COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill

I move, That the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill be now read a second time.

Firstly, I want to thank the Environment Committee for its consideration of the 946 submissions made on the bill, and for their cooperation with the request of this House to do this through a truncated period. I’m aware that they worked very long hours, including over the weekend, and I thank them for reporting an improved bill back to the House—or an altered bill back to the House.

The COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill is a direct response to the effects of COVID-19 on the economy and employment in New Zealand. The bill seeks to establish a new fast-track resource consenting and designation process for infrastructure and development projects that can employ people. The bill speeds up processes while retaining environmental protections and respecting Treaty interests, including Treaty settlements. Accelerating projects nationwide will help restore economic growth and provide job opportunities for people who have lost their work. It would also help address New Zealand’s infrastructure deficit, thereby improving long-term productivity.

The projects chosen will, overall, support the transition to a low-emissions economy and improve resilience to climate change. The bill lists 12 named projects that will progress first and have a high certainty of being approved. These include water storage, housing, cycleway, rail upgrade, and roading projects. These are located across the country, from Kaikohe to Queenstown. Projects listed specifically in the legislation will be referred directly by Parliament to the expert consenting panel for decisions and to set any conditions.

The committee has added another project to the list: the Queenstown arterials project. I welcome this addition as it will provide crucial jobs in a region hard hit by the economic effects of COVID-19, and indeed it’s a project that’s best carried out when Queenstown is not as busy as it normally is. The project involves upgrading Queenstown’s transport network to improve roads, cycleways, and walkways, and help ease traffic gridlock. The Queenstown Lakes District Council note the project is expected to directly create up to 450 jobs over the two-year construction period, with up to 650 other jobs being created in support of the project indirectly through local economy services which will be supported by the project.

With the addition of the Queenstown project, there are now 12 substantive projects listed in the bill, and these will create an estimated 1,700 jobs. And this is just a start, because, in addition to the projects listed in the bill, additional projects are added through a second pathway, which allows many other projects, both public and private, to be submitted to the Minister for the Environment to enter the fast-track process. If the Minister agrees that a project should proceed to a panel, then by Order in Council the project is referred to an expert panel. That panel will consider consents and designations for projects, taking into account similar matters as would be considered under the Resource Management Act (RMA).

Expert consenting panels will be appointed by a sitting or retired Environment Court judge appointed as the panel convenor. That’s likely to be Laurie Newhook, soon to retire from his role as principal Environment Court judge. Panels will have the expertise to enable the panel to consider the projects referred to them and to determine resource consents as well as designations. These panels of three to four people will be led by an Environment Court judge or similarly qualified person, and will include members nominated by the relevant local authorities and iwi authorities. The committee has made a useful clarification that if no nominations are received, the panel convenor must appoint a person with the appropriate skills and experience to be a member of the panel.

Despite the need to fast track projects to support economic recovery, it’s essential to ensure environmental outcomes will not be sacrificed at the expense of speed. So Part 2 of the RMA still applies to these projects, including to its central purpose to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. In response to submissions, the committee has also strengthened the role of Part 2 of the RMA during a panel’s consideration of projects. Treaty of Waitangi principles continue to apply, and the effect of Treaty settlements are also protected. I’ll detail those protections in more detail in my third reading speech.

Besides the fast-track consenting processes for listed and referred projects, the bill also enables some smaller-scale work on infrastructure to be carried out as permitted activities without the need for a resource consent. To begin with, these will be works on their existing infrastructure by KiwiRail and the New Zealand Transport Agency. Kāinga Ora, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, or any local authority may also access these provisions if conferred through an Order in Council. The committee has made a number of changes to improve the workability of this part of the bill and to uphold environmental protections, including ensuring that an activity is not permitted if it would be contrary to a water conservation order.

The bill will self-repeal in two years, by which time the Government will be implementing its more comprehensive reform of the RMA, drawing on a report which is expected to be released soon.

As stated earlier, extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. This is a bill of that vein. It’s a direct response to help restore the economy and help create jobs sooner, which I think everyone in this House agrees with. In summary, this bill seeks to make processes faster but not to change in any substantial way either the environmental test or relevant Treaty provisions under the RMA or Treaty settlements. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to take a call on the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill. I’m going to say from the outset that National supports this bill. We supported it at first reading and we support it again today.

I want to just start by thanking officials. I need to do this because they worked at breakneck speed over a very short period of time and they did an exceptional job. They did this on the back of another bill that we had, the log traders and forestry advisers bill, which we also did at breakneck speed over the course of a week. So they absolutely need to be acknowledged because they did a fantastic job. I think we met seven out of eight days on this bill—so that just goes to show you how much hard work went into this bill—including at 8 a.m. on a Saturday. So I do absolutely need to acknowledge them.

I just want to start by saying we understand this bill is under urgency, and that’s understandable. It’s a little bit curious, though—I just want to point out that it wasn’t introduced under Budget urgency. Instead, under Budget urgency we got the log traders and forestry advisers bill. But here is a bill which actually, in its title and in its purpose, goes to the very heart of the problem that we’re dealing with, that the Budget spent billions and billions of dollars on helping to improve our economy as we recover from COVID, yet it wasn’t introduced under Budget urgency; we get it under normal urgency. It’s just a strange anomaly that I wanted to point out because it is very confusing to us why this wasn’t introduced under Budget urgency. This bill has the aim of supporting employment and boosting local economies by the acceleration of nationwide projects and activities, and what better bill to have introduced under Budget urgency?

This bill is an acknowledgement that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is broken. The consent process is long, it’s expensive, and it’s open to appeal, which can see projects delayed, made far more costly, dragged out, and often not got off the ground at all. And in times of crisis like the Christchurch earthquake, like the Kaikōura earthquake, and again, at the moment, this bill and what we’re putting in place will very much help our economy get back on track. Fast-track consenting is required for job growth. It is required to create legacy projects that have ongoing economic benefit. Like I say, we’ve used similar legislation in the past and we support legislation today to assist our economy to recover from COVID-19.

The bill achieves its purpose, as we heard from the Minister for the Environment, in three ways: by listing projects, 11 projects, under Schedule 2 of the bill; by having projects referred by the Minister to a panel; and allowing agencies like the New Zealand Transport Agency and KiwiRail to carry out specific work on existing infrastructure without the need for a resource consent. So works would then be limited to operation of, maintenance of, replacement of, and minor upgrades to existing infrastructure located in rail and road corridors.

At the first reading, I made the point that while we support the bill, and its intentions are worthy, this bill lacks vision. In fact, we said in our minority view after the select committee process that it is a wasted opportunity. The fact that there are only 11 projects listed in Schedule 2 means that there was an opportunity here to create some legacy projects that would have ongoing economic benefit for New Zealand that had great vision, and instead we got 11 projects of, for the most part, relatively small scale. While in themselves not bad projects and we agree with them, where was the vision from this Government to create long-lasting projects with ongoing economic value that we can look back on and say that out of the ashes of COVID-19 this is what we were left with: some fantastic legacy projects.

We had the opportunity, for example, to fast track the Katikati bypass, the Waikato Expressway extension, the Dunedin Hospital redevelopment, and many, many more projects. And we will take the opportunity today to put forward amendments by way of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) to inject some vision into this bill. We’ve got a number of them on the table. We will speak to them later. But it will be up to the National Party today to inject that vision and the real economic growth that will come from this bill by way of our amendments.

