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

Members, the House is in committee on the Resource Management (Natural and Built Environment and Spatial Planning Repeal and Interim Fast-track Consenting) Bill. We start with the debate on Part 1.

Point of order. Mr Chair, if I may, I’d like to draw your attention to Standing Order 310, which states that the purpose of a committee stage is to determine whether the bill as returned from the second reading expresses the objects and principles of the bill—it’s not actually to have a policy debate, it’s to decide whether the text returned from the second reading will achieve what was agreed to. And I just wonder if you might bear that in mind in concurrence with Standing Order 112 about relevancy, because we could spend a huge amount of time with people trying to prove a point, but it’s not clear what they’ve proved other than used up a lot of Parliament’s valuable time.

Speaking to the point of order. Mr Chair, obviously this bill is proceeding under urgency; there’s been no select committee stage, and for that reason I would expect there to be more scrutiny during the committee stage of each part of this bill than there would for a bill that was passing not under urgency, that had had a normal select committee.

Speaking to that—I can see why the member might wish to say that, but there’s actually no authority and she can’t quote one to support why that is a relevant matter.

Mr Chair, I find it extraordinary that a point of order would be made questioning the content and contributions at this stage before anything had been made. I’m sure you in your capacity are more than able to judge relevancy and whether or not it is compliant with Standing Orders.

Thank you to members for all their contributions. I do hear what members opposite are saying in terms of there being no select committee process and the real important need to scrutinise the bill and also hear from Government members, as well as the need for relevancy and for us to focus on part to part. I guess the role of the Chair here is to make sure that we strike that balance, and we can do that by starting to listen to some of the contributions from members, but just being mindful to members that are critiquing the bill—as returned—to really try to focus on the specific parts as well. Thank you. OK, Part 1, debate on clauses 3 and 4—Preliminary provisions—and Schedule 1. The question is that Part 1 start part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Following on from that little point of order discussion, I do want to note, of course, that we don’t have a regulatory impact statement and we haven’t had the select committee process. I heard the Minister say earlier that everything has been traversed already when we went through the process with the bills that then became Acts that are now being repealed. So I am hopeful that the Minister will take an approach that I think has been different from some of his colleagues and answers a lot of our questions, Mr Bishop, because that will add to the flow, and I am encouraging of that so that of course we are earnest with our relevancy and seek to go through the bill quite carefully.

I say that for a number of reasons: one is I have written to the Minister today stating our position, which is of course it would be best not to be here at all today discussing the repeal of the bills and that if there are particular concerns that the Government has, that it would be better to do some legislation to pause the commencement of the new legislation whilst it was reviewed. So that remains our position, but in that spirit, I will ask some questions, and I would like a response from the Minister about his plan for how he wants to deal with this committee stage, given that the bill has only got two parts and it has got two schedules. There are some very small things that we could raise—so, for instance, there seems to be a drafting stylistic—[Interruption] Look, sorry—there is a lot of interjections in this House, and I’ve experienced this last week as well. We are here in good faith trying to work out what these issues are, and we have a point of order that speeches are not to Mr Seymour’s liking—we are entitled to make these speeches. But my point is, this has not gone through a select committee process. It is always a complicated—

💬 David Seymour: It’s gone through an election.

Oh, it’s gone through an election. It has not—that is a terrible, frustrating thing. Electors do not vote on the word-for-word of laws, and that is why we have the very good public process, which I thought Mr Seymour was a fan of, that we could go through and have a proper process through select committees, and even if points are in—

💬 Hon David Seymour: Point of order. Mr Chair, the current member’s contribution is exactly what I was concerned about. She’s spent a huge amount of time talking about me and the process and procedure. She still hasn’t asked a single question about whether the bill as returned from the second reading is fit to serve the principles and objects of the bill.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: Speaking to the point of order. Mr Seymour may well be aware that the reason the speaker—the Hon Rachel Brooking—began mentioning Mr Seymour was because he interjected, and his interjection was responded to by the member; that is commonplace in the House. In fact, I’ve seen it in the House extend out debates for a considerable period. Mr Seymour might want to reflect on that.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Just speaking to this point of order—we have to keep these interjections down so that we can actually hear the contributions from members. I note there’s a lot of amendments here that will form parts of our discussion.

