Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Bill.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: The legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Bill be now read a first time.

This is a great day, because what we are doing is getting off the statute book two pieces of legislation that would be a backward step for the environment and also the ability to get things done in New Zealand. The National Party campaigned at the 2023 general election on repealing the Natural and Built Environment Act—or the NBA as it is known—and the Spatial Planning Act (SPA) by Christmas. I’m pleased to say that our coalition colleagues from the ACT Party and New Zealand First made similar commitments, and, as part of the coalition agreements between the National and ACT parties we’ve agreed to do that. Hence the need for urgency before Christmas, to get it off the statute book.

The effect of this bill is to repeal those two pieces of legislation and to revert back to the Resource Management Act (RMA) 1991 as an interim measure. This is not ideal, and no doubt members on the other side of the House will make that point, because—as I think everyone acknowledges across the Parliament—the RMA is not fit for purpose in its current form. We do need a new system that will make it easier to get things done and look after the environment, but doing that will take some time.

Now, the reason why we have to move at pace to get rid of these pieces of legislation is that there’s a 10-year lead-in time that has started, basically, already, through local government and all of the various players around that. And the sooner we stop it, the sooner we can make clear our intentions and the sooner we can stop all of those costs that will be incurred by everybody for a system that is ultimately going to be repealed. So we’ve taken the pragmatic view that it’s better just to get it all off the statute book as quickly as possible, and we’re doing that this week under urgency.

My intention is to introduce a new package of resource management legislation by the end of the term. I’ll be working alongside my colleague Simon Court, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for RMA reform and Parliamentary Under-Secretary for infrastructure, in that work, and also alongside the Minister for Regional Development, the Hon Shane Jones, who has a lot of interest in this area as well.

💬 Mark Patterson: Details, details.

What’s that?

💬 Mark Patterson: Details.

Details indeed, yes, and, well, he provides many details and I’m looking forward to those discussions.

We did not take the decision to do this lightly, and it’d be fair to say one of the first things I said to the officials at the Ministry for the Environment, when I became the Minister for RMA Reform, was that I understood that many people spent a lot of time and energy on these reforms. I acknowledge the work of the Ministry for the Environment over the last five years—there’s been an enormous amount of work done by officials and, actually, by external stakeholders as well, in creating the SPA and the NBA. I said to them, when I met them at my first meeting, “I acknowledge that there will be a lot of people who will feel, you know, perhaps a little bit upset about the intentions of the Government.” But I sat on the Environment Committee alongside my colleagues as we went through that process and I engaged with a lot of stakeholders during the debate in the last Parliament, and the bills—the Acts as they now are—just simply won’t work. The overwhelming majority of the written and oral submissions on the legislation said words to that effect. And the conclusion that we came to as a new Government is that the legislation would be worse than what we have now, and so therefore we’re going back to what we had while we work to create a new system.

The Natural and Built Environment Act promised more red tape, not less. It promised shorter delay, but it will not deliver that—in reality, it will create longer delays and it will create greater uncertainty, not less. You just have to look at the Natural and Built Environment Act—it’s 900 pages long. It’s the same size as the RMA, except it introduces a wholly new legislative schema, a wholly new legislative framework, and it introduces whole new concepts that are unknown to New Zealand law. So it has all of the length and complexity and the breadth of the current RMA but makes it even worse by introducing new concepts that will be difficult for people who use the NBA to navigate and understand. So we’re going back to what we had for the next couple of years while we build a new planning system, and this will remove the implementation burden from local government.

This is a relatively simple bill—it’s mostly simple. This will largely be a technical process, focusing on transitioning and saving parts of the NBA that are already in use. The bill addresses these matters to allow for an orderly repeal and to ensure that users of the RMA have a clear understanding of how their interests are affected. The fast-track consenting regime in the NBA is going to be saved in the interim. So one of the things that we considered as a Government was what we do about the fast-track regime that is in the NBA. There was a COVID fast-track regime, which self-expired, and the Natural and Built Environment Act has its own fast-track regime. So while we develop our own fast-track proposals, as a coalition Government, we’re faced with the dilemma of what we do with the fast-track, because no one wants to be in a situation where we couldn’t have speedy access to resource consenting. What we decided to do, after a bit of debate, was, essentially, repeal the NBA but save the fast-track regime in the current NBA so it’s there on the statute book while we develop our own regime.

