Resource Management Amendment Bill

I move, That the Resource Management Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Our resource management and planning system has been underperforming in its management of our built and natural environment—for example, in freshwater quality, and another example is in meeting the needs of our people for affordable housing and thriving urban communities. In short, the Resource Management Act (RMA) takes too long, costs too much, and has not been delivering for the environment, which is a pretty damning indictment of its overall performance.

This bill is the first part of the Government’s efforts to deliver a better resource management system, which should support a productive, sustainable, and inclusive economy. While the Government has commenced a broader review of the RMA, and that report will be delivered soon, there are steps which need to be taken now, and this bill makes improvements to the RMA that should not await that longer and wider review. I would add, for the sake of clarity, that this bill is also separate from the fast-track legislation before the House, which is currently before a select committee.

The bill we are considering today includes provisions to improve freshwater quality. The bill introduces a new freshwater planning process that ensures regional council plans are updated as soon as possible and in a manner consistent with Te Mana o te Wai. Under current processes, freshwater plans needed to give effect to the last Government’s 2017 national policy statement (NPS) will not be in place for many councils until 2030 or thereafter. That’s more than 13 years after the NPS was promulgated, and I think parties across all sides of the House—and regional government—agree that that’s too long. The changes will enable the new National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management to be implemented much faster.

After the onset of COVID-19, the Government introduced a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) to this bill to move the date by which councils must notify their new freshwater plans. This extended that deadline from 31 December 2023, which was already tight, to 31 December 2024. This will provide councils, communities, iwi, etc. an additional 12 months to meet the planned notification time frame. The bill will also restore public participation opportunities, including removing some preclusions to notification and appeal. It also respects council autonomy by repealing excessive regulation-making powers that were introduced by the last Government, which enabled the Minister for the Environment to override council rules. The bill also contains important changes to support councils in their role of enforcing the RMA and their district or regional plans. Maximum infringement fees will be increased, and the current six-month statutory limitation period for taking prosecutions will be extended to 12 months. The bill also provides the Environmental Protection Authority enforcement units with information-gathering powers to assist councils to investigate incidents and, at times, to take lead investigative roles from councils if and when necessary.

Can I thank the select committee for its efforts. After considering many detailed submissions on the bill, the Environment Committee proposed amendments, perhaps the most important of which was the enabling of decision makers to consider climate change mitigation under the RMA. As it stands, the RMA doesn’t allow local authorities to consider greenhouse gas emissions in plan making or consenting. In response to submissions on both the zero carbon Act and the Resource Management Amendment Bill, this bill formally links the RMA and the zero carbon Act through requiring RMA decision makers to consider the emission reduction plans and national adaptation plans that must be published under the zero carbon Act.

The bill also removes the prohibition on councils that currently prohibits them considering climate change mitigation under RMA consent applications. The bill as reported back had that effect from 31 December 2021, by which date the first emissions reduction plan will be gazetted. However, the Government introduced a post-COVID SOP to provide some flexibility to extend this date by Order in Council if required. This is because it is crucial that we have national direction in respect of climate-changing emissions consideration under the RMA in place before councils can consider climate change mitigation. The bill as amended includes a backstop deadline of 30 November 2022, which is when the first national adaptation plan must be gazetted by. This is to ensure that council consideration of climate change mitigation cannot be delayed indefinitely. In the meantime, applications that are called in and referred to a board of inquiry before the Environment Court by the Minister for the Environment can, on a case-by-case basis, take greenhouse gas emissions into account if the Minister so directs in the referral.

Returning to water issues, further provisions were included by the select committee to enable regulations to restrict stock access to water body margins, which will allow for efficient protection against erosion and sedimentation of our rivers and estuaries. The bill will also allow changes to regional policy statements to be called in and directed to a board of inquiry or the Environment Court for decision. Through Supplementary Order Paper, the bill also introduces several measures that support the implementation of the recently announced package around healthy waterways pursuant to the Essential Freshwater programme. This is in addition to the new freshwater planning process.

The development of mandatory and enforceable farm environment plans will now be provided for in the RMA. The Government recognises that we can’t tackle all environmental issues via national standards—farm plans will be needed. Making farm plans mandatory and enforceable is widely supported by regional councils and farming peak organisations, and it will help lift environmental performance. These farm plans will contain individualised measures, tailored to each farm. Farmers and growers will develop farm plans that identify the actions they intend to take to support the improvement of water quality and ecosystem health. We know that many farmers and growers are implementing good farm practices and achieving improved environmental outcomes. Farm plans will help lift others to similar outcomes and will be phased in over time, beginning with highly impacted nitrogen-enriched catchments.

In respect of reporting of fertiliser use, it’s of interest that nitrogenous fertiliser use has increased by about 700 percent in New Zealand since 1990, and in some ways it’s a proxy for the more intensive land use that’s put pressure on our waterways. To ensure that the Essential Freshwater package is delivering real results, the Government will also now monitor and annually report on the use of nitrogen fertiliser regionally across New Zealand. Sales data from the major sellers is considered a good indicator of fertiliser use on a regional basis and is reasonably cheap to collect. Existing powers under the RMA don’t currently allow for this type of information to be collected by central government, and an SOP achieves this. This reporting goes slightly further than that required under the Climate Change Response Act and voluntary measures already undertaken by the Fertiliser Association. The Minister for Climate Change and I will ensure that future reporting aligns and is not unnecessarily complex.

The next step in reforming New Zealand’s resource management system is the most comprehensive review in 30 years, and I’m looking forward to receiving the review panel’s report at the end of this month. The panel, led by retired Court of Appeal Judge Tony Randerson QC, will include major proposals for reform, including drafting of key legislative provisions. In the meantime, the RMA will be improved by amendments in this bill. Critics of the RMA—and I acknowledge the Hon Scott Simpson’s contribution in this regard at the committee stage—note that it’s currently at least twice its original length. This bill strips out some of the verbiage, including the lengthy provisions inserted by the last Government to codify collaborative planning processes. That tortured set of provisions was unnecessary, has never been used, and is repealed by this bill. It’s for these reasons that I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill is, I think, the 19th substantive amendment to the 1991 principal Act, the Resource Management Act (RMA). The fact that 30 years on it is being amended for the 19th time is a good indicator as to its ineffectiveness in terms of providing for our natural environment and our built environment, and the Minister David Parker made reference to that in his third reading speech. I think there’s probably broad agreement, not only across this Parliament but throughout New Zealand that the RMA in its current form has become cumbersome, expensive, incomprehensible to lay people, and is slow and difficult to negotiate and navigate. Actually, it doesn’t achieve anything in terms of the aspirational goals that most New Zealanders, in fact all New Zealanders, want for their natural environment, and it stifles and slows down appropriate, sensible development in our built environment as well.