Thank you, Mr Chair. So my point that I was trying to make is that there are some small issues—there are drafting issues, for instance, whereby a clause is referred to as a clause rather than a section in the bill, where normally past Parliamentary Counsel Office drafting is to refer to a section rather than a clause, I can give some examples of that. Then there are some substantial matters, so that includes “the fast tracking is to continue.”, and so I think it is important that we drill down into what is being extended, what is being continued in that fast tracking. I’ve heard comments in various different speeches in the second reading that there will be some extension to fast tracking to include mining—so that goes to the definition of what is an eligible activity.

Then, of course, a lot of the schedules to the bill are very boring, and they are simple straightforward replacements of names of Acts. I have no intention of focusing on those, but then there’s also some things where it’s unclear what the change is. We have only just seen this bill today, so I think it would be useful—and I’m interested in the Minister’s response. This is the question: how the Minister intends to respond to this proceeding, this committee stage—it would be good to be able to go through those changes where we don’t have all the bits of legislation in front of us to see what has changed or not.

Then there are some important changes that would be easy to miss—so we have at page 105 of my version of bill that section 80A—the date changes from 2024 to 2027 and that’s in relation to the National Policy Statement on Freshwater Management. So there’s a range of things that we can consider, some I think we should spend some detail in, and I’m interested in how the Minister intended to proceed in the committee stage.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. To take the member’s somewhat convoluted questions in turn: how do I propose to deal with the committee stage? Well, I propose to deal with the committee stage in the same way that other Ministers deal with committee stages. The House is in committee; members will ask questions; I will attempt to answer them; and we will work our way through the bill.

In relation to what the member says around the simplicity of the bill, she is right. It is actually a relatively simple and straightforward bill. Despite what members may have said in the earlier parts of the debate, what we are doing is, basically, going back to what the status quo was prior to the passage of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act, which only happened three or four months ago. In fact, there are members in the committee right now who were integral to the passage of that. So we all know about what happened three or four months ago. What we are doing is unpicking that, because, at the election, the Government sought a mandate to repeal both Acts, and we are now proceeding to implement that mandate. So the bill is quite a simple bill, basically. It repeals both Acts. It puts in place a range of saving mechanisms where that is necessary and appropriate—most notably in relation to the fast track, which the member mentioned as well. We are saving, for people to use, the fast-track mechanism that the previous Government put in place.

In relation to the member’s final question about the extension of time for fresh water, that’s a very simple change. It’s as advertised: 31 December 2024 was the status quo; if this bill proceeds through the committee of the whole House and third reading, the new deadline for regional councils will be 31 December 2027. So it’s just a three-year extension and the Government’s made its policy intention in relation to that clear, and there will be more to say about that in due course. But this is just part one of our changes to freshwater management.

Thank you, Mr Chairman. I have some questions that further go into what the Minister has just alluded to in that answer around the transitional arrangements, specifically the fast-track consenting processes in clause 8 that are laid out there. The Minister actually referred to some of this in an earlier reading speech around renewable energy.

I have a very simple question for the Minister. He said in an earlier statement that a wind farm in Wellington—Mākara—took eight years to consent. I’m interested to know what he means by that. Does he mean from time of lodgment of the consent? Does he mean time of appeal in the Environment Court? What is the process he is describing? This is a pertinent question because this goes—

💬 Hon David Seymour: Which part is this in, Mr Chair?

It’s Part 1, Mr Seymour, as in terms of the transitional provisions and the fast-track consenting process in Schedule 1 of the Act, which pertains to Part 1 of the bill.

The problem definition that National and the Government are using around this is: “One of the reasons we have to repeal this legislation is because there is going to be too much bureaucratic red tape, so what we’re going to do is we’re going to repeal the thing that you put in place to speed up consenting infrastructure projects and go back to the thing that, actually, we’re arguing held things back, but we’ll just keep your fast-track stuff in place.”

So, specifically the wind farm the Minister mentioned in an earlier contribution, I’d just like some detail around that. Thank you.