The other thing the bill does is extend the deadline for when new freshwater planning instruments must be notified by three years, to 31 December 2027, out from 31 December 2024. A relatively simple change, this will give councils additional time as we review the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management. If I could summarise our approach to that, it is to review, repeal, replace, and rebalance, and that is what the Government will—

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: You don’t like swimmable water.

Oh, no, it’s not about that. That’s a cliché—I thought you were going to criticise my use of alliteration, but instead you used a cliché. No, we’re not going to get back into the tired old debates around that; we are going to repeal, replace, and rebalance, and review the national policy statement for freshwater.

Repeal of the Spatial Planning Act is straightforward. There’s been no spatial planning processes that have been triggered—no decisions have been made under the Act—so we are just getting rid of that Act while we, as I say, navigate ourselves through replacement legislation. I think one other point that members opposite will make is that spatial planning’s a good thing. Yes, that’s true, as a concept and in principle. But my criticism is that the spatial planning regime the last Government set up was something that was wholly disconnected from everything else that was going on inside local government—most obviously the three waters regime, which is in a state of flux to some extent now as well, because of the commitments made at the election for which the Government received a mandate. But also the Future for Local Government Review, which the Government announced with great fanfare and then dropped a report on. And so you had both spatial planning going on at the same time as the future of local government, at the same time as the Government was doing a variety of things with three waters. And local government quite rightly said, you know, this is a nightmare to deal with. You’ve got three disconnected pieces of—well, three connected pieces of reform, all going on at the same time in different ways. There’s no coherence as to how all that comes together. So we want to take a bit of time to get it together as a Government.

I regret the use of urgency, but it is important we do this under urgency, bypassing the committee and consultation. Many of the issues that will no doubt be canvassed in this debate and through the committee of the whole House were canvassed in the last Parliament, so it’s not like the Parliament hasn’t had a good chance to consider these issues. We had a good go-round in the last Parliament, a good go-round at select committee, and a thorough debate in the last Parliament, and we took to the election a policy to repeal it by Christmas and we received a mandate for that, and therefore we consider ourselves to have a mandate to do it.

Our goals for RMA are simple. We must protect the environment but we must make it easier to build houses, and we must make it easier to do things in this country whilst also protecting the environment. Therefore, it gives me great pleasure to move the first reading of this important bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m not sure why members are clapping when the Minister responsible for RMA Reform just said that we want to do better at protecting the environment and build more houses—this will do the opposite. The total opposite. That was the point of both the Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act, because the Resource Management Act is broken and has not been working. We tried to do some bipartisan fixing of it in the last term, with enabling councils—well, people to build houses in our big cities with the medium-density residential standards. But National seems to have pulled back on that, which is deeply unfortunate, regressive, and goes against everything the Minister was just saying he was interested in achieving.

Also, I’m very angry that we are doing this Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Bill in urgency in all three stages—all four stages—which is quite different from urgency of just one stage of a bill. We have only received this bill today, and we are being told—

💬 Simon Court: You knew it was coming. You were put on notice.

“Oh, everything was canvassed in the last Parliament.” Mr Court, words matter. The words in this bill matter. Some things are being continued and some things are not. And we are only going to be able to discuss this in urgency, today, in this House, and that is not good enough.

💬 Hon Member: And the next day.

Oh, we’re going to be—well, we will see, because, of course, it’s only in two parts, with most of it being in its schedule. And I can say that we are very interested—

💬 Simon Court: Which one?

—in the intricacies of that. Schedule 1—yes, there are two schedules, thank you. And we will be talking about that in the committee stage. But it is difficult because there are a lot of pieces of the Natural and Built Environment Act that are being rolled over, or bits of sections, so it does take some time to refer to those bits of those sections to see what is being retained and what is not being retained. Of course, they are all out of context as well. So that is why I’m deeply disappointed that this Government is taking such a cynical approach to introducing this on the Tuesday before Christmas and saying we have to do all stages in urgency.

