. Was it Brian Donnelly?

💬 Edwin Perry: Jim Peters.

Well, I, as a member of Parliament, want to pay credit to them, because what they did in their time was go out and do something that is very interesting. They went out and formed their own Opposition committee to hear evidence. I can read that in the commentary on the bill, which states: The Opposition Committee received over 30 written submissions from a range of business and community organisations. Twelve oral submissions were heard.” That is quite a massive amount. It is a massive effort from them They came back and reported that: “Of particular concern are the heritage provisions that will increase uncertainty and costs for landowners and businesses. Elevating the protection of historic heritage to the level of national importance will allow objectors to virtually veto developments.”

I think that that is so, because as I read their analysis, it meant that every single piece of land in New Zealand was actually going to be a cultural landscape or an ancestral landscape because the definition was any land that had ever, at any point, been owned by Māori. Well, Māori claim that they own every single bit of Aotearoa—which I am sure the Māori members over there will confirm—so this was actually saying that every piece of land was an ancestral landscape. So any objector anywhere in the country could have stopped any development.

When the Minister heard that submission, even she suddenly realised that they had made a terrible mistake. I think that the United Future party suddenly realised that it was backing a loser. The only people who were still prepared to support it were the Greens. They have always been losers and never wanted any development. They want New Zealand to be back pre-1840—and the thought of there being no Greens is quite a good thought—but apart from that, nobody else supports it. But when we look at the schedules, we see that those provisions have all been dropped.

That is a huge achievement. I have not seen any Opposition party deliver such a humiliating defeat to a Minister for years It is a humiliating defeat for a Minister. The Minister brought forward a provision, then said it that is so beautifully written that it does not need to go to a select committee. But when we get up to this stage of the provisions in the bill, as the Minister wrote them—no they are not. This Minister, Marian Hobbs, one of the most incompetent Ministers I think I have ever seen, has actually suffered a humiliating defeat in this Chamber.

💬 Brian Connell: Again.

Again. But, of course, we are seeing that day after day now, are we not? The Government has been in office for 4 years. It is no longer cruising along on the achievements of previous Governments. We are now seeing a Labour Government having to operate and having to tackle problems like the power crisis—and now that is relevant to this bill.

How does this bill help solve the power crisis? Is there anything in the schedules that will enable us to get the generation we need earlier? No, there is not. The Government said: “Oh, that is a serious problem. We must get on to it.” Winter is already here, I say to the Minister. If it really is a serious problem, and if she can write so beautifully, how about having a section to help us tackle that problem? But, no—and the Government still has other sections. It has the wāhi tapu section. Why is that a matter of concern—because that is not defined, either. The reality is that anyone who really has a big think can decide that that is a provision, and the bill actually says that one does not have to justify it. That is an outrage.

I move, That the question be now put.