Thank you to the member for that very good question. The wind farm that we’re talking about is the one at Mākara, it’s Meridian’s West Wind facility. From memory, it’s 143 megawatts and it, from memory, went through resource consent from 2000 to 2007, it opened in 2008—in fact, the Rt Hon John Key opened it, which I think was a source of much chagrin for the prior Labour Government, which was a strong supporter of the wind farm. But that is a reflection of the quite convoluted resource management processes that apply to renewable energy, and that certainly was the case back in 2000 to 2007. I acknowledge that there have been process improvements made to—

💬 Hon Julie Anne Genter: 2000 to 2008, that’s the RMA.

Yeah, exactly. And if you listen to what I’m saying, I will acknowledge that there have been process improvements to consenting since then, including by the last National Government. When it comes to renewable energy, we need to go further and faster, which is why this Government’s committed to updating a national policy statement on renewable electricity generation. I acknowledge the work of the prior Labour Government, who had done some initial work on that. We intend to use that and have our own national policy statement on renewable electricity generation.

In relation to why we are keeping fast track, I think that the member has, essentially, answered it for herself, which is that we want to develop our own fast-track consenting regime, but we were faced—as I said in the first reading, I think it was—with a dilemma where if we repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA) and the Spatial Planning Act without the development and the passage of our own fast-track regime, we will be left in a situation where there wouldn’t be fast track at all. So the simplest thing seemed to be to just save what had been created through the NBA. So with the exception of, as I say, the fast-track consenting regime and a range of other minor technical matters, we are, essentially, repealing all of the NBA but saving the fast track.

Thank you, Mr Chair. My question is to the Minister responsible for Resource Management Act reform. I’m concerned that scrapping the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act, together with the rest of the Government’s work programme puts us on a fast track towards climate chaos, rather than wellbeing for people and planet. I’m concerned that we’ll see destruction of the environment through oil and gas exploration, along with destruction of laws, such as this action to repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act.

The Minister has asserted, I think, that we don’t need improved natural and built environment plans to regulate the way in which the regions’ resources will be managed or how environmental limits and targets will be set locally or how to enable infrastructure and development or how to resolve conflicts between outcomes, because the assertion is that the repeal will allow the fast tracking of renewables and just get on with it.

So cancelling the Natural and Built Environment Act and Spatial Planning Act, whose purposes were to improve the workability and speed of resource consenting and to enable good decision making, is more like a ram raid on our Public Service, because we’ve spent six years of intense work by hundreds of staff; thousands of submissions by iwi, hapū, and numerous stakeholders; and a quarter of a billion dollars—that’s all going down the drain as we take yet another leap backwards towards an out-of-date Resource Management Act. It seems like destruction and a waste.

At the same time, the Government of National, ACT, and New Zealand First is sending a signal to the market that electrification of the economy is off the menu, because we’re going to have dependence on oil and gas and the volatile Middle East renewables continuing into the never-never by ending the Clean Car Discount or cutting off funding for active public transport, getting rid of the Government Investment in Decarbonising Industry Fund, and opening up oil and gas here.

So the promise of the fast-track provision isn’t any help when demand is being killed off. I’m concerned that the Government is offering us more Ford Ranger utes and continuation of a dirty industry, rather than respect for our rivers and our taiao. So many wind farms are already consented and are not being built and there are issues with our consenting regimes. The bigger question is an opaque market structure.

I’ve heard the member suggest that I need to understand the market a bit better, and I agree. I’ve been an adviser to the Electricity Authority and I’ve sat on the Innovation and Participation Advisory Group at the Electricity Authority, and I know I need to know a lot more. But I also ran New Zealand’s first peer-to-peer electricity retail for two years, and like so many attempts to challenge the status quo, we couldn’t break the stranglehold of the big four gen-tailers over the market, which they used to kill off competition.

So I’d like the Minister to address the real problem. It is not the need to fast track renewables. Why change a law we’ve already got, to establish something that already exists?

Will the Minister commit to reform of the electricity market, to get off his high horse, to challenge a sensible regime, and do something useful and open up the market so we can have real, real competition?

Well, I thank the member for those spirited remarks—somewhat away from the bill, but fair enough, I will attempt to deal with them. Let me take them in reverse order.