So this piece of legislation, we argue, is in fact, just tinkering. The Minister has given an indication that he’s going to be looking very carefully at the substantive report that retired Judge Tony Randerson QC is going to make available to him in its complete form very shortly. We would say, actually, “hallelujah”. It’s time for a real back-to-basics, fundamental review of our planning legislation and our environmental protection legislation. We have a particular view, on this side of the House, about how that might be achieved in years to come. But as the Minister has said, it is a big job—it’s an enormous job; probably not a job that could be completed within one parliamentary term, I would suspect. I’m conscious of the contribution that people have made in this House over many, many years, trying to tinker and adjust and make good on the piece of legislation that, sadly for our environment, is now considered by many New Zealanders to be something of a laughing stock. I don’t think that’s how our primary environmental legislative statute should be considered by New Zealanders. I think that, as New Zealanders and as legislators, we are better than that and we should have better than that for our natural environment, and to ensure that those who follow us in generations to come have something better than we have today—and we have an obligation to ensure that that occurs.

So back to this piece of legislation: essentially, tinkering—essentially, undoing the very good work of my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith when he was Minister for the Environment, who made very pragmatic, sensible changes that helped reduce cost, that helped speed up the process, and that helped New Zealanders navigate through the minefield that is the Resource Management Act. This piece of legislation, effectively, is undoing many of those things—not all of them but many of those things—I would say largely out of a feeling that they need to do something in the last few months of this Government’s administration. But as the Minister has said, I think that probably, across this House now, there is a desire to make progress. So we’ll be looking forward to the detail of the Randerson report and what might come out of that.

I want to just refer to a couple of specific matters in this piece of legislation. The Minister did make mention of it, but it’s the changes in relation to climate change and the consideration of climate change and issuing of consents under the Act. Now, a Labour Government amendment back in 2004 specifically excluded from the consenting process considerations, matters relating to climate change and their impacts—

💬 Hon David Parker: Until there was an MPS.

Until there was a Monetary Policy Statement. But then what has happened now is that by virtue of the changes that have occurred in this piece of legislation, it looks like we’re going to have a situation where climate change matters will be taken into account in terms of the consenting process. I understand the points that the Minister made, but we are now using this piece of legislation as an almost backdoor methodology for applying climate change issues into the consenting process, and I’m not convinced that that’s necessarily the best way of doing it, but we’ll wait and see.

I want to also talk about the changes in regards to housing, particularly the changes that the Minister is going to implement through this piece of legislation that relate to land that has been already designated through council long-term plans as being, for instance, suitable for residential development, and now is going to have to go back through a process where one would have thought that if houses were due to be built on land that had been zoned residential, then surely that would be a sensible and easy thing to do to build houses on that land. I’m not sure that we’ve had a convincing or particularly meritorious argument as to why that change needs to be made.

I remain utterly unconvinced about the Minister’s changes in terms of financial contributions and, essentially, it’s our argument that councils will be, effectively, able to double-dip. That only adds extra cost to building, does nothing to reduce the cost of home ownership, the home-building process, or, indeed, to speed it up.

The issue around fresh water: there are provisions in this legislation that put effect to the Minister’s Essential Freshwater structure, and that’s a matter that he, I guess, is entitled to do, but those are, again, relatively tinkering in terms of the bigger reform package that is probably needed and required. To use this piece of legislation to achieve that in the dying throes of this Government, under urgency, as we approach the 2020 general election, seems to me to be unnecessary and not particularly helpful to the wider debate about those matters that we as a Parliament and we as a nation need to have.

So it’s with some regret, I have to say, that on this piece of legislation the National Party Opposition does oppose it. We do oppose it, we do think it’s tinkering, we do think it’s largely unnecessarily, particularly given that the Randerson report, we hope, will signal a pathway forward to a better set of planning rules and a better set of environmental protection rules that will take this country forward. So we oppose this legislation.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. The Green Party is very pleased to support the Resource Management Amendment Bill. Like others in the House, though, I am waiting with expectation to see the Randerson review and the very thorough process that I understand that expert panel has gone through to build on some of the really good work that organisations like the Environmental Defence Society have done over recent years to look at how do we plan and manage natural resources in New Zealand. The whole concept of spatial planning is something that many people have proposed, because when we’re doing these big infrastructure projects, how do we ensure that the housing, the transport, the green spaces are all well-connected, that amenity values, natural environment is protected? And how do we plan in a sensible, coherent way? At the moment, the Act has really failed the environment. It’s failed people in terms of public participation because it becomes quite cumbersome. So we have had a series of changes. This bill is the latest of those. It will significantly improve the Act, but it is this wider reform that Minister Parker is leading that I think will make the real substantive change that will make the Act fit for purpose in the 21st century.

So with this bill, it is much more than the National Party has given it credit for because of the major changes that National made, which cut right across public participation, and which significantly increased the powers of the Minister for the Environment to reach down and amend provisions in district and regional plans with very few safeguards. Those section 360D provisions were widely criticised when they were introduced by National—a lot of submissions to select committee against them. This bill actually removes those from the Act.