I also just heard from the Minister, that, well, spatial plans—they might be a good thing, but, you know, the last Government did the future of local government and three waters as well, and how do they all merge together? Well, the future of local government was not a legislative reform; it was a question put out to local government: how do you see yourselves; what do you want to be doing? The last Minister of Local Government, the Hon Kieran McAnulty, was very clear to those councils that the Labour Government would not do anything that those councils did not want to do. So now it’s interesting to hear the Hon Chris Bishop say, “Oh, it’s a reform that’s going to happen.” Maybe that’s going to happen. And what’s happening with three waters as well? How is that all going to link into the spatial plans? So I’m sure local government will be very interested that this new Government considers that the work on the future of local government should continue in some way and somehow be merged with the spatial plans and whatever is going to happen to that three waters work.

All of this is very important work. And in terms of the three waters, I was involved in that legislation and the select committee process. It was very cognisant—the Finance and Expenditure Committee—of the relationship with this resource management legislation as well so that they could dovetail together. And that work happened, and I congratulate the officials involved in that.

I note that the Minister said he acknowledged it was a little bit sad for officials that this was all going. I’d say it’s more than that, and it’s totally unnecessary. We heard a couple of concerns about the legislation that Mr Bishop said had been so well canvassed in the last Parliament, and that was around new terms, new words, and that the Act is very long. Length does not equate to complexity. Sometimes, spelling out all the steps in a statute makes decision making much simpler. If you have simpler decision-making, that means that you don’t have as much litigation. So I disagree with that point as well.

Of course, we’ve heard that some of the fast-tracking provisions apply—not all of them, and we will be asking the Minister about that in the committee stage. But, again, it’s very difficult to know what I’m talking about in this first reading stage, when we’ve only just got the bill. And I’m not sure what the Minister was referring to when he was saying that freshwater planning is going to be extended by three years. Why do we need that; what are the consequences?

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. These are my first own words in this House, so I’d first like to congratulate you on taking up this rather courageous endeavour of keeping us members in order, and I want to thank you for that.

It’s an honour and a privilege to have a place and a voice in this House, and it is with disappointment that I speak today in these rather short-sighted and misguided circumstances of this repeal. We’re at a real crunch point in time, in human history, where, if we don’t move forward in our thinking and treatment of our precious environment, te taiao, we will set up our kids, our grandkids, and future generations with a truly impoverished future—something I’m sure not one member in this House is aiming to do. Yet here we are, in urgency, with this Government taking a sledgehammer to what could be amended with appropriate and fair public consultation. We’re yet to hear a defendable argument from the Government that stacks up as to why amendments could not remedy the concerns expressed in a way that actually honours both the sheer cost and time that the public and official engagement has put into this and, ultimately, would achieve better outcomes for all of us.

As a past local government councillor, I’m particularly horrified at the disservice this does to the 3,000 people, iwi, hapū, businesses, industry, academic, local government, and Public Service organisations who engaged in the process of creating these bills over the term of the last Government. I want to acknowledge the considerable time and effort of members, across this House, who were part of that robust select committee process, led by the Hon Eugenie Sage. Within the time constraints that they did have, they went through the appropriate processes of democratic rigor and public accountability, they listened to submitters, and they actually changed things in the bill as a result. If we’re getting rid of something that’s a step forward, we at least want to have something better to step to. But, no, like canning our world-leading smoke-free laws, like reopening deep-sea oil and gas drilling, like scrapping fair pay agreements, this Government is stepping us back decades—back to the Resource Management Act (RMA), which has largely and comprehensively been concluded to be a failure; failed because we bought into the false idea, and we’re hearing it again here this afternoon, that we can balance the environment and the economy rather than understanding that there is no economy without a functional environment.

In the time since the RMA was enacted, we’ve been evolving as a country in understanding our history and the rightful place of tangata whenua in exercising tino rangatiratanga. The Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA) was finally reflecting that evolution, alongside the immense body of evidence and acceptance that indigenous wisdom and mātauranga—that when we ensure the health and wellbeing of our environment, te taiao, we ensure the health and wellbeing of ourselves.

Did the NBA and the Spatial Planning Act go all the way in fully recognising these important Te Tiriti concepts? No, they did not, but they went a step forward, and the Green Party acknowledged and welcomed that. No matter the framework that the Government may fashion ahead, we need to see progress towards a stronger Te Tiriti - based relationship that upholds and resources the kaitiaki role and tino rangatiratanga of tangata whenua across Aotearoa and works with them to protect taonga species, landscapes, seas, and significant places. Ki uta ki tai—mountains to sea.