On the electrification, the member asserted that the Government was opposed to, or making electrification of the economy harder. Quite the contrary: we have very bold and ambitious targets around the electrification of the economy because New Zealand’s great comparative advantage is that we have plenty of wind and we have plenty of water and, you know, sometimes we have plenty of sun. Actually, the real issue is how we design a planning system that takes advantage of our abundant renewable resources mixed with our equally abundant non-renewable resources—which we are going to need in the future as we transition to that renewable future.

So we are very focused on that and I’ve already made mention of our plans around updating the national policy statement for renewable electricity. There’s a range of work we need to do around transmission and distribution as well. We’ve also committed, through various agreements, to an electric vehicle charging network to supercharge the ability for people to transition to electric vehicles. Happy to talk to the—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Well, this has gone wide.

What’s that?

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: This has gone wide.

Well, I’m just answering the questions.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Thank you, Minister.

I’m not sure that helps you.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: Oh, it does!

I mean, I’m actually rebutting—OK, well, that’s your view.

Secondly, on the cost: yeah, a lot of time and money has been spent on it. I acknowledge that right up front. But, you know, it’s classic sunk cost fallacy. I mean, this is where the last Government got into with the Inter-island Resilience Connection deal—just chucking good money after a failing project in the vague hope that it would be successful.

On the first point, the member asserted that the intention of the Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA) that we’re repealing was to make things more workable and to improve speed and enable quicker decision making. Yes, that was the intention of the bill, but just because that’s the intention of something doesn’t mean that that is the reality of something. I sat through the select committee process, I’ve talked to a range of experts in the planning and infrastructure space alongside the renewable energy space, and there’s very few people out there who would tell you that the NBA will be an improvement. In fact, most experts say it will do the opposite: it will make things more difficult; it will make life more complex, more complicated; and make it harder to get things done.

So yep, the intention of the bill was sound. Most bills that Parliament passes have a good intention. But, you know, as Milton Friedman used to say: you should judge policies by their results, not by their intention, because Government spends a lot of time doing well-intentioned things. Intention is not the point; results matter. Thank you.

Thank you. Members, just as a reminder—and I do note the enthusiasm in the room and also with the Minister as well—that we’re on the debate on Part 1: clauses 3 and 4, “Preliminary provisions”; and Schedule 1.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Again, I want to reiterate the difficulty in relation to this bill and I am just a lowly tax lawyer; I’m not a Resource Management Act (RMA) lawyer like some of my esteemed colleagues on this side of the House, or advisers to the Energy Efficiency & Conservation Authority.

But, actually, one of the important things which was not included, as the Minister knows, because of a Cabinet Office directive, which is not to have a regulatory impact statement. So putting that aside, in order to look at the evidence base as to whether this bill, which is repealing some very important Acts which have only had four months actually in progress, you look to, then, the departmental disclosure statement. I’ve had a lot of experience with departmental disclosure statements. Actually, I was the very first official who did the very first departmental disclosure statement under Jonathan Ayling of the Treasury, and that was for a tax bill—actually was called the foreign tax bill.

But anyway, looking to 2.3 of the departmental disclosure statement, it actually—and I’m not too sure whether this is the right part, but I’m going to speak to it in this part because Part 1 has the transitionary rules—and: “The extension of the deadline for councils [not] to notify freshwater planning instruments is not covered by the 100-day exemption … due to time constraints, a RIS was not developed” for this particular bill that we’re taking through.

“Instead, the Treasury and the Ministry for the Environment have agreed that decisions to change the deadline will be subject to post-implementation assessment in line with other 100-day plan initiatives, and when Cabinet makes further decisions relating to commitments to replace the National Policy Statement (NPS) for Freshwater Management.”

So my very specific question and short contribution to the Minister is: when will that post-implementation occur? Who will be involved? Will that information be made public? And when can this House—given that we don’t have a select committee process; we are repealing this Act under urgency—expect some transparency in relation to the repeal of this bill and in relation to that NPS of freshwater management?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just a further call. One of the things that the Minister mentioned in his last contribution when I asked him a question—or it may have been in response to another member—was the work on the national policy statement (NPS) renewable energy. I have some questions for how the NPS renewable energy intersects with the transitional arrangements that will be laid out, specifically the fast tracking laid out in Schedule 1.

What I’d like to know from the Minister is: is the NPS renewable energy that he said his Government has started—does that mean they are not continuing with the work the previous Government had done when, indeed, an NPS renewable energy had been released for consultation? Is the Government starting that work again, or is it a continuation of the work that our Government started many, many months ago?