This bill exemplifies—I would say it’s one of those bills that exemplify the very uncomfortable relationship between New Zealand First and the Greens. This was made very clear at the select committee process. There is a project that was listed in Schedule 2, a very good project. It was called the Kopenui Water Storage Reservoir at Kaikohe. We all know it as the Ngāwhā dam project. In fact, the Minister in his speech talked about water storage projects being listed in Schedule 2. But, to be fair, when this bill came to us in the Environment Committee, there wasn’t a water storage project. It was a hole in the ground. The reason that it wasn’t a water storage project was because the Ngāwhā dam, in fact, was only for the construction of the dam—just a hole in the ground. It specifically said that it was not for water-related consents. So you could dig a hole in the ground, but you couldn’t fill it full of water and you couldn’t take the water out of it, so it wasn’t a water storage project at all. It was a big, expensive hole in the ground.

Now, New Zealand First were very aggrieved by this because there was a fair amount, I suspect, of Provincial Growth Fund funding that went into these projects. And here we have a project in Schedule 2 that was just for a hole in the ground. Now, we know very well—we can suspect where this came from and we could only imagine that it came by way of the Greens not wanting water storage projects.

Now, let me remind the House of the importance of this project. Not only is it for horticultural developments in the area and for iwi projects, it’s also for potable water for Kaikohe. In the midst of a drought the likes of which they have not seen before they need drinking-water. And this was an extremely important project that the Greens clearly have got their little fingers all over by not allowing them to fill it full of water—

💬 Hon Jacqui Dean: Shame.

—or take water, which, as Jacqui Dean is saying, is absolutely shameful.

Now, I’d just like to point out that the National Party came to the rescue at select committee because this would not have been changed in select committee to allow for the filling of the dam and the water takes out of the dam if it wasn’t for the National Party, because when the amendments were put by Jenny Marcroft from the New Zealand First Party, the Greens abstained. They knew that they didn’t have the numbers on that side to get this through and it was the National Party that came to the rescue for Kaikohe and for the people of Northland.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: It was actually Matt King.

It was. In fact, I do have to acknowledge Matt King, because the hard work on this was done by him in his electorate and fed down to us, and we came to the rescue. Matt King came to the rescue for the people of Kaikohe when it comes to this amendment. We made these changes so this consent will now go to the expert panel.

The other thing that the National Party wanted to put through, because we heard from Mayor Goff in select committee and he made the very good submission that Auckland was in the midst of a drought like we have never seen before and there would be water restrictions for many, many months, perhaps years, to come—he talked about the number of jobs that would be lost in Auckland because of this—was an amendment to the select committee; we put it forward twice, actually. It was one that Nikki Kaye drafted. She’d done a lot of work in this area. We put it to select committee to add the Auckland water take from the Waikato River to Schedule 2. It was voted down by all members of the Government: the Labour Party, the Greens, and New Zealand First all voted it down.

That was on a Friday. Over the weekend, there were many reports in the media from Shane Jones backing this project, saying that he wanted to see it in Schedule 2, in fact. We thought, “Well, this is great. We’ve going to have the numbers in select committee to then add this very important project for Auckland to Schedule 2.” So we on Monday, after the weekend and after the media, tried to put it forward again. I asked for leave and the chair of the committee did not grant it so we weren’t able to vote on that. We do understand now that Minister Parker has called the project in under a different mechanism under the RMA. So he has very much bowed to the pressure of Nikki Kaye and Mayor Goff—the very good work that Nikki Kaye’s done on this. He’s bowed to that pressure. He knows it’s important thanks to the work of the National Party, again. We hope that the process that he’s putting this through will work. If it doesn’t, when we are next in Government after September, we will ensure that Auckland gets the water that it so desperately needs if that process doesn’t work.

I’ll just finish by saying that I have a very good SOP also to push this out from two to five years, and I look forward to speaking to that at committee stage.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker; thank you very much. Look, I enjoyed that little flight of fancy of Erica Stanford, but also thanks very much for her hard work on the committee and for getting out of bed on a Saturday morning with the rest of us! Thank you very much! I do absolutely want to endorse her remarks in respect of the officials, though, who worked incredibly hard. I know the committee worked hard, but they worked much harder than we did, giving up their time with family and things over the weekends, and so on. I do really want to recognise that they went above and beyond to address the issues that were raised at select committee in this urgent piece of legislation.

I wanted to just recognise that there are three kinds of projects in this bill: listed projects, referred projects, and, kind of, work on infrastructure, which is maintenance and replacement. And the listed projects are the ones in the schedule and get all the kind of headlines, but the other projects are equally as important. Whilst there was a lot of attention around those listed projects, the Kopenui Dam is the obvious one but also the addition of the Queenstown project—which, although a roading project, is actually about freeing up the inner city to make it much more livable, much more rideable, much more walkable; another good project.

Also, I do just want to mention Auckland water briefly. Now, that has been referred to an expert panel, called in by the Minister and referred to an expert panel, a much better process because these listed projects essentially are consented by statute, and in respect of the proposal to take water from the Waikato River, that requires much more consultation before the consent is given. It’s about whether, not how. But that can now be done and a long-term solution to that problem can be addressed. The other matter I’ll touch on briefly in respect of the listed projects is the fact that Transpower came along and noted that they really needed some powers in there because some of their assets are going to be affected.

Also I wanted to just touch on the projects which are repair and replacement. That’s actually a large amount of work. What it does is in respect of KiwiRail and the New Zealand Transport Agency; it enables them to work on their assets without going to get consents for minor works. So rather than having to wait for months and months—there’s things like bridge replacements, retaining walls and culverts, resurfacing—they’ll be able to do work without getting consents.

Now, to all of those people who are emailing me pretty much as we speak—I suspect friends of Eugenie Sage—saying that climate change is not addressed in the bill, in fact, that’s not entirely accurate. There’s two things I’d say about that. First, the purpose of the bill tracks, in some ways, the Resource Management Act, but does talk not only about supporting employment and New Zealand’s economic recovery but also continuing to promote the sustainable management of natural and physical resources. In select committee, we did listen to submitters, and I want to recognise Chlöe Swarbrick, who was very insistent that we listened to everyone who wanted to be heard. So we did, across the course of the week, listen to everyone. And, actually, from those submissions, we made a significant amendment, I think, to clause 19. In particular, when talking about significant adverse environmental effects as a basis for declining a consent, we noted that this will include greenhouse gas emissions; so overtly recognising that at least one consideration—not an exclusive consideration, but a highly relevant consideration—is the carbon impact of any activity. So that’s important as well.

I want to talk a little bit as well about the work with our Treaty partners. I know that not everyone thinks we’ve got it perfectly right, but certainly we worked hard to make sure that all Treaty settlements were absolutely preserved, that partners to Treaty settlements were entitled to be robustly consulted, and that there would be proper consultation with Te Arawhiti in respect of any of these projects that went ahead.

This is a piece of legislation which is being fast tracked, it’s urgent, it has a sunset clause. I’ve heard the Opposition say they want to see that extended from up to five years rather than two. I think we need to be very, very cautious with the kinds of wide-ranging and quite sweeping powers these panels will have. So thank you again to all of the officials. I think the committee’s done a good job here, but I look forward to the rest of the debate in this House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. We find ourselves, yet again, talking about the Resource Management Act (RMA). It appears that in the last few months, we’ve spent a lot of time talking about this Act, and, indeed, in my time in Government, we’ve spent quite a bit of time talking about the RMA as well. I want to acknowledge the good work that Nick Smith and Amy Adams did as Ministers for the Environment when they were in the John Key - led Government.