The other area where this bill is really important is in the whole freshwater space. In the second reading, National members attempted to suggest that the Green Party’s support for the freshwater commissioners was showing that we had changed our position in terms of Environment Canterbury and the appointment of commissioners by that Government to do away with democratic decision-making. What these freshwater commissioners do is quite different. They have to be accredited under the Resource Management Act (RMA) in the same way that RMA commissioners are accredited. They have specialist expertise, and we all know that the management of water in Aotearoa has become very controversial, very contentious. So having commissioners who’ve got particular expertise with tikanga with freshwater management, good RMA qualifications, is a way to make sure that we get these national policy instruments like the National Policy Statement for Freshwater implemented into plans, because one of the problems has been the lack of national direction until very late in the Opposition’s term in Government, and then they haven’t been properly implemented into plans. So we need to tune up the system and these freshwater commissioners will help do that and help ensure that we have healthy waterways that all New Zealanders want to be able to swim in, to gather mahinga kai from, to be able to kayak in, fish in, and to enjoy. So the freshwater changes in this bill are major, and I hope that the Randerson review and others will build on the work that’s been in this bill.

The other area that’s really significant is the changes in relation to climate change that ensure that, having passed the zero carbon Act, we have a consistent regime under the RMA. As the Minister has noted, these changes in terms of allowing councils to consider the impacts on emissions will only come into effect when national direction is provided. So that will ensure that there are national policy statements or national environmental standards, there is consistent national direction across Aotearoa about how councils should consider emissions when they’re considering resource constraints and when they’re considering their plan provisions. We need to get our emissions down. It is ridiculous that activities where there are coal-fired boilers being put in, that councils haven’t been able to consider the emissions angle of that. So this bill is fixing things that need to be fixed, but this Government is looking to make sure that the RMA is fit for the 21st century, with a much more substantive review. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We’ve had a good discussion this afternoon about the Resource Management Amendment Bill, and I just want to take a moment and acknowledge David Parker, who was the Minister in the chair in the committee stage. We had a good discussion with him about aspects of this bill, but, importantly, I think it’s worthwhile just going back in history a bit. The Resource Management Act (RMA) is about 30 years old. It’s had 18-odd changes, or 19, I think, now—

💬 Dan Bidois: This is the 19th.

—this is the 19th, Dan Bidois rightly points out—and it’s 800 pages long. It’s complex, and when we think about what the RMA is about, it’s about, fundamentally, environment planning and also overall planning as well, and those two butt up because you have an economic aspect of that, as well.

We’ve heard quite a lot of discussion about the Randerson report, from retired judge Justice Tony Randerson. I asked the Minister last week whether he had received a copy, and he said no. I asked him earlier on today, and he said he’s seen a draft, so no doubt the Minister is busy reviewing that and maybe changing a few words to make sure it lines up with his aspirations for RMA changes.

I thought it would have been appropriate for the Minister to reach out across the Parliament and work with the Opposition on this, but there’s been, as far as I know, very little consultation. I think zero—I’m looking around at colleagues, who nod their heads—consultation with us in terms of the wider review of the RMA.

We made changes when we’re in Government, and we couldn’t get all of the changes that we necessarily wanted because of our coalition partners. United Future and Peter Dunne wouldn’t support us to make the necessary changes that we wanted, and the Māori Party had concerns. But the one that really has made a difference that I like to talk about is the call-in process.

Nick Smith made the changes. Projects of national significance can be called in within nine months and done—not years and years and years of appeals heading off to the Environment Court, which is costly and bureaucratic, and now we are driving, up in my electorate, on the Kāpiti Expressway, which was indeed called in through a nine-month process. So we know that the National Government did make a difference.

Now, talking about this specific bill, we received 385 submissions in the Environment Committee and we heard 59 of those, and they were all actually pretty good contributions. But what we heard was there’s some support for this, and we heard from other submitters who weren’t that supportive.

We have spent a bit of time this afternoon debating about the freshwater commissioner’s role and the panel’s role, and I’m still not convinced that this aspect is going to be less costly than what we currently have. The Minister and his officials seem to think it is, and the proof of the pudding will indeed be in the eating. What I don’t want to see is more bureaucracy and more cost on ratepayers and, at a point when we are focused across the whole of the Parliament—and we’ll debate the merits of policy direction and so forth—we lose focus on creating jobs when our economy most needs them. But we know that fresh water has been a debate in this Parliament for a long period of time, and if the panel are going to help do a better job than what is currently in place with the planning and so forth, then I think, ultimately, that may end up being a better thing, but we’ll wait and see. The jury is out at the moment.

The other important aspect of this is also stock exclusions. It’s covered on page 15—I’m just going to find that, if you’ll bear with me. It’s all about the water body with the amendment in clause 70 to section 360, “Regulations”, of the RMA, where the water body can be fenced, but not the margin. So, presumably, that’s if a drain or a stream at certain times of the year flows beyond its normal route, then that will be included in the stock exclusion aspect that’s included in this bill this afternoon.

We know that about 96 percent of the farms in New Zealand have already fenced to exclude livestock. That’s about here—in Wellington—to Chicago, and back again. So we need to acknowledge the good work that our farmers have done, and now we have a further debate on stock exclusion because the Government, in another policy change, came out with a discussion document and said they wanted a 5-metre setback. Now, that is pruned back to 3 metres, but I’m heartened to hear from the Minister, who was in front of the Environment Committee earlier today, that those existing permanent fences won’t need to be removed and set back to that distance.

The other one is Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 519, which was dropped on the Table this afternoon, and I would have liked this SOP and the other SOP 517 to have come to the select committee, but, unfortunately, it didn’t. It does two things, this SOP in my hand. It’s about freshwater farm plans. It’s reasonably new. We’ve had discussions in this Parliament about farm plans, and farmers are aware that they are going to need to do more in this aspect. But my challenge back to the Minister and the Government is that what farmers don’t want to see is more duplication and bureaucracy, because there are a lot of farm plans already in existence, with regional councils, Fonterra, and Beef and Lamb working on their ones. In effect, you have OVERSEER, your fertiliser plan—so there are a huge amount of plans that are already in existence, and I’m concerned that this freshwater farm plan is going to be another one on top of the others that are living documents right now. So that needs to be well-thought-through on how, practically, that is going to be implemented.

