Resource Legislation Amendment Bill

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. You will be aware of the controversies around this process. I have a copy of the form of the bill that is the only one that is available to members, and it is the first reading version. This debate cannot proceed until that—

💬 Grant Robertson: You mean, on the Table?

Well, this is the Table. Members do not have available to them the piece of legislation that is the one we are meant to be debating.

I have asked the Clerk to attempt to obtain copies of bills for members, because it is a most undesirable position to be in, to have a bill, which I presume is 3 days out of a select committee, and not have that available. In fact, I do not know a precedent for this. I will look, while the Minister for Building and Construction is speaking, at the exact rules and will be deferring my ruling on whether the debate will proceed until the end of the Minister’s speech. Clearly he has a copy of the bill.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Eugenie Sage, you are not going to debate what I have just said, are you?

No, except that I looked quite carefully on the Table to get a copy of the bill as reported back, and could not find it. So I think it does impede the ability of members to discuss it when it has not been on the Table when we have looked.

I understand that that is the case, and that is as described by Mr Parker. What I have said is that I am aware of rulings in the past, in different circumstances, which the members might not find satisfactory if I were to follow the precedents. What I am asking for is some indulgence so I can look at those Speakers’ rulings from the past to see whether, in fact, I can differentiate from them. But I will do that while the Minister is speaking.

I would ask you to reconsider, Mr Assistant Speaker, because I do not think you can have a debate on a bill that is not before us, in the context where it has come back from a select committee. Unless you are willing to reconsider, I am going to have to move a motion.

I am advised by Mr Robertson that the bill is now on the Table, but I will also advise the member that the precedents on this, from my memory, are unfortunate but clear.

The copies of the full select committee report and the bill have been publicly available since 4 o’clock on Monday, so it is rather pedantic of Opposition members to pretend that simply because the copies have only just arrived on the Table that in any way impedes the capacity for Parliament to debate the bill.

I would have recalled the Speaker but a copy has now arrived. It would have been absolutely absurd for us to have this debate without the legislation being available to us. Even this, I think, is just an incredibly poor process—that members have not been able to pick up the legislation that we are meant to be debating right now.

💬 Hon Dr Nick Smith: Mr Assistant Speaker—

Sorry, I do have a matter to deal with before I get back to the member. Just to make it clear to the Hon David Parker that when I am in the chair, I am the Speaker, and if he does not like my opinion, he cannot call the real one. The question I just want to ask the Hon Dr Nick Smith now is whether, in fact, given this issue and the fact that I think we are both aware that something is going to happen quite soon, he does want to continue with this debate now.

Yes, Mr Assistant Speaker. I move, That the Resource Legislation Amendment Bill be now read a second time. This is the second phase of the Government’s substantive reforms to the Resource Management Act (RMA). It is the largest package of reforms since the original Act was passed 25 years ago. The success of the Government’s first phase of reforms is witnessed by projects like the Waterview Connection, like the Kapiti Expressway, like major roading programmes in Christchurch, and like the new power stations that have been able to be consented in a far more crisp way.

This bill is particularly focused on addressing the long-term issues around housing. It is a litmus test for parties in this Parliament as to whether they are serious about addressing the long-term issues affecting housing supply and affordability. This Parliament is full of MPs who want the omelette but are not prepared to break the egg. Unless we address the core issue of opening up land supply, reducing the time taken to get consents, reducing the cost of land subdivision, and enabling the construction of infrastructure, we are not serious about addressing New Zealand’s long-term housing supply and affordability issues.

The evidence of the connections between the Resource Management Act and the housing issues are overwhelming. Eighty percent of the real increase in the cost of a home today as compared with 25 years ago is in the price of the section. I point out that the average section was worth $100,000 in 1990 in Auckland, and the most recent average is $500,000. You are not going to build a starter affordable house if the price of the section is that expensive. Here is the further evidence: why is it possible in Christchurch to buy a home of 150 square metres for under $400,000 when the same home in Auckland would cost over $700,000? The building materials cost in Christchurch is about the same. The cost of labour in Christchurch is about the same. The cost of the consenting process is about the same. The core issue is that the average price of a section in Auckland is $500,000, and the price of a section in Christchurch is $190,000.