They made significant changes to the RMA, and the one that is dear to my heart is the allowance for Ministers to call in a project to a board of inquiry, and they have to conclude their findings within nine months, and the reason that that’s dear to my heart is the Kāpiti Expressway. That had been talked about for ever and a day. Steven Joyce, as the transport Minister, came along and said, “We’re going to put four lanes here.” As a result, that project was called in, because of the changes that the National Government made to the RMA, and now thousands of motorists—about 24,000 vehicle movements a day—are enjoying a road that is safe and high in productivity. It’s connected communities, and I was talking to someone just yesterday who reminded me that all of the projects—the roads of national significance—have had no fatalities on them since they were built, and in my patch, unfortunately, lives were lost. So thank you to the National Government for getting on and speeding up the process and allowing the roads of national significance to occur.

What’s happened now? Well, look at my patch, up there in the Horowhenua, the northern end of the lovely Kāpiti coast. The road has been built from Paraparaumu and Raumati up to Peka Peka, we’re just about to drive on the next section from Peka Peka to Ōtaki, and we just need to conclude the next section, but what does the Minister of Transport, Phil Twyford, do? He delays, mucks around, and, unfortunately, never gets on and gets it done.

But infrastructure now is very topical, and that’s what’s covered in this bill. Suddenly, the Government realised that infrastructure needs to occur to ensure that jobs are created through this bill. So that section of the four-lane expressway has stalled and stalled and stalled, and it is now back on the drawing board. There would be an opportunity if the Government had a vision to include projects like this in Schedule 2, but, unfortunately, they haven’t.

Now, I sit on the Environment Committee. We heard from submitters in a very shortened select committee process, but we did get some good submissions in, and we’re interested to see what happens with the retired Court of Appeal judge. In his report through to the Minister, Tony Randerson has done a wide-ranging review of the RMA. That now is sitting on the desk of the Minister for the Environment, the Hon David Parker, and it’s just unfortunate that the Government has been very slow to get on and make changes to the RMA. We made changes in another bill recently, but they were really full of, I guess in my mind, sort of going backwards instead of going forward—they were about repealing a lot of good work that was done by the National Government.

So we find ourselves in a very unusual situation right now. We’ve got COVID-19 upon us and, as a result, Treasury and others are forecasting 140,000 jobs could be lost this year, which is a very significant number. The Government realises they haven’t done the planning and due process to allow projects like the roads of national significance to get on and be built, so in a way they are sort of using COVID to look like they’re being responsive to try and reduce the number of people that are signing up for the dole queue every day at the Ministry of Social Development.

We are supporting this bill because we need to, but in my mind, it lacks ambition. The projects are all about a couple of cycleways and a little bit of housing development. The project that Erica Stanford raised is one that the committee spent quite a bit of time talking about and deliberating on. That’s the one at Kaikohe, or, as we know it, the Ngāwhā water storage project, and I’ve been up there and had a look at it when I was the Minister of Primary Industries. I support it, and it’s great that the Government has finally come around and wants to work with iwi and get on and build a project that is going to sustain water for those in households, those in industry, and those involved directly in the agriculture and horticulture space.

So we support that project, but when we actually started reading this bill—and it’s about 80 pages long, with 264 clauses—we went through it and we suddenly realised that this is about an earthworks consent to build a dam in Kaikohe, the Ngāwhā dam. But hold on, where’s the water? Where are the consents to fill the dam and actually extract for the dam? They’re nowhere to be seen. The reason is that there was a hell of a debate—and my contacts in the Government tell me it was incredibly robust, which means it was quite angry—between the Greens and New Zealand First, so the reason that the water-take consent is not in here is because the coalition Government is starting to fracture and fall apart.

So the select committee—

💬 Hon Eugenie Sage: Oh, nonsense.

Oh, yes it is. Just look at—

💬 Hon Eugenie Sage: Nonsense.

Oh, the Minister of Conservation pipes up. She obviously hasn’t seen what occurred this week with the Newshub investigation looking at cameras on the commercial fleet, and we know what’s gone on there, because, suddenly, Minister Nash was recorded, and that is now all public.

So I think it’s wrong for Minister Sage to say that it’s all happy behind closed doors with the coalition. The reality is that we know that it’s not and that it’s falling apart. Just look at Newshub’s investigation. Under a National Government, those cameras would be in place now. Over a thousand vessels would have them on board, and—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: And they’re not in the bill—they’re not in the bill.

Thank you. The reason I am saying that is because I was the Minister that changed the law.

But coming back to—

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: To the bill.

—the bill now, I want to conclude on a couple of aspects. One is the two-year sunset clause in this bill. It’s going to be repealed within two years, which means it’s going, going, gone in two years. Now, we know that it takes a hell of a lot of time to get infrastructure projects ready to be consented or to be called in, and I have a concern that two years is not going to be long enough.

So we raised that in the select committee. We got pushback on that. It’s included in our minority view. These are big, sizable projects—not all of them in here, because some of them I think are pitiful—but if the National Party is lucky enough to win the election, we would want to ensure that we had decent projects that actually had some asphalt going on the ground to ensure that it connected communities, lifted our productivity, and improved our safety. So this two-year sunset period that’s going to be repealed over that time frame is, I think, short-sighted.

The other project that’s listed in here that I do support is the upgrade of the Wellington Metro Rail Network, but when I delve into the detail, it’s really about freight capacity with KiwRail at places in my electorate like Levin. Now, Levin has got a massive siding of land, and once upon a time, it was really busy and productive, so that land sits there available. KiwiRail want to make that more of a transport logistics hub, and I support that, so I think that is a positive part of this bill.

The only other comment that I’d like to conclude with is to say that this type of legislation has been done before, and it’s been proved to be very satisfactory. That was around the Canterbury earthquakes, and that’s around Kaikōura, where we had the earthquake there.

Also, the one that is quite close to Parliament here is the Arras Tunnel, where, when the National Government was in power, we worked constructively across the Parliament to get that tunnel built. The unfortunate thing is we should have gone further and got the flyover around the Basin Reserve included in that piece of legislation as well, but I’ll leave that debate for another day.

So the National Party supports this bill, with some reservations. We look forward to the committee stage, where we can really get into some of the detail. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise to make a short call in support of this legislation, legislation that’s been worked on between the Hon Shane Jones and the Hon David Parker quite studiously. I want to join the chorus of thanks for the select committee for its diligence in the work and the speed and the pace, the hours that they put in, and for the constructive amendments that have been made with the support of the National members of that committee.

I think I did try to say in my last speech on the Resource Management Act (RMA)—and the Hon Nathan Guy’s quite right: we find ourselves discussing the RMA once again. Of course there’s always going to be the political debate around it, but I think the comments that have been made once again confirm that the RMA has some serious flaws. There have been many attempts to change it, modify it, and improve it. I do remember Denis O’Rourke, who put up numerous Supplementary Order Papers when the National Government made its attempt to better the RMA—all of his Supplementary Order Papers were voted down. I think there were 13 hours of debate in this House. And, you know, when you’re caught in a situation where none of your suggestions, your recommendations, are accepted by the Government of the day, it stands to reason you’re probably going to vote against their legislation at the end of it. That could have been a different outcome; it wasn’t.