The other aspect of this SOP is, basically, a requirement for fertiliser companies to report annually how much fertiliser they’re selling. This is code for—and I hope I’m wrong—potentially, a fertiliser tax in the future. We know when we look back, there was the capital gains tax that was raging, there was a water tax and a nitrogen tax, and the Government backed away from those. So I’m just wondering whether this is a sneaky opportunity for—

💬 Hon Damien O’Connor: You put GST up.

And Damien O’Connor has woken up. He can answer the question: is this a sneaky opportunity that your Government wishes to bring in a nitrogen fertiliser tax? He’s nodding, so I think it’s right. So he can go and campaign on the West Coast that he wants to bring in a nitrogen fertiliser tax for all those dairy farmers on the West Coast, because he’s nodded in agreement that that’s what this SOP is all about, which is so disappointing to hear.

But, in summary, we don’t support this bill because we don’t think that it actually does the things that are really going to stimulate growth and jobs in the New Zealand economy. We’re worried about the cost. We’re worried about the bureaucracy.

We do, however, support the other bill, which is a fast-track one on the back of COVID-19. That’s going to streamline some important projects to do with getting development in our economy going on the back of COVID-19. That has a sunset clause of two years, so we think there’s an opportunity for more projects to be included in that one, but we’ll have another point in time where we can discuss that further in this House. But we don’t support the bill that we are debating this afternoon.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise to make a contribution on behalf of New Zealand First in support of the Resource Management Amendment Bill. I want to compliment the Hon David Parker for good work done. There have been some quite extensive consultations. I know he and the Hon Shane Jones worked very closely together. I have to also compliment the Environment Committee for its work and for the level of consultation that was conducted throughout New Zealand. I know that Minister Parker fronted many meetings around, and I know from my own visits, along with Mark Patterson, down to the South Island, talking to farmers and hearing their concerns, that initially the bill had people very worried. Being a rural lad myself and someone who’s been heavily involved in governance boards of farms, farming enterprises, for quite some time, I am very aware, and New Zealand First is very aware, of the concerns that were aired by the farming community, particularly around compliance, particularly around costs and what would be expected of them and the extra work involved in all of that.

I guess what stands out for me in listening to the contributions in both what I thought was a very constructive committee stage this afternoon and the speeches thus far in the third reading, what stands out very clearly is that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is broken. I think that’s the one point that everybody in the House agrees on, whether it’s the Hon Eugenie Sage saying that the RMA has failed the environment or whether it’s been the Hon Nathan Guy himself saying that the RMA is costly, complex, difficult to administer, and has failed consistently, pointing out that in the 30-odd years—and I think two National Party speakers have pointed out; the speech notes must have been handed around by their research unit—that it’s been in force for 30 years and it’s had 19 amendments, and still members of the previous Government are standing up in Opposition, after having made major changes to it themselves in their time in Government, and saying that it’s broken, which leads me to one simple question: why are they really voting against this amendment? Why?

The only arguments I’ve heard have been that it’s because it’s tinkering, so that suggests that—and then I’ve heard criticisms: they’re saying it doesn’t do enough, it doesn’t go far enough, it should’ve been done earlier, we should get on and do the one job we have to do, and that is a major overhaul of the entire 800-page document which is the Act, but we shouldn’t do this. It’s sort of like the old comment that we used to hear in the army a lot, you know, when soldiers are told to hurry up and wait.

Tim van de Molen: That’s right.

I’m hearing from National today—gidday, Tim—that we should hurry up and wait. “Hurry up and change and reform the RMA, but don’t do it now. Hurry up and get the Judge Randerson report here, but don’t make any changes now.” Well, if we are to address the problems that both sides of the House have acknowledged here this afternoon, then starting now to fix what we now can do is a sensible option.

I want to acknowledge the fact that the Government has made changes in terms of the fencing off of rivers and streams. Having been involved in doing quite a bit of that in my time involved in farming enterprises and seeing the cost of it, it is also good to see that the Government is now meeting those costs. That’s going to be a huge advantage and a huge incentiviser to farmers.

I want to acknowledge, also, all of the farmers who participate in the Ballance environmental farmer of the year awards that we see regionally—I attend wherever I can in the Wairarapa—and acknowledge the huge steps that modern farmers have taken to enhance and protect the environment, the way in which they have, you know, off their own bat, fenced off vast parts of their property, taken them out of production, either to, one, protect the rivers, protect the waterways, or, two, to assist with regeneration, to prevent erosion. They’ve borne those costs themselves, and they’ve been justly recognised by the Ballance farm awards for a number of years, and I just want to compliment those people for doing that. We’ve got some astonishing farmers in the Wairarapa, and they need to be recognised as opposed to—as some people would do—being continually beat up on.

I also want to acknowledge the comments that were made, just let it be known, that very mindful—and endorse the comments made by some of the Opposition members in reminding New Zealand that it’s not just about the farmers. If we’re talking fresh water, if we’re talking about waterways, if we’re talking about making it possible for people to go and swim safely in rivers and streams and estuaries, then as someone who’s been a mayor and been in local government, let me assure the House: I’ve seen some godawful streams and rivers in metropolitan New Zealand, and it doesn’t take a lot when you’re visiting cities to pull your phone out and take a few photos to prove that fact. This has got to be a national effort. If we are to tidy up our water, to improve the quality of our rivers, of our streams, and of our estuaries, then it’s a national effort on everybody’s part.

I’m hopeful that on the back of COVID, we are a more united nation, that we now understand the value of our farming community, our resilience as a nation, and our ability to withstand things that hit us out of the blue, such as a pandemic. Actually, a lot of that resilience comes from the rural community, from the farming community, and it’s what gives us the ability to keep our head above water, survive, and get up and rebuild ourselves and go forward. We need to be mindful of that as a Government when we are passing any sort of legislation.

I look forward to the passing of the next tranche of legislation which will accelerate, and I look forward to seeing Judge Randerson’s reports come through so that we might—and I live in hope that we might, remembering the conversations that have taken place over the last few hours, recognising the significance and the importance to the economy and to the wellbeing of the environment and our people, find space in here for some cross-party collaboration to truly take on board the report from Judge Randerson—I haven’t seen it, but I’m hopeful—take on board recommendations, work together collectively and collaboratively.