The other thing I’m interested to know from the Minister, further to the answers he said he believed that Mākara had been applied for in 2000. I’d like to ask the Minister what was applied for in 2000, and who was it applied to? Is he referring to the resource consent to Wellington City Council? I’d just like some more clarity, because one of the problem definitions that both this Minister and the Prime Minister himself have been using is the example of Mākara taking eight years to consent. So I think given that we’re in urgency, I’d like some clarity around exactly what was applied for in 2000, to who, and was that the Wellington City Council consent?

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to contribute to this debate, and congratulations to the Minister in his new role. There are a number of amendments in my name to Part 1—seven, actually—and to be economical with my time, I’ll be talking about four in this contribution that relate to ngā Mana Whakahono ā Rohe agreements. The House will find those in clause—they are amended by clause 3 of the amendment bill, but they are in clause 11 of Schedule 1.

So it would be useful, I think, if I quickly give the House the context of what this clause 11 does. This means that for those hapū that have entered into a process for agreeing Mana Whakahono agreements in any given region, this provides a transitional arrangement for them to continue with those arrangements as if they were an iwi authority. Now, the House finds itself in some trouble with this—particularly with those agreements where hapū have entered into them with their regional authority but they cannot, for some other legal reason, be treated as an iwi authority. I have some amendments that will help the Minister to get past this hurdle, and I hope he’ll consider them when we come to the vote.

The first that I want to speak about is, say, the transitional arrangement of the Mana Whakahono ā Rohe under Part 3 of the Natural and Built Environment Act 2023 entered into by Poutini Ngāi Tahu. That agreement itself was signed on 22 October, but it represents the first in a number of processes for the other rūnanga, rūnaka of Ngāi Tahu to enter into regional agreements within their rohe. Because, Mr Chair, you’ll appreciate that for an iwi the size of Ngāi Tahu, their iwi catchment area is almost the whole of Te Waipounamu, but they have a number—13, I believe—of rūnaka, rūnanga that have primacy than their own regional area.

Now, they are called rūnaka—you might think of them as hapū and for the effect of this bill, they are being treated as hapū. But this provision in the amendment bill, as proposed, would see them being treated as iwi authorities. They are not iwi authorities. They should not be treated as iwi authorities for the purposes of the Resource Management Act (RMA) because they are not an iwi authority. The iwi authority in Te Waipounamu—for the purposes of the area of the south of the South Island, excluding the top of the south and those iwi that claim primacy in that area—is te iwi o Ngāi Tahu. They have their own constitutional arrangement to share power between the iwi and those rūnaka, and it would be inappropriate for them to gain the status of iwi in this situation.

It’s worth spending a little bit of time in the context for this. Those rūnaka and the Poutini Ngāi Tahu rūnaka that entered into those arrangements had the blessing of te iwi o Ngāi Tahu. Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu kaiwhakahaere, Lisa Tumahai commented, on 23 October, that this agreement was the logical next step in developing the relationship: “When we think about our history as [an] iwi, it has been quite a journey to get to a position of working with the council in a true sense of partnership. The work we have all done in the past five years, having been on council, we have made big steps forward from the past, and it reflects our growing maturity as iwi [in the] post-settlement [context].” What she’s saying there is that there was an agreement between the iwi and what we would see is for the hapū to lead out with the council in this area. It’s inappropriate for them to take on the role of the iwi, but the iwi came to an arrangement with the hapū that they could share that role.

What I want to know from the Minister is: will he consider my amendment to maintain the Poutini Ngāi Tahu agreement that was signed on 22 November in the primary legislation, which is what my amendment would do, and then to explain to the Chamber how he will give effect to those other rūnaka-level arrangements that will be entered into by the other rūnaka of Ngāi Tahu.

I would also like the Minister to answer two specific questions for the Chamber before I explain my other amendments related to Mana Whakahono agreements. The first question is: which hapū have started the Mana Whakahono ā Rohe process but are not completed? The second question is: the hapū of Ngā Puhi do not have the ability to act as an iwi authority and should not be treated as an iwi authority for the purposes of the Resource Management Act; how will the Minister deal with ngā hapū o Ngā Puhi who have entered into or intend to enter into a process for Mana Whakahono arrangements?