I’m hoping that in the future, the type of collaboration that we’ve seen with the select committee process for this piece of legislation will continue, given the importance and significance of the infrastructure problems that we face going forward as a country and the need for us to build resilience into our communications, systems, and structures, and support local government who carry most of the burden. That’s just the sad fact of it.

So I sincerely thank the members of the committee for their work and for the constructive changes that they have supported. It’s already been stated—so I’m not going to rotary hoe this same garden again—that this bill is aimed at the COVID recovery. It’s aimed at trying to get some shovel-ready projects under way. It’s aimed at getting people employed where we’ve got people who are going to be unemployed, and we know the numbers that are coming through, and it’s about fast tracking. I know that a lot of attention has been focused on those specific projects which are covered off in the schedule. I guess, where I’m really hopeful, looking forward, is in the track 2, track 3 space.

When we start talking about culverts and we start talking about bridges, I recall, as the Mayor of Carterton, asking for a review of our asset management programme, and I particularly wanted some attention around culverts and bridges. Now, being a rural council, a district council, it was quite astonishing for me to learn we had over 2,500, and Carterton’s one of the smallest councils—I think third to smallest council in the country. We had 2,500 bridges and culverts. And I know Jacqui Dean who’s been in local government herself is nodding her head there. The cost of replacing or upgrading those by a little council with a very small rating base was astronomical.

What made the challenge even greater and the problem even more concerning was when we looked at the time when these bridges had been built and these roads had been laid down and the culverts installed, and most of them were over 100 years old. Most of them had been done during the Depression. So we were looking at not just failure, not just increased usage, not just increased loadings—and the last Government increased the axle loadings on heavy vehicles; large numbers of logging trucks, large numbers of transporters moving through our area—but we were dealing with the problem of block obsolescence. Because they were all built at the same time, their end of life was going to hit us all at the same time—very much like the problems that the Defence Force faces with old platforms.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Yep—yep.

So this part here, when we get into track 2, we get into track 3, I’m hoping that under the Orders in Council, a lot of these projects will get the opportunity to see the light and to be considered and to be fast tracked. I’d also like to think that under Provincial Growth Fund funding, when we get back here after the election, we’ll be able to continue to fund some of these things as well.

The other point that’s been raised and discussed is the question around the sunset clause, the fact that the bill will self-repeal in two years. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with these changes. If this piece of legislation proves to be effective, if this piece of legislation proves to be something of worth, it’s going to be interesting to see what a future Government who’s come to power at that point in time does with that clause. I’d like to think that the Parliament will keep an open mind. I’d like to think that at that time, a post-implementation review might give the Parliament a steer. I’d like to think that at that time, the changes that we’re making in this legislation might be considered more widely as to whether or not it’s appropriate in a wider review of the Resource Management Act, which is clearly going to happen no matter who is in power at the time.

With that, I’d simply say New Zealand First supports the bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. National does support the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill. We’re now at the second reading, and our most excellent colleague Erica Stanford started out the debate for us in the second reading by thanking very sincerely the officials who had assisted and led the committee—a bit of both, really—through the very truncated consideration of this bill. As Erica Stanford mentioned, the committee met by Zoom every day bar one, which was Sunday, for the last week to get this bill back in reasonable shape, and a lot of credit needs to go to the officials, particularly as they had just immediately come off hard at the heels of the Forests (Regulation of Log Traders and Forestry Advisers) Amendment Bill, which had, more or less, the same process. So our officials are working extraordinarily hard, and bill drafters; can’t forget parliamentary counsel, who also have been working on this bill, and we do thank them, and we can’t thank them enough—I don’t believe we can.

So, yes, we consent to this bill. It is a bill very much in the form of the Christchurch Canterbury earthquakes recovery legislation and the Kaikōura recovery legislation, which allowed physical works to be done. There are a number of features in those suites of legislation which enabled both of those communities—or all of those communities, because there are a number of small communities in Canterbury—to find their feet. It was the physical works—getting those physical infrastructure works going—which not only addressed those infrastructure problems but gave the community heart. I would suggest that we are united in this House and we do support this bill, as I said. We’ve united this country to see that work was being done without the delays which we all are frustrated by under the current provisions of the Resource Management Act (RMA) in terms of consenting, whereby projects can be in the consenting stage for a number of years. In fact, we have a good example right now of Auckland Council being, I think, fifth or sixth in line for their water-take consent from the Waikato Regional Council, and the regional council is saying, “You’re in line, and it’ll be years.” So there’s no argument that the delays in consenting for major projects, the like of which Auckland Council are experiencing—there’s no denying that there is an issue here in New Zealand with the Resource Management Act. It is frustrating.

On this side of the House, in the nine years we were in Government, we brought forward a number of RMA amendment bills to the House to achieve what this bill is also attempting to achieve—which is a timely consideration of consents—but we did not ever get the support of the then Opposition parties in this House, who are now, all of them, sitting on the other side in the Government and who are now, suddenly, so enthusiastic about RMA reform.

So in this bill—this very bill—we have those elements of the RMA which have been demonstrated to work so very well in times of need—earthquakes—and now we have the same situation where we have a country, effectively, brought to its knees by a virus. The question then arises as to Schedule 2 of this bill, which contains the listed projects, and those are the 11 identified projects which are in the bill which will go straight to the RMA consenting panel for consideration for consent. They will have something like up to 20 to 25 days to come back with a decision. They can go back to the project promoters to ask for information. But, essentially, this is a very efficient process, which does provide some protections that sit in the RMA. So this bill fits nicely within the RMA.

But the question has to be asked, and I do hope the Minister, in the committee stage of this bill, will be prepared to answer questions—questions such as: we know that fast tracking projects will be of benefit to infrastructure projects, and we have identified, with the Infrastructure Industry Reference Group, 1,924 submissions for projects. So that’s nearly 2,000 projects that have been identified to the Government. They come with a combined value of $136 billion. So there’s no shortage of projects out there. And there’s more: I have some projects of my own that I would wish to promote through the process of this bill. So there’s no shortage of infrastructure projects to be considered, potentially through the auspices of this Act once it has passed. So the question is: why are there only 11 identified in the bill itself. Those are the listed projects, and, of course, there is a mechanism, but it’s a slightly longer mechanism for other projects to be referred to the consenting panel. So I think it is a question: why only 11?

I think the answer really lies in the dysfunctional nature of this Government, where the coalition members and confidence and supply partners have such very fractious relationships and there is a fair degree of horse trading that has to go on. So we get infrastructure projects which are deemed so necessary to be included in Schedule 2, and yet, when you have a look at them, they are cycle trails. One just has to wonder at the benefit, in terms of the purpose of this bill, in getting infrastructure up and running in New Zealand. But that is a question for the Minister to answer in the next reading of this bill.

The next question I have is: where is the Infrastructure Commission in all of this? It was an issue that was raised in the first reading of this bill, and that is that the Government established the Infrastructure Commission only a few months ago, and yet here we have a whole other legislative process which has the function of identifying and fast tracking essential infrastructure projects with the purpose of building infrastructure and creating jobs. So what, then, for the Infrastructure Commission? Has that been set aside? Do they intend to repeal that? I don’t know the answers to that. But, surely, any decent Government, any decent policy development process, should have cast itself around for what are the options for addressing this problem of COVID-19, and we need to get the country moving and we need to provide jobs, which we agree with. So one of the options surely could have been, and should have been, using the Infrastructure Commission, and possibly that could have been a part of this RMA fast-track consenting bill. I am surprised and a little mystified as to why it isn’t, but, again, that is something that this committee can raise in the committee of the whole House, when Minister Parker is in the chair.