This is not going to be a one-term thing. These reforms are going to take place over two electoral cycles—let’s be clear about that—that’s 2020 and 2023. That’s plenty of time for us as a Parliament to recognise that, actually, if we’re to put something in place, if we’re to recognise that the RMA is dysfunctional, recognise the need that in the long-term we have to fix this, recognise that whatever fixes we make have to genuinely be to the advantage of the country as a whole and have to be sustainable, we might just—we might just—with a new age of MPs coming into this House, find a way of doing this together, find a way of doing this collaboratively. If we don’t, if we continue to play political ping-pong on this issue, we’re going to not really get ahead, and we will do our country, we will do the businesses, and we’ll do the farming communities, we’ll do the communities that support the farmers, places like Carterton—my town’s a service town—a grave disservice. We’ll be back in the House here in the Chamber again, lamenting lost opportunity and giving speeches saying the RMA’s broken, it’s failed the environment, and it needs to be fixed. The difference is we’ll be saying that in 2024, won’t we? I think it’s time, actually, in the interests of our mokopuna yet to come and the environment that we’re all striving to protect, to find a way to work collectively, collaboratively, together.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, that was amusing, because we had the ability to do all this in the last Parliament, in fact, but who was it that didn’t vote with the National Government of the time to make those changes—to live in hope, as that member the Hon Ron Mark points out? We’ve had opportunities, but they decided to play politics. They were the ones who decided to vote against our very good amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA) at the time. So it’s very rich for that member to stand up today and say, “Oh, I live in hope that one day we can all work in a cross-party manner, and rah-rah-rah.” Absolute rubbish.

This bill sums up the Labour—the whole of the Government, actually—term so far: big promises, big talk, big slogans, but absolutely no delivery. It’s almost like they sat down and went, “Well, gosh, isn’t it terrible that we only built 395 out of the 10,000 houses we promised with KiwiBuild? Now we’re going to make sure that no one else can build a house either. We’re going to make these incremental changes to the RMA to undo the changes that National put in place, to make it more difficult to build houses, to make it more costly and more timely.”

It’s very interesting: I found that the Minister for the Environment, at committee stage, when I put to him—I said, “Well, why is it that you are undoing those very good changes that we made in the last Parliament, to make it more difficult and more costly to build houses?” He said, “Oh, well, it’s very important that we put these appeal rights back in, because it’s important that we get back to a base where people get to have their say.”, and he waffled on and on about getting back to a base where it’s important that people have to have their say. At the same time—at the very same time—he’s putting two bills forward, the Urban Development Bill and the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill, where he gets to completely circumvent the RMA. So, on the one hand, he’s saying it’s absolutely fine and we don’t want appeal rights because that just clogs up the system and he’s acknowledging that we don’t want appeal rights in those cases and under that legislation, but, on the other hand, when everyone else wants to subdivide their property or build a house, well, that’s not OK. It’s very, very confusing, and this whole bill—and I mentioned it in my second reading speech—is a confusing mess.

We’ve all acknowledged—we’ve all said many times—that the RMA has become cumbersome. It’s become huge and difficult to navigate. This will be the 19th amendment. It’s unwieldly. There’s certainly no good development that comes out of it and no good environmental effects. Actually, the only people that make any money out of this are the legal consultants. They’ve done very well. So when the Government announced that they were going to undertake a programme of RMA reform—like they always do with their big announcements—we were quite excited about this, because, as we all know, across the House everyone’s in agreement that something has to be done. But what we ended up with was an expert panel led by Tony Randerson to come up with a report that’s going to give us an idea of what the RMA could look like—wholesale changes that will actually make a difference—which is not in itself a bad thing, but, as per usual, the report is late. Potentially—well, hopefully—it’s out before the election. We don’t know. But they’ve spent the first three years, like they do with everything, kicking the can down the road. All that we have is this bill, which is a very small tinkering-around-the-edges bill, which, for the most part, just undoes good changes that the National Party did in the last Parliament to make it easier to subdivide, to have less appeals, and a few other bits and pieces that made developing more easy and cost-effective to undertake.

So you would think that they would have at least waited just until the draft report was out to see whether or not Tony Randerson agreed that these changes were good changes, because we don’t know. The Minister made the point, in the chair, that it’s going to take many, many years to put in place the Randerson report changes, but at least he would have had an idea, reading a draft report, whether or not the changes that he’s making today were in line with what Tony Randerson wanted. But no; instead, he’s pushing forward with this bill, which we all know is going to make it much more difficult for people to build houses.

One of the main changes that we made at the last Parliament that’s being undone in this bill is the rules around subdivision. So the rules were changed by National to increase the levels of subdivision so that we’d have a greater housing supply to streamline the process. We made it so that subdivisions could happen unless they were specifically restricted by a district plan, and so, therefore, you would get more subdivision.

Why is this significant? Well, it’s significant because KiwiBuild was such a massive fail. The Government can’t build houses. We know that the way that houses get built in this country is by the private sector. I think Nicola Willis, in her second reading speech, pointed out that there were 37,000 consents granted each year. So it’s quite clear that the private sector build houses. We need to make it easier for them to do so. I think I remember Nicola Willis saying, in that same speech, that, in fact, yes, there are some very big projects that provide lots of homes, but, actually, the incremental effect of lots of people subdividing adds to our housing stock. Here we are reversing the changes that National made at the last Parliament, to make it more difficult. Not only are we doing that presumptive right to subdivide, but we’re actually also now changing the change that we made, which was not allowing appeal rights to the Environment Court. So those are being put back. If you’re sitting there now thinking “Maybe I might subdivide.”, you’re going to think twice, because the uncertainty and the cost and the time, really, means that it is potentially not worthwhile. As I mentioned before, those incremental subdivisions are, really, what creates housing in this country, and here we are undoing it.

So all we’re doing, again, is more delays, more cost, and more time. If that’s not enough to stymy development and increase cost, the bill also reintroduces financial contributions. We were talking about this just a moment ago in the committee of the whole House stage. In 2017, the then National Government streamlined it so that your local council and the RMA both couldn’t ask for a development contribution—it was only the local council. We streamlined that to give more certainty and lower the costs for developers. But here we are putting that back in. So double hit, double whammy—so if you’re a developer you’re up for, potentially, two development contributions. I mentioned—I think we all mentioned—that this is just petty politicking changes that actually get in the way of good development, housing supply, certainty, and reducing the cost of building.