In Christchurch we used the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Act to overrule the RMA and to substantially increase the supply of land, and that is why rents have dropped in that city by 8 percent over the last 12 months.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Rubbish! That is such a lie.

That is why, in that city, homes are so much more affordable.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I will ask Hon Ruth Dyson to withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: I withdraw and apologise.

The core Act that governs the creation of sections is the Resource Management Act. It is not just the Government that is calling for that reform; the New Zealand Institute, the Reserve Bank, and Treasury are, and the Productivity Commission has produced two substantive reports. Similar issues in the UK, where house prices are similarly at ratios of eight times those of incomes, have been inquired into. The report in the House of Commons in the last couple of weeks—a 400-page report—said exactly the same thing.

This is a test of leadership, because whether it be the issue of superannuation or RMA reform, members of this side of the House, and particularly the Prime Minister, are prepared to deal with the long-term issues for New Zealand whereas members opposite are far more interested in playing short-term politics. Mr Little and Mr Twyford have acknowledged that tight urban limits have been at the core of New Zealand’s housing issues and, when we have the very bill before the House that will make a difference, they vigorously oppose it, and that is a lack of leadership. If Andrew Little was really up to the cut, he would take the sort of measure that John Key did on the issue of smacking when Labour was in the Government and be prepared to address these long-term questions.

When it comes to the issue of housing, these are not new issues. I remind members opposite, that house prices doubled under the former Labour Government, and homeownership declined in every year that they were in Government. If there was a quick, easy fix, it would have been done a long time ago. What we need is a systematic, long-term reform of the very Act that drives the creation of sections and is at the core of those major issues in New Zealand’s housing market.

There are 10 very specific amendments in this bill that will make a material difference. The first is that this bill specifically includes a new function and requirement on councils to ensure that they provide a sufficient supply of land for development and for growth. Secondly, a key weakness of our current planning system is that it takes so long for plan changes. Auckland has been functioning for the last 20 years on a plan that was drafted in 1993 when its population was 600,000 fewer. The streamlined planning provisions in this bill will enable new land to be able to be zoned for housing in a matter of months, rather than the many years of the current law.

This bill quite specifically removes appeals on resource consents for residential activities where a land has been zoned for housing purposes. That too is a key change in speeding up the process. We have a very confusing regime for developers in that we have councils able to charge both financial contributions under the RMA and development contributions under the Local Government Act. Those two regimes do not make sense. They create uncertainty, they can result in double-charging, and it is sensible in this reform that we require those two provisions to be integrated.

This bill provides for planning standards. It does not make sense that across this country we have over 50 definitions on how you measure the height of a building. We have, across this country, more than a thousand different categories of zoning of land that makes development a nightmare for those people that are trying to build the buildings for jobs and the buildings for houses. Those planning standards that are provided for in this bill will make a real difference.

The changes to the Reserves Act that enable you to be able to integrate the changes to reserves with planning changes in resource consents—there are thousands of homes in which that is exactly the circumstance of which this bill will provide for a better process.

You cannot build houses unless you have infrastructure. Right now there are difficulties with the Public Works Act in terms of being able to bring infrastructure on stream, and the sensible, more generous provisions for those people whose property is required for infrastructure while speeding up the process makes absolute sense.

There are the new boundary provisions that enable homes and those issues to be resolved more quickly. There is the issue of fixed fees. There is the issue of having the capacity to be able to even waiver the need for a consent in minor cases.

There are far more reforms, and bigger reforms. There is the issue of natural hazards that was an act of neglect in it not being including in the original law, which was recommended by the Royal Commission, and we need only look at a subdivision like Bexley to say that natural hazards should have been at the front end of the decision making in those areas. There are the new collaborative requirements. There are the new provisions in this bill that provide decommissioning plans for those activities in the exclusive economic zone. There are the new provisions requiring the fencing of streams and rivers and lakes in New Zealand so that we might have cleaner waterways.