I also note, just casting my mind forward, because it is interesting to do that, that there are a number of tabled amendments to be considered in the committee stage of this bill, and this is the opportunity for the Government to really show its commitment to infrastructure in New Zealand. I expect the Government, I expect Minister Parker and the Government—all the parties in the Government: the Greens, New Zealand First, and Labour—to support each and every one of these infrastructure projects, if they are to be true to the spirit of this legislation. So I’m expecting great success in that regard with these tabled amendments which are now sitting before us on the Table.

I have a number relating to my electorate, and, very quickly, I really very much would like to see the Ōrari bridge double-laning in South Canterbury. That’s a very worthy project. Now, if that could be dealt with in this fast-track consenting process, that would be great news to the locals, as would the Kakanui bridge renewal. So that’s just two projects—that’s two bridge projects. We’ve got infrastructure projects—lots of jobs; good value to the locals. But there’s also safety improvement projects. So I’m going to put these to the Government, and I do hope that they meet with the Government’s agreement.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Pleased to take a call on the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill. Sometimes I think the National Party doesn’t understand MMP. The fact that we’ve got three parties in Government, representing the breadth of views of New Zealanders, of course means that there are discussions and debate about significant legislation such as this bill. That strengthens the process of developing the legislation, because it means that the different perspectives go into drafting the bill and then amending it through the course of the Parliament, so it then ensures that it represents the wider spectrum of views of New Zealanders. So I make no apology for the fact that we are part of an effective Government, which really demonstrates MMP in action, and three parties are working together.

The Green Party has worked throughout the development of the bill to improve it, to strengthen it. I really acknowledge the work of environment Minister David Parker and the good faith negotiations that he has undertaken with us. I also acknowledge the really important contribution that submitters have made, because the Green Party was adamant that there needed to be a select committee process for this bill so that the public would have an opportunity to comment on it, because communities want to be able to influence the decisions that are made under the Resource Management Act which affect their neighbourhoods and the places that they care about. Public participation enables more information to be put in front of decision makers, and, again, that wider spectrum of views.

So this fast-track bill does reduce the opportunities for full public participation, but it does enable a number of organisations to present their perspectives and their critique of projects to the expert consenting panel. I’m pleased that in the Environment Committee this has been further expanded with the addition of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga. Others have commended the work of officials. I would also really like to commend all of those individuals and organisations who worked through a weekend—very short, compressed time period—to analyse the bill and to make submissions, and the work that Green MP Chlöe Swarbrick did on the select committee to ensure that everyone who wanted to be heard had that opportunity, and the long hearings of the select committee to enable that to happen. As we have seen with the bill that has been reported back, there have been a number of further improvements in the light of those submissions.

The National Party has said that the Government lacks vision, and their response, their vision, is just to put a whole lot of Supplementary Order Papers seeking to have a number of other projects included in the schedule to the bill. This Government’s vision in responding to the environmental and climate challenges of the time is to ensure, as a key part of our recovery to the economic insecurity caused by COVID, that we have a nature-based recovery, that we invest $1.1 billion in creating new nature-based jobs that help Papatūānuku and ensure that people can bring home money to put food on the table and have that security of employment. That is part of our vision. So is this bill, because it ensures that while responding to COVID, while responding to the need to create jobs through these fast-tracked projects, we also recognise sustainable management. That’s a key part of the purpose of the bill.

In the criteria that the Minister for the Environment has to consider when deciding whether projects should go on the fast track, those have been strengthened. As Duncan Webb noted, there was already a major criteria that projects have to contribute to New Zealand’s efforts to mitigate climate change and transition more quickly to a low-emissions economy, and the impacts of reducing New Zealand’s greenhouse gas emissions is all there in relation to that criteria. The select committee has strengthened it by including a specific reference to greenhouse gas emissions when the Minister comes to consider adverse environmental effects. One of the key areas where the bill was strengthened early on was ensuring that there was a strong commitment to Part 2, in terms of the decisions made by the Minister and by the expert consenting panel so that the environmental bottom lines that are part of the Resource Management Act (RMA) come across to this bill.

So our concerns are around the constraints on public participation. While National is suggesting that this bill should supplant the RMA permanently, there is a significant constraint on local participation and decision-making by councils because, of course, decisions under the bill are made by the expert consenting panel within 25 to 50 days, rather than by councils elected to represent their communities. So access to justice is constrained, too, with the inability to appeal beyond the Court of Appeal. This bill is complex. So, like others, I really acknowledge the work of officials in taking the behemoth of the Resource Management Act, working out how this bill integrates with it, particularly the members of the Parliamentary Counsel Office and their legal drafting so that this bill does fit alongside the RMA. It changes the processes that are in the RMA but retains those key fundamental environmental bottom lines that are in Part 2.

The National speakers have queried why things like cycleways are part of the fast-tracked projects in the schedule. Those cycleways had significant benefits for sustainability, both in reducing emissions and in promoting the health of the population by ensuring that people can commute safely without being threatened by cars. So that’s the sort of change that this Government wants in order to shift us to a low-emissions economy, to tackle the climate crisis, and to ensure that infrastructure projects take us in that direction and are not the big motorway projects, the roads of national significance that that party was so keen on when it was in Government, which increased emissions and created an enormous taking of funding away from things like active transport, cycleways, walking projects, and improved access around our cities.

The vision that this Government has for the Resource Management Act is to follow on from the recommendations of the Randerson review, which will be made public. That review, I hope, deals with the issue of spatial planning and infrastructure integration. We have a real deficit in infrastructure planning in Aotearoa. We have a deficit of investment in things like three waters, in things like effective transport, effective public transport. This Government is making that investment through the COVID response and recovery package and through the Provincial Growth Fund. We need our environmental planning legislation to be about good spatial planning, where we are planning to ensure that new housing development integrates with transport corridors. Where we put infrastructure affects how cities and towns develop. So that is our vision for environmental legislation which does that spatial planning and takes us to a low-emissions economy. So this bill is not the bill that will achieve that, but that will come with the results of the Randerson review when we get back into Government after 19 September to take that forward.

So this bill, with its three tracks for projects, has had significant improvements through the select committee process in response to submissions, things like the ability of infrastructure agencies to do permitted activities, through clearance of vegetation in significant natural areas—there’ve been changes to things like that. Auckland water, which is a big issue, is now on a pathway that’s under the existing Act through being called in by the Minister for the Environment. What National would have done was ram that through without taking into account the concerns of Waikato-Tainui. That will go through that more comprehensive process under the RMA, because it is critical that adverse environmental effects are considered properly. Because we’ve seen with projects like the Clyde Dam, which was rammed through, the failure to really look at the geological characteristics there and the impacts that things like that have had on the functioning of that dam. Things that are done in haste where environmental effects aren’t fully considered can have detrimental impacts further down the track, as happened under National with the way it wanted to ram through a lot of irrigation projects. So I’m pleased to take a call on the bill. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. I do just want to respond to the previous member’s comments about the roads of national significance (RONS). I want to assure the House that, when the National Party wins the election on 19 September, the RONS are coming back.