Tēnā koe Mr Chair, tēnā koutou e te Whare. I had a question for the Minister directly related to his previous contribution, I think, which was he mentioned that all the experts were saying that this new legislation was going to be more costly or create more problems than the previous Resource Management Act (RMA), and I was just wondering if he could cite all of the experts he’s referring to, or any of the experts he’s referring to. It’d be interesting to know which experts the Government is listening to, and to have a good sense of how many experts are of this view.

I found it interesting that the comments on the amount of time it takes to consent a wind farm—we’re referring to a specific example from 2000 to 2008. So now we’re talking nearly 20 years ago and that was under the RMA. So, of course, not under the legislation that’s being repealed today, but rather under the legislation that we’re now going back to and we’re going to have to take a whole—I would presume the Government’s going to have to take a lot more time to come up with the work that’s going to enable renewable electricity to be consented at a faster rate.

My second question for the Minister relates to the Spatial Planning Act and whether the Minister sees any use in having spatial planning to inform the overall approach to infrastructure and land use or whether that’s something that the Government is completely rejecting and won’t be making use of. Interestingly, in this bill itself, in Schedule 2—I know we’re on Schedule 1—it is the case that under the Auckland super-city legislation, Auckland was required to develop a spatial plan, and my understanding of the Spatial Planning Act, which is being repealed by this legislation, is that it was taking a similar approach. So of course, in this repeal bill we are still retaining spatial planning for Auckland, and that bill was passed under a National-ACT Government. So why is it that the new National-ACT Government is rejecting spatial planning as a whole when it’s clearly needed to have joined up land use and infrastructure?

I guess I’m really struggling to understand why spatial planning is being retained for the Auckland super-city but not being used for the rest of the country when it’s very clear that whether we’re talking about transmission lines or transport infrastructure and urban development, one of the biggest opportunities for Aotearoa New Zealand is to have a more joined up approach to infrastructure and land use, and that the Spatial Planning Act that’s being repealed by this bill would have enabled that to happen in a more proactive way.

My final question for the Minister is just about how long he thinks it will take to develop the national guidance for things like renewable electricity generation, like the wind farms that have, you know, been such a focus of the Government in terms of arguing for fast tracking, and yet I suspect that it won’t just be renewable electricity generation and transmission that is being fast tracked, but we’ll see a whole lot of other developments fast tracked, which will probably have a counterproductive impact on our overall carbon emissions. The Minister might remember that, actually, of our total energy emissions, most of them aren’t from electricity, it’s largely from transport fuels and—

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: And industrial process heat.

—and industrial process heat. But transport fuels play a huge role—far outweighs electricity in terms of the percentage of energy that is resulting in carbon emissions.

So if the Government is using the fast-tracking legislation to fast track highways to new suburban developments, which is the most costly, most counterproductive type of transport, infrastructure, and urban development because it’s the highest overall infrastructure cost from a water-transport point of view, locks in households to very high personal transport costs and high emissions, especially when they don’t have electric vehicles—which most New Zealanders don’t have electric vehicles.

So question for the Minister: is the fast tracking going to be directed towards things that actually reduce carbon emissions or is it just fast tracking of all infrastructure?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Let me deal with the range of contributions by members, some relevant, some not so much. Let me go in reverse order from the Hon Julie Anne Genter. Which experts? Well, I invite her to go and read the submissions to the select committee. There was a range of select committee submissions from various city councils, renewable energy generators, infrastructure planning experts, planning experts—there’s a whole range of them. The select committee reports are publicly available, as are the submissions.

On her second question about spatial planning generally. Yes, this Government is interested in spatial planning for the reasons that the member neatly articulates. But I think it’s important we take a coherent approach to it. The last Government’s approach was incoherent in the sense that the Spatial Planning Act was being advanced at the same time as the Government was engaged in quite complex and ever-changing three waters changes, alongside the Future for Local Government reform which put the local government sector into a spin. So it’s not that I’m opposed or we’re opposed to spatial planning—I actually think there is a pathway forward there and I look forward to future conversations around that. In relation to fast track, the member will just have to wait and see the bill as we develop it. We are saving, as has already been noted, the existing fast track in the Natural and Built Environment Act.