I want to acknowledge the Māori Party. Yes, it has advocated strongly for the iwi participation agreements that are in this bill, but it is a party that is prepared to deal with the issues that are at the core of housing rather than simply playing politics. I also note the substantive issues in this bill about bringing together the different processes for national direction, whether it is a national policy statement, whether it is a national environmental standard, or whether it is those 360 regulations.

There have been cries of foul that this is bill is going to remove the powers for communities to be able to have a say. Here is what I have to say to the Parliament. Why should it, after Parliament has regulated and set a standard for earthquake-prone buildings—

Order! The member’s time has expired. Before I call a member I am going to go back and give the Hon David Parker half an apology for the comments that I made earlier. Under Standing Order 267(2) unless a bill is under urgency it has to be made available to members. The experiences I have had in the past have been under urgency and, therefore, my initial reaction was wrong. However, this bill was made available to members on 6 March, and was available on Monday, and, therefore, that does not apply.

I raise a point of order, Mr Speaker. With respect, your gloss on the obligation to—there are two issues here. A matter cannot be put on the Order Paper until a bill has been tabled in the Table Office more than 2 days before the debate—2 or 3 days, whatever the limit was that you suggested. That is a different matter from whether the bill is meant to be on our Table in the House when we debate a bill.

I have been in the House too when matters have been considered under urgency and an urgency debate has started before the bill has been tabled in the Bills Office. It is a terrible practice but we seem to have some ruling, which should be overridden one day by a Speaker of this House to make sure that we do not have fallacious debates where we cannot see legislation. That is under urgency. There is no ruling that I am aware of in Standing Orders that says that this Parliament is meant to debate a bill that is not available to members when they are debating it.

OK. Well, I have heard your point of view and my ruling is that as long as bills have been made available at the appropriate time in the Bills Office, if members see a bill as coming up and it is not on the Table, I do not think it is asking too much of them to walk the 20 metres and get it or to ask the Clerk to get the bill before the debate. This has been on the Order Paper all day and the bill has, in fact, been available since Monday.

Are you making a ruling when you do not need to in respect of such a serious matter? If you are making a ruling that is going to bind future Speakers in respect of that rule when you actually do not need to, because the matter was cured by the—

The member will resume his seat. The ruling that I have made is that Standing Order 267 applies to bills being available to members. I happen to agree with the member on the question of urgency where bills are not available to members and are being debated, but if bills are available to members for debate, then I do not think a debate should be held up. I think it is a matter of politeness and a matter of efficiency, and I have no doubt there will be some investigation in the Clerk’s Office as to why it took from Monday to today to actually get the thing out when it was down for debate today. But that is a matter, I think, of efficiency rather than a ruling.

Just speaking to the point of order, I have a concern that you are making a potential ruling here that may mean that bills do not have to be available on the Table and I think that has quite significant implications if we are just expected to pick them up electronically. I think they physically should be available in the Chamber and your ruling, I suggest, is actually potentially saying that that does not need to be the case.

I can hear the member, but I am not going to make the extreme ruling that debate cannot happen if there has been either an efficiency question here or members—I think if members are unable to make it to the Bills Office in order to get a copy of a bill, then it is part of the role of the staff here to do that.

Speaking to the point of order.

The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Has the member really got something new to add?

Well, I am looking at Standing Order 267(4)(b): “the bill is not available for debate until copies of it, as reprinted, have been circulated to members.” My understanding, from Mr Parker’s original point of order, is that this is a reprint. I could be mistaken. I just wonder whether you could clarify that.

That is the case. My understanding is that, under the modern practices of the House for about the last 10 years, the circulation to members has been its availability in the Bills Office for those members who have become aware of its existence electronically, or through any other method, and they request it. We used to—earlier in my time—have every bill and every reprint taken to every member’s office, and we decided that that was not actually a very good practice.

Debate interrupted.