It always amazes me that the Green Party decries the roads of national significance, because Julie Anne Genter, who’s the associate transport Minister and also the Green Party transport spokesperson, depending on which hat she’s wearing or which website she’s writing for—or actually, frankly, which question time she’s appearing in—likes to talk about road safety a lot. They’re the safest roads in the country. One person has died on a road of national significance. Nathan Guy said it was zero; it’s actually one—one person only. Kāpiti Expressway; Transmission Gully, when we eventually get it open; Waterview; Victoria Park Tunnel; the Canterbury roading projects down on Andrew Falloon’s patch, or close to there—one person has died. They’re the safest roads in the country.

And they talk about housing. Eugenie Sage just talked about—

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: Pūhoi to Warkworth—do you know how many people died because your party didn’t improve the safety of that road?

OK. Well, you can get upset if you like, but one person has died on a road of national significance. They’re the safest roads, and they expand housing growth.

I want to comment on what Eugenie Sage said about housing, because it always amazes me that roads that connect our regions, that connect greenfield housing developments, like the road that the Government is building in the South, the expansion of State Highway 1 further south, that opens up greenfields housing developments—that contributes to housing supply. You’ve got to build the infrastructure to connect the housing, and actually the roads of national significance, four-lane expressways—beautiful things—they actually connect into housing. It always amazes me that the Greens don’t support that. So, even on the grounds that they like to talk about being important in transport, they should support the RONS.

I want to thank the Environment Committee for the hard work they have done on this bill, and particularly Erica Stanford and the team on the committee. They have done a great job. I couldn’t sit on the committee for the bill, but I know they were sitting at all hours—8 o’clock on a Saturday morning; particularly, can I say, with the weather that Wellington has had, and I want to apologise, sort of, to the House for the Wellington weather over the last couple of weeks. What a shocker. I know many of you will not have enjoyed that. So, sorry about that!

Look, this bill is a good bill as far as it goes, right? But it’s really an admission that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is broken. And, actually, we’ve been saying that in the National Party for at least a decade, nigh on 20 years. The fact that we’re having to sit—

Chlöe Swarbrick: How long were you in Government, Chris?

Well, I know the point you’re making. We could never assemble the numbers to reform it properly. And, actually, you know, if we’d had the chance, we would have done it properly. We could never assemble the numbers. And, actually, the fact that we’re sitting here today, on the cusp of an election, in urgency, on Thursday afternoon, putting through a bill to get on with 11 projects, worthy as they are—well, contemporaneously there’s this reform process going through, led by Judge Randerson, which the Minister has kicked off, for yet another reform of the RMA, yet another consultation, yet another stakeholder advisory process, and reference groups, and getting everyone into a room to agree on the best way forward. All that stuff. That’s happening contemporaneously with this. Doesn’t that just indicate to you that the whole fundamental model is broken? It really is.

Everyone agrees that we need to get on with infrastructure projects in New Zealand. There’s not a person in the Parliament who wouldn’t say that we have under-invested in infrastructure, probably for the last 15 or 20 years. No one would really disagree with that, and yet we have put in place barriers, self-made barriers, through the Resource Management Act, since 1990, to actually building that infrastructure. I’ve just been corresponding with someone online about the Pētone to Ngauranga cycle trail, which everyone in Wellington and Lower Hutt and Upper Hutt agrees we need, because you drive down State Highway 2 into town, from Lower Hutt into Wellington, and there’s a tiny little track next to the railway line, in between the motorway, and it’s filthy and it’s filled with potholes and it’s got nails along it. It’s a rubbish piece of infrastructure, and if Julie Anne Genter was here she would, I know, agree with me on this. She would say that that should be the jewel in the crown of Wellington. It should be a beautiful vista that people ride along on their e-bikes, which I know a lot of people are taking up. People could run and walk along it into Wellington.

Well, we’re now in 2020. That project has been talked about for 50 years. We talked about it in Government in 2014, six years ago, and we’re now in 2020 and it’s going to be one of the projects brought forward to be fast-tracked. And the reason that has to be done is because, I’m told, under the current Resource Management Act, structures that would take four years to consent—four years for a project that pretty much everyone agrees we want. Everyone in Wellington agrees it’s desired. The current cycleway is unsafe, it’s dangerous, and it should be the jewel in the crown of Wellington. It should be a tourist attraction. It should incentivise people to get out of their cars, get on to their bikes or on to their e-bikes and cycle into town from Lower Hutt or Upper Hutt or from Pētone, or for families to walk along the harbour on a nice summery day. Not right now; you probably wouldn’t do it on a day like today, or any of the last month, but you’d do it on a nice summery day. And it takes four years to consent? It’s ridiculous. Everyone agrees it’s ridiculous.

So we’re going to have to put it through in this bill, alongside a bunch of other projects like the papakāinga network development, Britomart East upgrade to the City Rail Link project. I mean, again, there would be no one in Parliament who’d think that was a bad idea. We need to do it. So let’s just do it. Papakura to Pukekohe electrification—that’s been talked about for five years. We campaigned in the 2017 election on it, and the Labour Party campaigned on it as well, and we’re here in 2020—a railway line extension to Pukekohe to better cater to the fast-growing area of the south of Auckland and the Waikato, to allow people to get on a train from Pukekohe straight into Britomart and not have to get off at Papakura and then get on another train. Obviously that disincentivises people to get on the train in Pukekohe, because they’ve got to get off at Papakura, get off their diesel train and get on an electric train. Obviously fewer people want to do that, so of course electrification makes sense. We’ve been talking about it for five or six years, but consenting takes for ever.

The Resource Management Act is a self-made blockage against housing, against rail projects that make sense, against roading projects that unlock our greenfields development or help deal with congestion or improve safety, which everyone agrees we need to improve. So I just think, symbolically, the fact that we are here doing this just epitomises the failure of Parliament over the last 20 years, really, to deal with the Resource Management Act. And I have to say that, frankly, the Greens—there is some deep irony in the Greens supporting this bill, because the Greens have been the biggest barrier in the last 20 years to the Resource Management Act. Simple changes, minor changes to reduce the interminable consultation, to speed up the process—all of those changes have been opposed by the Green Party; not just opposed and they vote against them and go through the motions, but vociferously and voluminously. They’ve run petitions against any changes to the Resource Management Act, and they’ve had their fellow travellers in the wider environmental movements telling us that the end of the world is nigh. We’ve had Geoffrey Palmer telling us that the model is fine, and we’ve had endless opinion pieces from Sir Geoffrey and legal opinions about how everyone is wrong on the Resource Management Act other than him. Well, he’s the guy who wrote it, so I think there may be a slight vested interest there and conflict of interest in relation to it.

The simple reality is that if you look back over the last 20 years of New Zealand—or the last 30 years, actually—some of the biggest problems we’re dealing with in New Zealand today, the legacy of those problems, can be sheeted back to the Resource Management Act: under-investment in infrastructure, not just roads. We are keen on roads in the National Party; not just roads but rail, public transport improvements, busways, cycle tracks, shared paths—we’ve under-invested in all of them, and the Resource Management Act bears a lot of the blame for it. Housing—the average house in Auckland is a million dollars; ten times average median income. That’s wrong, and the Resource Management Act bears a lot of the responsibility for that, because we have made it impossible in this country, or nearly impossible, to get on and build housing. That’s not the sole cause of the housing problems in New Zealand, but it’s a major contributing factor. Just building stuff, just living your life in your own home, on your own property—we have made it near impossible to do things. And, again, the Resource Management Act bears a lot of the blame for that.