Going back to the comments from Arena Williams. Thank you for those remarks. I’m advised that in relation to clause 11 of Mana Whakahono ā Rohe, none have been lodged and so there is nothing that has started that this Act stops. So there is nothing in that sense to protect. It’s just that the bill is essentially a belt and braces approach to say that if one was lodged then it would just be treated as if the Resource Management Act (RMA) in 1991 applied. So it’s just to preserve that ability—

💬 Arena Williams: When you need an amendment, I can help.

I’m happy to have a look—happy to have a look at the amendment. No guarantees we’ll support it, but happy to have a look in the spirit of good faith. It is important that we preserve Treaty settlements. That is a Government commitment. That is something that we are committed to and that is why we are going—we are just repealing what has been passed and going back to the RMA as it was basically four months ago. With the exception of saving the fast track in the Natural and Built Environment Act, there’s no intention to change any arrangements around that. Happy to look at the amendment from the member.

In relation to the Hon Megan Woods’ question about the national policy statement on renewable electricity generation—somewhat away from the bill, but, yes, we will have a look at the consultation material put out by the prior Government earlier in 2023. We are going through policy work on that right now, but acknowledge that the outgoing Government was also interested in advancing a national policy statement on renewables.

In relation to Meridian and West Wind, I don’t have that information. Frankly, I don’t consider it a great use of officials’ time to go away and find that in the short term. It is literally nothing to do with the bill.

💬 Hon Dr Megan Woods: You and the Prime Minister have been talking about it ad infinitum.

Yeah, yeah, well, that’s right. It’s a great project and it took too long to develop, but it’s not really relevant to the bill.

In relation to the Hon Barbara Edmonds’ questions in relation to the departmental disclosure statement, she said, “When will the post-implementation review be complete?” The answer is next year. Who will be doing it? It will be the Ministry for the Environment and the Treasury, I’m advised. And when will it be made public? Next year.

Thank you very much. I thank the Minister responsible for RMA Reform for the answers to those questions. One of the things that I’m interested in in terms of the transitional provisions that we’re talking about under Part 1 of this bill, and particularly as they pertain to renewable energy, is that the Minister has indicated that this Government is eager to keep in place the fast-track provisions that the previous Government instituted. I can see why: under that scheme, nine solar projects were consented that were three times the output of the Clyde Dam. We have similar kinds of statistics for wind projects. So we can see that, actually, in terms of the problem definition and why the Government is using as a basis for why we’re here today that it takes too long to consent renewable energy as one of the key talking points, both the Minister—and, as I’ve indicated, both in substantive contributions and in heckles across the Chamber—and the Prime Minister use this as the basis of their problem definition, and particularly how long a particular wind farm in Wellington took to consent.

While the Prime Minister and the Minister consistently say eight years, why I have been asking questions is that is simply incorrect. The wind farm that the Minister is talking about and the Prime Minister has been talking about took three years. It took three years from the time that the consent was lodged with the Wellington City Council. This is one of the problems with rushing legislation like this. If the very basis of the problem that both the Minister and the Prime Minister are putting up is the reason why we are here the week before Christmas repealing substantive legislation and they can’t even get the basic facts right, I think it speaks something to the speed at which this Government is going.

But I do have a substantive question around the transitional provisions, and what it is is that the fast-track consents are going to be kept in place. The Minister’s party has talked about wanting to increase to 35-year consent periods, and I wonder whether it is the intention of the Minister, when further changes are made and these transitional provisions are carried over, to institute 35-year consents for renewable energy. And, if that is the case, what advice and thought the Minister has already taken or will be taking to how it is that we can avoid people basically sitting on consents to block competitor behaviour, in fact stifling the build-out of the renewable generation—“lose it or use it” clauses, if you like. One of the problems, of course, that we have when it comes to things like wind energy is that we have many more projects consented than have been built that are sitting there and not built by the electricity sector.