I mentioned earlier about the other two bills that are currently before this Parliament, and that is the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill and the Urban Development Bill. What those two bills, basically, do is set aside the RMA. You can circumvent the RMA to get things under way. So there is an understanding by this Government that the RMA doesn’t work—that if you want to get good developments under way, you need a fast-track consenting process and you need to be able to circumvent the RMA. They understand that and they know that. But, at the very same time, we’re passing a bill to make it more difficult, more costly, and more timely. It is such a massively confused approach, and I think the Minister—and I said in a number of speeches—needs to say to this House why the different approaches. He needs to come down to the House and explain to us why it is that for his own projects, he gets to circumvent the RMA but, when Mr and Mrs Smith want to subdivide their property and build another house, it’s going to be much, much more difficult, more costly, and a far more uncertain process.

The points that I’ve made are, firstly, that we’ve got the Randerson report that is due out very soon that we really should have waited for before making any changes. It’s just completely weird that we would be here making these little changes that could be in direct contravention to what Tony Randerson says in his report, which is due out very, very soon. It’s just a petty undoing of the very, very good changes that we made. It goes against the Urban Development Bill and the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill, which acknowledges that the RMA is a hindrance to good development.

The last thing I’ll say is that in a post-COVID world, where we want to create jobs and get construction moving and get more houses built, this is a bill that is going to only get in the way of good, cheap, affordable housing, and more of it, which this country so desperately needs. For that reason, I am not supporting this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Just a brief contribution, firstly, to touch on the points that Ms Stanford was mentioning. Firstly, I look forward to a thorough, rigorous, and cooperative engagement when the next tranche of resource management reforms come before this House, which they undoubtedly will next term. I think we agree, in principle, that low-cost, high-quality development is good, and I’m very proud of our record of building more houses in this term than that Government did in nine years previously.

But in terms of the other thing that this bill does, I just want to touch on the climate change point, which is a really important one and it’s really heartening because it shows that the select committee listened very carefully to submitters who pointed out the inconsistency of all of the hard work that had been done in climate change with the zero carbon bill and the work being done on emissions trading, and yet the Resource Management Act said it was inappropriate to take climate change issues into account when looking at consenting issues. Now, that just makes no sense, and so it’s really quite heartening to see an alignment of those things, an alignment that’s being carried through with other legislation before the Environment Committee—I must have one of the most hard-working committees in this Parliament, meeting six times this week no less, which I hear is unprecedented.

But I just wanted to say that that zero-carbon approach is one we really need to emphasise and the freshwater planning process is really a kick-start that has been languishing for years—well overdue. I want to absolutely emphasise that this is not about rural/urban and we absolutely acknowledge that some of the dirtiest waterways are in the cities, and the cities will be held to account to exactly the same stringent standards as any other New Zealander. Of course, it’s not going to be a political matter. The setting up of freshwater panels with commissioners makes sure that you’re getting an objective view, setting targets and goals and implementation which are fair and achievable and meet national standards—something that we have been needing for 30 years and which progress has not been made on until now.

I’m really quite proud to have been part of this important piece of legislation. It’s not a massive document. It’s not a sea change for the Resource Management Act, but it did pick some critical areas that needed attention. It’s done it effectively. It just shows what a hard-working Minister David Parker is. The fact is that this is going to be a great contribution to our resource management law. I commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. National opposes this bill, and we oppose it, simply, because we don’t believe that it will deliver on its purpose. Supposedly, the bill is supposed to reduce complexity, it’s supposed to increase certainty, and it’s supposed to improve resource management processes. I could support the bill if I thought that the amendments had any chance of reducing complexity, had any hope of assuring certainty, and had any possibility of improving resource management processes. But I believe the amendments, generally speaking, will make the situation even worse.

The bill amends the Resource Management Act (RMA), of course, but it also largely reverses changes made by the Resource Legislation Amendment Act 2017. The main purpose of that bill was to reduce bureaucracy and red tape that was stifling job growth, that was stalling house building, and that was really making it difficult to have effective environment management—all these things that we should be supporting right now. We don’t want anything to make it more difficult to get a job or harder to get a house. I think everyone agrees that good environmental outcomes—we need more consistency and more responsive planning across the country and better alignment with existing plans and legislation, but this bill won’t do that either.

The Resource Management Act was originally introduced in 1991, which is well over 30 years ago, and it was, at that stage, about 300 pages long; it’s now got to over 800 pages long and it’s been patched and amended so many times that it’s almost impossible to read. It was originally considered cutting edge; now I don’t think it’s fit for purpose. You’ve got to be a highly paid specialist lawyer to even read, let alone interpret, its many myriad of rules and regulations.

Listening to people talking in the House today, I think everyone agrees that the Resource Management Act is now inaccessible and underperforming, making it almost impossible to get the decisions that we need to manage our environment and our economy effectively and well. There’s been demand for change to this legislation for years, but the political realities of MMP have prevented any meaningful reform, and today we’re seeing the same thing happening again. The coalition Government acknowledges that the bill is only an interim measure—another patch-up—and that stage 2 is already on the way, and that’s going to be bigger, brighter, and better. But the Resource Management Act is an essential piece of our legislation, and these patch-ups are an enormous waste of time and resource. National believes that the time has come for a full review and rewrite of the whole Act.

It’s really disappointing that this bill does nothing to address housing affordability; in fact, we believe it actually increases the cost of home building and will make it more difficult. By removing the processes that were designed to speed up the consenting of controlled activities, by removing the prohibition of appeals against building residential housing in a residential-zoned land, and by allowing the duplication of financial contributions, we believe that the subdivision of land and the building of homes is going to be more expensive and slower, and we don’t see any real benefit.

We’re also concerned that there are few ways to monitor the effectiveness of councils. They are monopolies in this space with absolutely no competition. So there’s no drive to ensure timeliness, cost effectiveness, or even customer focus, and that is a recipe for poor performance, and in many cases, both the environment and the economy suffer.