So, yes, we support this bill. Obviously, we support it. Yes, we want things added to it. But it is really symbolic and emblematic of the Resource Management Act being a major millstone around the neck of Governments of both stripes over the last 20 to 30 years. We need wholesale reform. That will come after 19 September. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. That was a very long call to say that the other side of the House supports this bill. Let’s put some positivity back into the debate, because this bill is actually a good bill. What I would like to do with my short call—I would like to thank Minister Parker for bringing this bill to the House so that we will have the mechanisms in place to get some crucial infrastructure and other developments going. This will promote employment and, in turn, support New Zealand’s recovery from COVID-19. I would also like to thank the Environment Committee, chaired by my indefatigable colleague Dr Duncan Webb, and I’d like to thank the officials for their obviously tireless work on this bill. I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was hoping that the Government member over there would want to speak a bit more about this bill. But look, it is a real pleasure to rise to support the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill.

Even though I do support it, I unfortunately do see it as inadequate. That is because, first of all, all it does is cherry-picks around 11 projects from around the country and does nothing actually for projects around the rest of the country which aren’t given such gold-plated treatment. So, as has been pointed out on this side of the House this afternoon, and as members can see on the Table in front of us, there are a range of projects all around the country that would benefit from a fast-track consenting process and yet haven’t been included in this bill. What would have been far better, actually, is if we, as my colleague Chris Bishop has alluded to, have not just a fast-track consenting process but actually fundamental reform of the Resource Management Act, which is, unfortunately, holding back so much development in this country. This bill is inadequate because it ignores large swaths of New Zealand. Of the 11 projects, the vast bulk of those are in the North Island; despite green-lighting projects, transport projects, particularly in Auckland, there is nothing in here in terms of transport projects for Canterbury, nothing for road safety at all.

Now, in the committee of the whole House stage later on tonight, I do intend to move two amendments to rectify some of those inadequacies. The first one of those is an amendment to include in this bill the road between Rolleston and Ashburton and to extend that to four lanes. So as part of the previous Government’s roads of national significance programme that Chris Bishop has alluded to, four lanes was extended or rolled out from Christchurch to Rolleston, and now it’s time to finish the job. According to NZTA’s own statistics just a couple of years ago, that road between Ashburton and Christchurch is now the second most dangerous stretch of highway in the country for fatalities and serious injuries. And that needs to change.

This bill refers to the Papakura to Drury State Highway 1 roading upgrade. It refers to the need to improve safety on that important Auckland road. Yet the bill does nothing for one of the most dangerous roads in New Zealand, Ashburton to Christchurch, and that needs to change. Traffic volumes on that road have doubled over the last 20 years, and with growth around PrimePort in Timaru, also the Rolleston inland port, and of course, a thriving primary produce sector in mid- and South Canterbury, the road has become more congested and less safe. My colleague Chris Bishop pointed out the fact that there’s been, I think, one fatality on the roads of national significance, the seven roads that were put in place by the previous Government. Well, in contrast to that, in the last three years there have been 10 people who’ve lost their lives on the road between Ashburton and Christchurch, and that needs to change.

Instead, unfortunately, that road was re-evaluated by the transport Minister, Phil Twyford, not long after he came into Government and as part of a $5 billion dollar cut to the State highway network, it was shelved. That money was instead put into Auckland cycle and rail projects, which makes it all the more incredible that we’ve now, in recent weeks, just seen the Auckland light rail project shelved.

The second amendment I intend to move is for a second bridge over the Ashburton River. This is a project that the community wants and it would reduce congestion in the CBD. It’s an important component of the Christchurch to Ashburton four-lane project, and that’s been confirmed by NZTA, who have said that the four-lane highway should bring forward investment in a second bridge crossing. Now, the Government have announced a business case such as it is, but of course that comes on the heels of, I think, four previous business cases that have been done on the bridge, all recommending that it go ahead. Quite why we need a fifth case, I don’t entirely know. That business case, of course, was funded by the Provincial Growth Fund from Shane Jones—once again, creating more jobs for expensive consultants in Wellington than it does in the regions.

My amendment would bring forward this important project. Both projects—the Ashburton to Christchurch four-lane highway, a second bridge over the Ashburton River—would improve road safety. Both projects would create jobs, would create economic activity. I do hope that members across the House do support those important projects and make roads in Canterbury more safe.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): The following is a split call. Jami-Lee Ross.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also rise to speak in favour of this bill and really echo some of the comments that have already been made about the fact that when we have natural disasters or we have significant economic events, it really highlights to this Parliament—because every time it happens, the Parliament goes and changes the RMA. Those big events highlight that our Resource Management Act is broken.

The politics of resource management law changes are such that we can never achieve a parliamentary majority for streamlining the RMA in such a way where it is user-friendly and geared towards development and economic progress until we have such an issue like COVID-19 or the global financial crisis or the Kaikōura earthquakes come along. When those issues come along, then all of a sudden the politicians go, “Whoa, we better protect jobs and we better do something for economic development. So let’s set aside all of the RMA provisions which are held dear to a majority of the Parliament—let’s set them aside and move forward with economic development.” It highlights the fact that if we just had an RMA in the first place that was fit for purpose, then we wouldn’t need to be doing this type of work.

But the fact that we’re here is good. The fact that we have this legislation is a positive improvement. If the need to create jobs and save the livelihoods of New Zealanders off the back of COVID-19 is the catalyst for doing this legislation, then good on the Parliament for doing just that.

I do share the view also that’s been expressed that there should be more projects in this bill. I realise there were comments made—I think the Minister of Defence made the comment that there’s other tracks, a track 2 and a track 3. But if we realise already now that there are more projects that we could put in—and I know New Zealand First has many projects that they’ve got $3 billion of Provincial Growth Fund to fund—they should be going in the bill right now. The very fact that the select committee put the Queenstown roading projects in the bill—I’m not sure, Hamish Walker, you must be very, very effective at lobbying. But the fact that the Queenstown roading projects went into the bill suggests the Parliament is open-minded to putting more stuff into the bill.

There are a number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) on the Table. I note the National Party—every single local member seems to have come up with their own local project that’s important to their electorate. I’ve done the same by way of SOP, and I’m sure the National Party, given that they’re goodhearted people, will be supporting the people of Botany with SOPs that I’ve put up, just as they’ve been supporting their own local electorates. If they don’t, then we’ll know that they care about politics more than local electorates. But the fact that there are so few projects in this bill suggests that we do need to see some improvements.

I want to speak briefly in the two minutes that I have left about the Auckland water issue, because there was commentary both in the media and in the report from the select committee around the Auckland water issue. I suspect David Parker has done a very strategic move sideways in putting that particular issue out to the call-in provisions that he as the Minister has the ability to do. But the very fact that he’s had to do that suggests we don’t have an RMA fit for purpose that can deal with those big significant issues. But he hasn’t actually come up with a solution which is fast enough, and we can do things faster if we were to put the Auckland water issue into this bill.