Despite my frustration at the short-sightedness and political pettiness of this bill being brought to the House, I still believe that it is not only possible but entirely necessary to build an awesome future for everyone within the limits of our fragile and beautiful planet. To do so, we need effective laws and a planning and environmental management system that upholds Te Tiriti and provides for younger and future generations. Sadly, the repeal of this legislation takes us backwards and much further away from that goal.

Finally, if this repeal is indicative of this Government’s approach to environmental matters, then it’s something every New Zealander who cares about our environment needs to be aware of, and I’d like to assure them that the Green Party will continue to be a voice for nature and Te Tiriti in this House in the face of a Government that does not appear to understand, value, or uphold the importance of either.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Like the previous speaker, Lan Pham, this is my first opportunity to speak in this House, and I guess never in a million years did I think I would be up here speaking to support the reintroduction of the Resource Management Act (RMA). Spending many years complaining about it, it seems a very weird position to be in, bringing it back. However, sometimes you’ve got to take a step back to be able to go forward. We were going down the completely wrong track with the RMA and then it got even worse with the Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA). This bill was going to take things in a very bad position. Like the Minister responsible for RMA Reform said, we had a piece of legislation that was exactly the same size as what was previously there. It was not making things simpler. As the Chief Justice commented in her submission, “The Bill is long and complex. It deals with issues of great significance for communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, that are frequently litigated before the Environment Court and other courts. To date there has been little consultation with the judiciary about the [applications] of the proposals contained in the Bill for the operation of the Environment Court, or for other courts.” When the Chief Justice submits against a piece of legislation, that should send up a huge red flag to anyone listening that maybe we haven’t got it right, and, unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Now, I dare say the only winners with what is in the NBA are going to be lawyers. It is not going to be the environment. We are going to spend decades and decades working out what these terms mean, and the impact of that is going to be a dramatic loss in confidence of many businesses throughout the community trying to get ahead, trying to make investment decisions for the future. People will not be able to plan for the future if they are uncertain as to where things are going. Yes, the RMA isn’t that particularly great, and that is why we will be replacing it with decent legislation that we will be working on this term that will respect property rights and ensure that businesses throughout this country, people wanting to build, can get ahead and be able to do this.

I also want to speak about the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management 2020 (NPS). As part of this bill we are pushing out the time line for when that is going to have to be reported on by councils, to give us an opportunity to replace this. The NPS is truly and utterly unworkable. We are seeing councils up and down this country coming out with plans that are going to be truly disastrous for their local communities. In Otago, you are seeing requirements for reductions that are going to take off a couple of hundred million dollars from the local community. In Northland, the only option many farmers up there will have is to plant huge tracts of their land, potentially up to 50 percent, into trees. Now, I don’t know how many of you saw the article on One News, I think it was the previous night, talking about the disaster that is happening with planting pine trees and the acidation that is being caused in soils by this. Also, you don’t have to think back too far to the impact of forestry slash and the erosion that was being caused in the events up in Tai—

💬 Hon Member: Or Cyclone Gabrielle.

Yeah, in Cyclone Gabrielle, exactly—thank you. In the Manawatū, my catchment, we’ve had a council come out with a plan that they’ve had to rush ahead because of this time line, saying there will be a 50 to 100 percent reduction. They have no idea what that actually means. They’ve got no time at all to try and decide what this actually means.

People talk about the need for swimmable rivers. I am proud of the fact that my daughters are able to go swimming in the river that runs alongside our farm. It is vitally important to me, like it is to farmers up and down this country, that we take care of what is happening on our lands. Myself and my colleague Mark Patterson will shortly be meeting with catchment care groups, talking about the great work they are doing within this country. You know, farmers are moving ahead. We need legislation that is going to help us, not hinder us. Thank you for the time.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. New Zealand First rises to support this repeal bill. It is a unique ability of the previous Government to have started with something as bad as the Resource Management Act and made it worse. That is something that New Zealand First are firmly of the view of, and I think the case has been made well by the previous two speakers within the coalition. We do support and we are looking forward to the fast-track legislation coming through, the amended fast-track legislation. I know the Hon Shane Jones will be playing a role in that. We are going to get some stuff built in this country. We have lost all ability, we are in economic malaise, and we are going to dig our way out of it with some decisive legislation which will get this country back moving again in the right direction so we can afford the social services and the like, and the infrastructure that we all want.

