Natural and Built Environment Bill

Members, we come now to Part 8, the debate on clauses 497 to 553, “Matters relevant to natural and built environment plans”. The question is that Part 8 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to discuss clause 500, “Criteria for approval as requiring authority”. Now, this will be particularly important to the energy sector, both for building new generation but also building new transmission and distribution lines as well as all of the associated activities that go with that such as substations and so on. I would like first to begin with the Minister giving an assurance that what we have today and what the sector is used to dealing with is materially the same as what this bill will do when it comes into force for a brief period before we repeal it after the election. So if you could just enlighten us on that, Minister, that would be much appreciated.

Well, it’s come somewhat as a disappointment that the Minister appears to have lost her voice and is seemingly no longer of a mood to answer questions. So maybe we’ll continue on with Part 8. Again, this is a part of the clause—Subpart 1 relates to designations, and again, my suspicion is that much of this wording will have come from the existing Resource Management Act. But that said, there are a couple of changes that I see that have been made in terms of the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. They appear to be minor, but at 509(3), there are some typographical changes that I suspect are more to do with form than substance. But those are the matters that relate to iwi Māori. I’m keen to know what the Minister’s view is about the designations; is she happy and satisfied that they are sufficiently robust and futureproofed to ensure that the objectives of the total bill will be met given that this appears to be largely a cut and paste of existing provisions?

We had been told that much of this bill was designed to make things easier, to make them smoother, and yet the reality, as we’ve debated at length, has been that much of these clauses right through in Subpart 1 are, on the face of it, pieces of legislation that are going to make things more complicated, more expensive, and more confusing for lay people. So if the Minister could give us an insight into why the few changes that have been made have been made, and why perhaps there hasn’t been a more radical review of designations and matters that are relevant to the natural and built environment plan process?

In relation to the Hon Scott Simpson’s point about changes in the Supplementary Order Paper, I’m advised that, yes, they are all technical in nature.

Related to Scott Simpson’s points about—sorry, you are Scott Simpson. Related to Stuart Smith’s point—it would be good if you didn’t sit next to each other!—about who can be a requiring authority, generally, as the Hon Scott Simpson just said, most of this is taken from the Resource Management Act (RMA). But one of the changes from the RMA is wider access to the designation powers, and that these will be in effect straight away. So it will be more useful than the current RMA.

I’m hoping to get some enlightened clarification from the Minister in the chair, particularly thinking back to her illustrious career as a resource management lawyer at a time when, in my role as a construction manager, I might have come to her for advice, and particularly when it comes to the matter of designation and notices of requirement.

So for those members in the Chamber who are not familiar with this aspect of the current resource management law, if you’re an asset owner, if you want to build an airport, if you want to build a State highway or a road, or if you have a water pipeline to construct at some point in the future, you use a designation tool under the current Resource Management Act, which is also provided for in this bill in clause 503, Minister, on page 349, which allows an asset owner or a future asset owner to say, “This is the corridor that crosses people’s land in which we want to build our infrastructure, but we’re not quite sure when we’re coming to build it.”

Of course, no one’s quite sure, because this Government doesn’t have a 30-year infrastructure plan that ACT would introduce, and, in fact, there is no funding for infrastructure assured, whether it’s a State highway network, or even three waters, after the proposed reform proposal. But what organisations like the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) trading as Waka Kotahi do, they get a magic marker like this one and they draw a map across people’s private property where they want the road to go in future.

I’ll give the example of the next stage of State Highway 1 Warkworth to Wellsford, which designates a whole lot of private property—farmland, for example, and even some business-zoned land—between the towns of Warkworth and Wellsford and Auckland for a future four- to six-laning highway project. Everyone knows it’s desperately necessary, because the current highway route through Dome Valley is regularly subject to slips and floods and has closed, diverting traffic on to much less suitable local roads, which cannot handle heavy traffic.

Minister, under the notice of requirement for designation, primary and secondary construction notices (CIPs) must be lodged with the territorial authority and identify where this activity is going to take place. But if we look at the requirement under clause 504(4) for a secondary CIP—now, this might sound pretty technical to people, but imagine you want to build a road 10 years in the future. You want to secure the land so someone else doesn’t come and build, I don’t know, a power station in the way or build a whole residential subdivision in the way. You must designate that land and put a notice of requirement over it.

But what this requires is that even though you haven’t done the design yet, you don’t know all of those factors that are going to come into the final delivery of the project—whether you might want to add on a cycleway or a pedestrian bridge as well, where the on-ramps and off-ramps are going to go. But under clause 504(4) and 504(5), the secondary CIP must show the likely finished contours; the location on the site of the public works, and the height, shape, and bulk; vehicle access, circulation, and provision for parking; and landscaping. Minister, all these won’t be delivered until at least the preliminary design, if not the detailed design stage. There is no public sector entity that is going to provide this level of detail when they go and seek a designation for a corridor, unless they were already budgeted to do all of that design work that normally doesn’t happen for some years down the track.

Minister, we know this has caused a problem. It caused a problem with the Northern Corridor Improvements project in Auckland where NZTA and its partners applied for a designation and were required to include all of this detail that meant when the designer came along to do the final design, they said, “We can’t work with this stuff in the notice of requirement. You’ve given us conditions that we can’t meet, we can’t design around. The project isn’t going to proceed. We’re not going to get the benefits out of it.”

So, Minister, would you clarify what circumstances require this level of detail? Is this practical and how will this affect actual delivery of projects, say, that the private sector through a public-private partnership, wanting to bring innovation, lessons learnt from overseas where they’ve actually built roads using tolling that people can get to get around on at 130 kilometres an hour like in Texas, which I visited last year? Will this make it harder to build, Minister?

Thank you. I just want to note that the problems that the member was speaking about are problems under the Resource Management Act, and that is why there is now this spatial footprint process which is at clause 505(1)(c), also noting, of course, the increase in lapse from five years to 10 years will help with those issues.

The time has come for me to report progress.

Progress to be reported.

House resumed.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Natural and Built Environment Bill and reports progress. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.