See, the panel under this bill has to make decisions in 25 days. The call-in provisions under the RMA that the Minister has—it takes nine months or so. If Auckland’s water crisis is so bad that a majority of Parliament—because the National Party and New Zealand First came out saying we should put that particular issue into the fast-track bill, and they can’t deny it because Shane Jones put it out as Minister for Infrastructure. It was under his brand as Minister for Infrastructure. If a majority of Parliament says that is such an important issue that we should do something about in a fast-track way, let’s just put it in this bill. The Minister’s done a good thing in putting it out in the call-in process, but we can do things a lot faster by putting it in this bill.

I realise putting it in this bill would probably upset one of the coalition partners. But for goodness’ sakes, Aucklanders getting access to drinking-water and being able to ensure that we have continuity of supply for our largest city in the country, surely that’s something that a majority of votes in the Parliament should put politics aside for and put in place in this bill.

I note that the National Party deputy leader also put out a press release saying that they support something like that going into this particular bill. I have an SOP that would give effect to the very thing that the National Party deputy leader has said that she wants. I hope they support that as well. Otherwise, they are just like that big “h” word that I’m not allowed to say.

At the helm of New Zealand’s COVID-19 response is Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and she is strongly supported by all parties on this side of the House. Her decisive and compassionate decision-making has kept all of us safe, and we will continue to work hard to keep COVID-19 at our borders while we work quickly and at pace to support our country’s economic recovery and rebuild. For that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

It’s my pleasure to take a call on this bill, the COVID-19 Recovery (Fast-track Consenting) Bill, and I do at the start want to acknowledge the work that has been done by everybody in this Parliament—officials, Environment Committee members—in getting through 136 submissions in a very short period of time. As has been said by previous speakers on this side, we do support this legislation, although we don’t believe it goes far enough, and as Erica Stanford, my good colleague, has said, it probably should be in place for longer.

That being said, there are some issues that I wish to talk about. While we are accelerating projects or bringing them forward, and a decision needing to be made in around 25 days—which is a massive improvement on what has traditionally been the case, where it can be years, if not decades—it is important to understand what this legislation also does in a level that doesn’t require consent. We do support the permitted activity status that has been given to the New Zealand Transport Agency, KiwiRail, Kāinga Ora, and councils to do minor work, but we shouldn’t kid ourselves: as part of that, there will be some trade-offs, and some community members worried about small work who might’ve previously had an ability to object won’t have that. That being said, I think that’s OK.

I also acknowledge the fact that the previous National Government brought in the ability for call-in provisions. Those are provisions that are available for the Minister for the Environment at any stage, if something is in the national interest, to bring something to the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) and take it through a process that takes no more than nine months. If you want to look at what that can do and the success of that, one only needs to look at the projects that have been through that, and the Hon Nathan Guy took us through the Kāpiti Expressway previously. In my view, unless the call-in provisions had been available to the Government, those types of projects would still be stalled in the starting blocks.

The call-in provision has been used by the Minister for Auckland water, and I do acknowledge the point that’s just been made by Jami-Lee Ross previously that that is a nine-month process; a deal’s being done with Hamilton City to give some short-term relief, but at the end of the day, that consent could’ve been included in this bill. The Minister used the call-in provision—that’s fine. That’s better than not using it, but the same issue could’ve been dealt with in this bill.

We’re also awaiting the Tony Randerson report, which various Ministers will have seen—and I have no objection to them seeing; it’s their report. But, fundamentally, that will change the Resource Management Act (RMA), I suspect, and I think there is cross-party agreement right across the Parliament that the RMA does need to change. So we are, in a sense, doing a knee-jerk reaction right now on the basis that we are looking after jobs and we want shovel-ready projects, and that is a laudable goal. My issue—and I spoke about it in the first reading—is I don’t believe we’re going far enough and quickly enough. We’ve included a small number of projects—and I understand there are second tranches, third and fourth tranches, but if you look at the projects that have been included right up—and I’m particularly critical of the housing ones, not of the projects themselves but of the scale of things that have been put in in the first part.

Our side of the House also believes that this bill should not time out in two years—that, actually, it should go for up to five, and I understand a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) will be submitted later that will do that. We say that because we have been, and I think many members of Parliament have been, frustrated at how long it takes to get these big projects up and running—not only big projects, in fact; a lot of projects up and running. While it’s important for everybody to have a say, the fact that everybody is having a say under the current RMA ends up costing the country, the community, and the very same people a lot of money, time, and effort. Yesterday or the day before, $3 billion of shovel-ready projects were announced. Many are going to be dripped out further in the lead-up to the election. Wouldn’t it be good for some of those projects to be included in the schedule at this point so they don’t have to be added at a later date by an Order in Council and further delayed? I suspect what we’re going to get in the lead-up to the election is handing the cash around but no actual physical start for a long, long time.

I also want to comment on the local government aspect of this. This is a significant change for many. Many local authorities may want to have a say on some of these projects—they may—and they have an ability to, effectively, as a registered person in the process, but the conversation about which project should be advanced through this process versus which they would like to proceed is actually not, as I understand it, Minister—and I’ll come to it in the committee of the whole House—a decision for them. It is a decision for you as the Minister at the outset. So when I look down the Schedule 2 projects, and when I understand the number of councils that are having conversations with Shane Jones and his fund and the finance Minister about shovel-ready projects, I hope there is alignment there. I hope that when the right hand gives out the money, the left hand is working out which projects can or cannot be included.

There is also the capacity issue. We know, and the Minister will know this, that the Environment Court has had capacity issues. A lot of processes get held up for capacity issues. When we add more and more things to the panel and the EPA and the process that’s going to be followed, we have to have specialist panels and people that have the capacity to do this. Many people struggle with the complexity, and it’ll take a certain type of person to be on those panels. So there is a balance between how many things you can put up versus how many things they’re going to fix, and in my view, the list we’ve already given does not actually translate into giving the most shovel-ready or urgent jobs; they happen to be a list that’s available. Nineteen hundred and twenty-four projects were submitted to the Infrastructure Commission to look at, and I think that in that there are probably well over a hundred—well over a hundred—that would need fast-track consenting if you were going to get them shovel-ready in a time frame that’ll make a difference to COVID-19. So I say to the Minister: if that’s the scale of what we’re trying to do, where is the capacity within the EPA or the panel to do that?

Lastly, I haven’t yet put an SOP in, but I do want to talk about the four-laning of the Napier to Hastings Expressway, for no other reason than this: that land is fully designated—fully designated. The only thing that needs to occur is a couple of consents for some bridges and the money for the bridges. We are already wasting money on that part of the road because we’re putting safety barriers and all sorts of things on the wrong alignment, because when it’s four-lane, those safety barriers are in the wrong place. So I’m watching $20 million, nearly, be spent on safety barriers on the wrong alignment because this Government is not aligning everything it does with what is the long-term solution. So when we look at these projects, we need to look at them holistically. That is a project that is shovel-ready, could be included here, fully designated, and if we make a decision about that quickly, we will stop wasting money.

So we support this bill. We don’t think it goes far enough, and I thank you for the opportunity to say my piece.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. About a week ago I joined you in Christchurch at Redcliffs School, where the children there referred to our Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, as the leader the whole world is wanting. They spoke about her calm and competent and comforting way that she led us through the health response to COVID-19. Now our leader Jacinda Ardern is leading us through the economic recovery response. To do that, we have got the most significant infrastructure bill this country has ever seen. The reason we have that is it will create jobs where, at this point in time, we know that there are some families who are finding it very distressing. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Bill read a second time.

In Committee