I’d just like to pick up on the Hon Andrew Hoggard in the last contribution. I do congratulate him on his first contribution, and congratulations to the Green member Lan Pham as well.

We are meeting with a group shortly. Farmers have got this. We know what we need to do. The catchments themselves, it is a catchment by catchment process with a broad set of rules with an empowering—

💬 Hon Member: Oh, what about all those big commercial farmers?

The farmers of New Zealand are really committed to this stuff. We know that there’s a provenance story here. We know there’s a social licence issue here. We know for our own families, as Andrew Hoggard just pointed out, these things are as important to us as they are to everyone else, and we’re going to bring some solutions forward that have got full buy-in from our farming community. We will do this, and we’re looking forward to opening those engagements that the farming community certainly didn’t feel like they had under the previous Government. So New Zealand First will be supporting this legislation. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Tēnā tātou e te Whare. Look, it is not surprising that the coalition Government on my left, to our right, got less than 10 percent of Māori votes. We stand here today enjoying and supported with not only six of the seven Māori electorate sets but also the mandate of 30 percent of those Māori who did vote. We’re really clear on the messaging that we’re wanting to make sure that this coalition Government of lots of things understands.

First of all, this is something that’s really important. It’s something that is about our role as kaitiaki that we enjoy and do for everyone. No matter what your individual perception is, this isn’t something that should be rushed, and certainly rushed on—I mean, cripes, even breakfast shows are off at the moment.

But what we have is a repeal of the Natural and Built Environment Act 2023 (NBA) which was implemented last term to replace the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA). The NBA provided an integrated framework for regulating both environment management and land use. It was something that was extensively consulted and engaged with at grassroots, certainly in their own regional levels and also in the National Iwi Chairs Forum. There was extensive engagement about what needed to happen. This bill aimed to provide iwi, hapū, and Māori with opportunities to participate at all levels of the RMA system. That included providing proactive monitoring of Te Tiriti performance by the National Māori Entity; that de-complicated the use of current tools within the RMA, which is the Mana Whakahono ā Rohe; transfers of power in joint management agreements; and providing for a minimum of two Māori appointed members on regional planning committees, or RPC, out of a minimum committee membership of six.

Te Pāti Māori opposed the reforms last term on the basis that they did not adequately honour Te Tiriti’s rights or protect the environment. So you can imagine what we think about this one, which is not only rushed but also takahēs the mana of mana whenua, of tangata whenua, of kaitiaki. So we oppose this bill on the basis that it is once again the Crown ripping up progress that was achieved in good faith; again, incremental good faith, but relationships that mattered to tangata whenua. We have been contacted extensively by Māori, by iwi leaders, by grassroots leaders, by hapū, by whānau, those in regional and local communities, and they are basically saying that the Crown has no mana, and you are backtracking on commitments that were made as soon as it suited you, and politically you have reneged on what it is that you committed to those communities.

We also push back for resource management legislation to implement Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and acknowledge Māori rangatiratanga and kaitiakitanga in aspects of all legislation. You’re continuously changing the resource management law which makes it bad for planning. A whole lot of people have put a whole lot of things on hold because there’s just no certainty about what’s going on. We need to think about making mokopuna decisions, and look at tangata whenua leading a development of legislation—legislation that, for the most part, has been locked in—and able to be part of effective long-term planning. This bill repeals the reforms of the RMA undertaken by the last Labour-led Government. I don’t know where you’re going with some of the decisions that this Government is making, but one of the things that’s been really important is the status of settlements, the status of Te Tiriti, the status of legislation, and the relationships that are indeed going out on the ground between iwi and local and regional government. I put to you that your fast-tracking is compromising some of those relationships, which you will need—which you will all need.