This bill also introduces provisions for the management of fresh water. But, again, we are doubtful about the benefits of these changes. I’m particularly concerned about the loss of the collaborative approach to water management. That approach really catalysed communities to come together, to work together to sort out local water issues, something that is extremely difficult to achieve. It’s been successful in bringing farmers, environmentalists, recreational interests, and iwi together to nut out bespoke water solutions for the best local outcomes for water catchment by catchment, but this bill will remove the process.

Not all councils use the collaborative approach; it was optional in the previous legislation, which begs the question of why you’d get rid of it if it wasn’t working. But those who have, particularly in Canterbury and the Waikato, have seen some real progress in terms of managing water quality and quantity. As an ex - Environment Canterbury councillor myself, I saw the challenges of managing water in an area like Canterbury. The issues are technically and socially challenging and with problems of conflicting interests and the need for capacity to protect environmental values. It was the introduction of the collaborative approach that got people around the table and allowed them to make the compromises that were required to make progress, and this bill will remove this opportunity. I agree with the Hon Ron Mark and his comments about collaboration, but it seems that it’s, obviously, easier to talk about these things rather than do them.

I also note the irony of this Government appointing a Chief Freshwater Commissioner and water commissioners across the country. These water commissioners will be appointed by central government, not regional Government—not locally. That’s a significant shift from local to central control. I can’t help pointing out that this is being done by the same politicians who howled with indignation when they were in Opposition, and National put in temporary commissioners to run Environment Canterbury. Those commissioners had a very similar mandate: to make progress on water quality and quantity in their region. I’m also pleased to point out that the commissioners did a great job in Canterbury and that water management and the environment in general have greatly benefited from their work. Now, of course, Environment Canterbury is fully elected, although they too will be subjected to a centrally appointed water commissioner.

So, in conclusion, the RMA may certainly need work. It is overly complex, inaccessible and not fit for purpose. Actually, it needs to be totally revised, rethought, and rewritten, and National has committed to do just that. This bill is a mere tweak and I think it’s an unwise one. It won’t reduce complexity, it won’t increase certainty, and it certainly won’t improve resource management processes. National can’t support this bill.

The following call’s a split call. I call Angie Warren-Clark.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Look, I’m really delighted to take a very short call on this bill. What we know from the community is that water is a really important issue, and what we know is that our community wants to be swimming in their rivers, they want to be having healthy waters, and this bill really moves towards that. This bill sets up commissioners which are part of the community, and those commissioners are, in fact, able to look at all the water issues there are. It, essentially, stops the degradation of our waters, and people tell us that this is really important. I think the Minister earlier today spoke in his final speech about the fact that there’s a concern about whether we put our head under water; we shouldn’t be like that in this country. This bill is stage one of two stages, but it is actually going to fix one of the major issues that all of our country is concerned about, and therefore I absolutely commend this bill to the House.

One of the biggest pieces of feedback that I get from property developers, landlords, and businesses in the building and construction industry is: “When will we see meaningful reforms to the Resource Management Act?” I’ve heard today from this House, from the likes of Ron Mark, that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is broken, that it’s dysfunctional, and the question that this House needs to consider is: is this bill that we’re considering today the best way to fix the RMA? What I mean by that is: will it speed up development, will it ensure our environment is preserved, and will it reduce unnecessary bureaucratic processes for those in the sector?

On this side of the House, we’ve answered no to all of those questions. This bill is, essentially, a bill that tinkers with the RMA rather than reducing the fundamental issues with it. It doesn’t address housing affordability. I heard the Minister David Parker, for 10 minutes, talk about the bill and he didn’t reference housing affordability at all. It makes building houses and subdividing more difficult, and it adds unnecessary costs and delays in the process.

Now, under this new bill there are new powers that councils and the Environment Court and boards of inquiry will be able to consider the costs of climate change mitigation. But, in terms of the greenhouse gases in New Zealand and the largest buckets of opportunity for this country, this sector doesn’t really fit the bill. If we look at the largest sectors—whether it is energy, transport, or agriculture—those are the sectors that we should be focused on in order to reduce our carbon footprint in New Zealand. So allowing councils to stop developments and subdivisions on these grounds, we think, is absurd.

What I didn’t hear from the Minister today is how this law speeds up the development of homes. What we also didn’t hear from the Minister is how it reduces complexity and improves the resource management processes, which is the core objective of the Act that we’re discussing here today. What I think we need to do, and what my community in Northcote has always urged in this instance, is a bipartisan approach to have meaningful reform to the Resource Management Act. That means making it easier to build—whether it is small DIY projects in your home—but also making sure that we’re looking after our environment as well.

The second area is in relation to speeding up the resource consent process. I’m absolutely in agreement with my colleague Nicola Willis, who said that the processes councils have for resource consents is, essentially, a monopoly, and yet we have heard nothing from the Minister and nothing in this bill that addresses the complexities of getting a resource consent and, in fact, how we can speed that up.

So I support the other bill that we’re discussing in the House today, which is around the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill, but that, in essence—

💬 Hon Chris Hipkins: That’s not this bill.

—that is not this bill, as Minister Hipkins referred to, absolutely—calls out the workarounds that were already in place and are going to be in place in this Government. We have such a poor Resource Management Act that we’re now going to vote separately to this on a bill that, essentially, provides a workaround.

So let me ask a question to this House today: are we committed to substantial reform of the Resource Management Act? If so, then let’s come together in a bipartisan fashion. We on this side of the House stand ready to make substantial reforms to the RMA that do improve housing affordability and the construction costs for everybody so that we can make housing more affordable. That’s what we want in this country: housing affordability to be addressed. So I oppose this bill and National does not commend this bill to the House.

Every MP in this House would love $100 for every constituent who has complained about the Resource Management Act (RMA); most of us wouldn’t have to sell another raffle ticket in our life. However, we also hear from those same people who then, as soon as they want to stop something happening in their neighbourhood, the RMA becomes their best friend and they start waving it around like certain politicians do with a Bible.