So we oppose the reforms for several reasons. There’s huge work that was put in by te ao Māori, particularly iwi analysts. We have tried to improve legislation and make it as strong as possible from a tangata whenua perspective. There’s nothing to be fearful of there. There’s still massive gaps and weaknesses, and this repeal means that all that work done last term has gone to waste. The deficiencies with the original RMA will remain. So we’ve gone round and round in circles. In some ways, the reforms were worse, particularly from an environmental protections standpoint. But what we have, effectively, is an area where the setting environmental limits that prevent ecosystems degrading from their current states will continue. So, regardless, Te Pāti Māori - led resource management law would look significantly different to the original RMA and the 2023 reforms. What we tend to be focused on is tangata whenua ownership, management of natural resources, and strong environmental practices and protections. Kia ora rā.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. At the end of the day, we are all endeavouring to get legislation that allows us to use our natural environment in a way that does not adversely affect the air, the land, the fresh water, or the coastal environs that we all enjoy daily. We are wanting an environment that allows people and entities to be able to get on with it, to get on with their developments in a timely fashion, while having appropriate community engagement.

Having projects that take eight years to consent and only two years to build is absolutely ridiculous. If we don’t repeal the newly enacted regime, it will only get worse. That’s not just my words, that’s the words also of professionals that work with this on a daily basis. They call it a dog’s breakfast. We need to get back to the former Resource Management Act (RMA) and start again with a process that will produce the outcomes that we all seek in a timely fashion. I commend this bill to the House.

This is a day where New Zealand is once again being taken backwards by the National Party and its coalition partners in Government.

What we see here is a very clear case of a Government that is putting ideology ahead of tackling the problems that New Zealand faces. Now, there sometimes are things that members in this Parliament can agree on. One of those is that the Resource Management Act (RMA) was broken, and that the RMA needed fixing. That’s why, over the last term of Government, substantial and significant work was undertaken. This wasn’t about a Government doing what we are seeing from this Government today—ramming something through, under urgency, all stages, no regulatory impact statement (RIS), no chance for the public to have a say. Instead, the Environment Committee of the last Parliament heard over 3,000 submissions; 3,000 members of the public fronted up and told the Parliament what their wishes were. That is the basis of the legislation, and 94 percent of those submitters supported the reforms that were in front of them. Substantial work was done with iwi, substantial work was done with stakeholders everywhere, because it was broken and it needed fixing.

What we are seeing today is a retreat back to bureaucratic red tape that will mean that we cannot build the houses and the infrastructure and protect our natural environment in the ways that we need to. That is a shameful stain on this Government in its first weeks of power.

The RMA was first introduced and made into law in New Zealand in 1991. It is fair to say the world has changed, particularly in the way that we need to protect our environment, and the way we need to ensure that we are allowing activities that we need to occur in our country to occur. We need to take into account water quality, we need to take into account climate change. These are things that people were not thinking of when they drafted that legislation in 1991. Of course, 1991 was when the world first saw the emergence of the World Wide Web—in January of that year. It was the year after the end of the Cold War, and it was when grunge was only starting to emerge as a strange new sound. The world has changed a lot since 1991, and what we need is legislation that reflects it. What we are repealing today is legislation that was fit for purpose for 21st century New Zealand; legislation that had the ability to not only protect our environment but also take us forward as a country in the ways that we needed to, in a way that respected the rights of iwi, and the ways in which we could do that as a modern nation.

That is what this Government is repealing. What are they doing? They’re saying, “We’re going to take you backwards, but we have absolutely no idea what we’re going to put in its place. We are so bereft of ideas, not only did we spend nine years last time that we were in Government”—from the National Party—“trying to reform the RMA and failing at every step, we’re now coming to this House, under urgency, all stages, no RIS, no chance for the public to have a say”—

💬 Hon Peeni Henare: No vision.

Absolutely right. My colleague the Hon Peeni Henare is absolutely correct. They are coming to this House with no vision. They’re saying, “We’re going to repeal it. Yeah, we got no plans. We got no vision. We have no idea. We had no idea last time we were in Government and we certainly have no idea when we’re in Government again.”

So there are a lot of questions that need to be asked over the course and passage of this legislation under urgency, because not only is it all stages under urgency—no select committee stage—but the substance of the bill is included in schedules of the Act. We will have a lot of questions to ask about each and every item in the schedule of the Act, because that is what the purpose of this Parliament is for.

This is a step backwards for New Zealand, it is a step backwards for our environment, and it is a step backwards for creating the houses and the infrastructure that 21st century New Zealand needs. I look forward to members on the opposite benches getting to their feet, telling us what they plan to do, and showing New Zealand, for once, whether or not they have a vision, and I fear the answer is no.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I speak in support of the repeal of the legislation. It’s overly complex and will undoubtedly add another further burden to businesses struggling to get ahead.

I find that it’s absolutely staggering that the Labour Government managed to introduce even more bureaucracy to a system already overburdened with bureaucracy, red tape, and weight. Even more red tape will strangle provincial electorates like the Wairarapa electorate, and I know that businesses in the Wairarapa electorate will be delighted that this red tape will be removed and that this Government will introduce new resource management legislation by the end of the term that will be far more amenable to progress. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Thank you very much for the opportunity to stand and speak in the first reading of the Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Bill.

I was heartened by the contribution made by my colleague the Hon Dr Megan Woods. I reflect back to 1991 when an 11-year-old Peeni Henare watched the All Blacks lose to Australia in the Rugby World Cup, an 11-year-old Peeni Henare watched the Kiwis beat the Kangaroos in Melbourne for the first time ever, and a young 11-year-old was preparing to go into the form 2 class of one Hon Kelvin Davis. That was a long time ago, and by God has the world changed—and thankfully so.

What we’ve seen in the time since the Resource Management Act (RMA) is a clear agreement in this country that it wasn’t fit for purpose, that it did not work, that despite the good intentions in the original RMA bill, it did not work. Multiple Governments over that time have tried to make changes to the RMA. Many have tried and many have failed.

Under the past Labour Government, we were able to make sure that not only did we have a piece of legislation considered by the House but, more importantly, that piece of legislation was consulted on broadly and right across this country. We spoke to experts, we spoke to the people who will directly be impacted by the RMA, we spoke to iwi, we spoke to hapū. We made sure that all of this country’s voices were heard on the work done on the repeal of the RMA under the Labour Government and the establishment of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act.

I’m really disheartened that this particular Government has come here today having not consulted with any of them. What I know we’ll hear from the other side of the House is, “Oh, well, we were given a mandate at the election.” But that doesn’t mean that they’ve been out to consult with iwi—and many on that side of the House I’ve heard speak on the Treaty settlement bills in this House and say how good it is that now iwi find a seat at the table, that iwi will have a voice in local government and central government.

Now, we will be putting the acid on this Government to make sure that those particular pieces of legislation are upheld; that the intent and the spirit in which Māori and hapū in particular have approached these particular pieces of legislation are upheld. We will be putting the acid on this Government to make sure that all of the voices are heard in this particular process. It’s important because, as my colleague has already mentioned, there is no vision. We’ve only been told that they’ll repeal it and then we’ll look towards seeing what we have to do then. They don’t know the size of the undertaking that’s required for something so significant.

I look across the other side of the House and I see the member for Tukituki. The Havelock North inquiry into drinking water that took place and actually cost lives in this country was a big part of making sure that when we look towards the resource management in this country, we have a bill and a piece of legislation that actually looks after the interests of our people. What’s happening here is the repeal of a hard-fought piece of legislation that makes sure that the good whānau in Havelock North, in Tukituki and whānau right across this country know that the resource management in their area is done to a standard that they deserve, and that their interests are also considered at the same time as the commercial interests that are driving this particular bill.

💬 Tom Rutherford: Come back to the bill.

And while that member might sit there and yell, “Come back to the bill”, I’m going to be telling that member we’ll be putting the acid on him to make sure that all of the repeal that’s been put through, in this particular instance, is going to be run through the wringer by this Opposition. We are strong and clear on knowing what our people want out there.

My final bit to this contribution is to say it’s quite easy when you look towards such a rushed piece of work. All you do is follow the money and you’ll follow where the money leads to. It leads to a Government that is, purely on ideology, repealing a piece of legislation that actually was hard-fought for by this entire country. I will be sure—

💬 Simon Court: No, it wasn’t. It was overwhelmingly rejected.

I will be sure to, for the benefit of Mr Court here, because I know in the last term of this Parliament, he stood here and begged for tikanga lessons from this House. Well, he’s going to get one today when we go through this bill, and I encourage him to stay here, and all the members on that side, while we run this particular bill through the legislation wringer and ensure that the voices of our people are heard. Mr Speaker, thank you.

This bill is set down for second reading immediately.