So when I look at this bill, this is about getting started. You wait nine years, complain, do nothing, and then when this party, this side of the House, actually gets started on doing something about the Act, something about getting this country moving, then we hear nothing but complaints from the other side. This is a very good piece of legislation that will ensure that those who so often dominate the discussion will actually now hopefully be silent, and we’ll have a common-sense approach to getting things done in this country. I commend this, Madam Speaker.

I enjoyed the previous member Greg O’Connor’s contribution, and this side of the House, we thought it was a comedy fest. Often, if you’re watching out there in voter land in New Zealand, it can appear to be a bit of a comedy fest, because if you look at the guts of this bill, it does absolutely nothing to reduce complexity. It increases the cost of housing. It adds a whole heap of red tape. It increases the time to get resource consents processed.

But, in terms of affordability, what happened to the previous SHAs—special housing accords? What happened to them? You go to any mayor across New Zealand and they will chew your ear off for literally half an hour, telling you how great the previous National Government’s SHAs were. Go to any mayors around New Zealand and they will tell you it reduced time for resource consents. Not only making them quicker, it meant reduced time—[Interruption]

And listening to the members of the Government—they’re coming up. They know. We’ve hit a sour point. We have hit a sour point, because they know this bill does absolutely nothing to reduce time, cost, and complexity. There’s absolutely nothing in here, and I encourage the members across the aisle to get up and take a call and name one thing, just one thing, in this bill that reduces cost to the average Kiwi.

This bill does absolutely nothing to make it cheaper or easier to build a house. I’ve had a bit of fun: I’ve had a look at this bill, and within this bill—I spent time trying to figure out what’s the point of it. But within the bill, if you look at a couple of parts, the first part, Part 9A, “Freshwater farm plans”, well, if you go and talk to any farmer across New Zealand, they have these things called environmental farm plans, which most dairy farms have now. In the environmental farm plans, it covers, basically, anything across the farm. And section 217A, “Purpose”, all this does is add another complex process to what farmers already do. So now we’re asking farmers to do more red tape, more regulation, which is already happening.

Then, if you go for a bit of a deeper dive, if you go to Part 9B, what 9B is, basically, saying is the Minister of primary industries wants to introduce a fertiliser tax. That’s what Part 9B covers. So, under cover, you think this bill was supposed to reduce costs, but if you’re a farmer, this means there is another target on your back from this Government. A fertiliser tax—a fertiliser tax—is hidden in this bill. [Interruption] What’s that?

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Have a look at the quantities of nitrogen.

Exactly. The Government member’s just admitted there will be a fertiliser tax in this bill, so post-election there will be a fertiliser tax. I acknowledge the member for announcing that.

Now, if we dig a bit deeper inside this bill, which absolutely does nothing to reduce cocks—costs, time, and complexity—

💬 Andrew Bayly: What was that?

—if you look at National’s—sorry, Andrew Bayly, I was looking at you for too long there.

If you look at what National did in the previous Government, the RLAA—National’s Resource Legislation Amendment Act—this was passed in 2017, which, basically, reversed subdivision presumption, saying unless specifically restricted by a district plan, you can subdivide. For anyone out there watching Parliament TV tonight—I’m sure you’re enjoying it—if you’ve gone to build a house, at the moment, it’s a complete nightmare. Often, to get through resource consent, it not only takes months but it takes years, and the cost involved is absolutely horrific. If you look at this bill, it only makes it harder and slower for people to subdivide to build homes. The repeal of the fast-track provision will only slow down resource consent.

I urge any Government Minister or MP to get up and tell this House one aspect, just one aspect, of this bill that will make it easier. [Interruption] Angie Warren-Clark, what’s one thing? Name one thing—one thing. Deborah Russell—one thing. Greg O’Connor, you’re a smart man—one thing. See, none of them can name one thing across the House to make it easier. Chlöe Swarbrick, the Hon James Shaw—one thing.

💬 Hon James Shaw: Protects the environment.

Chlöe Swarbrick: Protects the environment.

Protects the environment. At least the Greens members can answer—at least the Green members can answer. But what’s concerning is in here, Part 9B, fertiliser tax. So the Green members said it protects the environment, aka, “Farmers, we’re coming after you”. If you look at the good work that farmers have already done, you only need to look at the 29 water catchment groups across Clutha-Southland—they’re voluntary. Farmers give up their own time to improve the waterway, and if you look at the quality of water in Southland, yep, it did degrade from 2001 to 2012, but it’s improved quite a bit from 2012. That’s because farmers work together.

This is an example of the difference between the Labour Party and the National Party. The Labour Party prefer to work at farmers, have targets on farmers’ backs, as opposed to the National Party; we like to work with farmers. So farmers out there, Part 9B, the fertiliser tax, is very, very concerning. [Interruption] The Labour Party members, all of them there yelling out are city dwellers—they’re all from city. What about the most polluted water in New Zealand? That’s in the Auckland CBD. They’re yelling at me over there, and they know that the most polluted water in New Zealand is in the Auckland CBD. What about your fellow city dwellers dumping rubbish, which is more often deliberate than the case of, say, cattle breaking through a fence? But we know this Government has farmers in their eyesight, and that’s why Part 9B, the fertiliser tax, is another example of the Government coming after farmers.

This bill is a dog with fleas, and it needs to be put down. It needs to be put down as opposed to debating it in here tonight. We are wasting the House’s time with this bill. This bill adds cost, time, and complexity; it does simply nothing to improve the process to make it more affordable for housing.

Chlöe Swarbrick: I’ll tell you what’s delaying this process is this speech.

I encourage any Government member to take a call. [Interruption] You going to take one?

💬 Kiritapu Allan: I could, just to respond to this—it’s wonderful.

I’ll sit down if you take one.

💬 Kiritapu Allan: I almost feel like it.

Are you going to take one? They’re tempted. They were thinking about it. They’re over there looking through the notes. They’re looking for one thing that’s going to help the punter out there. They’re looking through their notes and they can’t find one thing that reduces the cost of housing. For those reasons, we don’t support this bill. Thank you.

This is an excellent bill, and I commend it to the House.