So, in terms of those transitional provisions that are in Schedule 1 of the bill, I’d like to know what thought the Minister is likely to give so that we do not create what I do believe would be an unintended consequence in terms of stifling the ability to build out.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to follow on from that excellent presentation from the Hon Megan Woods. Four years—four years—I worked on trying to build New Zealand’s first community wind farm, so I have some sympathy with the idea about fast tracking wind in particular. I was looking forward to the Natural and Built Environment Act for the concise direction that it would give local government, who are often unskilled, don’t have the expertise, don’t know how to deal with consents, and would like some clarity and direction.

I do think back to 2010 when the National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation was subject to a board of inquiry and then submitted to the then National Government with a recommendation that a national environmental standard accompany it to give clarity for renewable generation. That recommendation was not adopted, and as a consequence wind farms that could have been built to provide resilience for out-of-the-way communities have not been built. As a consequence, the wind farm that I was trying to build lost $500,000—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Come back to the bill.

—in trying to get through a consenting process that you want us to return to.

I’m really interested in what the Government can do to enable renewables, but let’s look at what’s been thrown out. What’s been thrown out is a focus on working towards positive outcomes rather than avoiding, remedying, and mitigating adverse effects, which has allowed cumulative impacts. That’s been thrown out. Another thing that’s been thrown out is a stronger approach to environmental limits and enabling development within limits through the outcome around ecological integrity. That’s been thrown out. Another thing that’s been thrown out is reducing the risk from natural hazards and climate change and increasing resilience. That’s been thrown out. Another thing that should interest anyone who cares about rural issues—for goodness’ sake!—is the protection of high-quality rural land and elite soils from urban sprawl, which National wants to do. That’s been thrown out.

So I have some real concerns about what you’re doing here, and I also really challenge the underlying idea that we can’t build because we don’t have the structure.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Come back to the bill, please, Mr Willis.

Look at the Kawaikawe—sorry, there is a point I’m getting to here, a question that I really do want an answer to—look at all the wind farms, 73 megawatts sitting on, that was given a consent in March 2023; nothing happening. The Puketoi Wind Farm, Mercury—not being built. The Mount Cass—not being built, 93 megawatts, etc. Mahinerangi, quite close to where I live, stage 2 development, up to 164 megawatts—not being built. There are wind farms galore not being built. This is called land banking. It’s blocking the generation; it’s blocking people who want to do it.

The Minister responsible for RMA Reform says he wants to see more renewable electricity generation being built. There is plenty that is not being built. So, look, will the Minister commit to doing something to ensure that renewable electricity gets built? Don’t talk about it; commit to doing it. Will you commit to put a date on when a national environmental standard will be delivered to the House so that we can see farmers who want to decarbonise—and I know quite a few and I work with quite a few—to build small-scale wind, under 10 megawatts? What’s the time frame? I want to see something substantial. I don’t want to hear any more rhetoric; I want to hear something substantial.

I do have to laugh at that last little epithet from the member. We’re now well away from the bill, but let me briefly address the member’s questions. Firstly, the National Policy Statement for Highly Productive Land is issued pursuant to the Resource Management Act; it’s not affected by this repeal bill. There are issues with that, which we’ll get to in due course, but it’s not affected by that.

In relation to the fact that lots of people have consents for wind farms, yes, that’s true, and, you know, I’m happy to have an offline discussion with the member about the way the electricity market works. The member actually sounds like he’s pretty familiar with it; I acknowledge his expertise, but we’ve designed a market where, you know, the generators—

💬 Scott Willis: The market doesn’t work.

Well, the member says that, but we have one of the most renewable electricity systems in the world. We have one of the most affordable electricity systems in the world and one of the most secure. We’ve got to do more, but the market does work, because we’ve designed a system where investors put up their own capital and they put them in a stack and the next cab off the rank when it comes to the economics in the system work. Yes, there’s a bit of a fight over the consents and bit of a fight for the best sites—that’s good. That’s a good thing. What we need to do is make it easier to get the consents so that people can do that. So that deals with that.

In relation to the Hon Megan Woods’ point, I’m advised that the length of consents through the fast track that we are saving is up to the expert consenting panel. In relation to her comment around “Will the Government look at 35-year consents?”, the answer is yes, we will. But that’s not part of this bill, and we will be taking advice and making decisions on that in due course.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to take my first call in Part 1 of the bill. I’ve got two or three questions I want to put to the Minister, and to help him prepare a little bit, it is around clauses 4 through 7 in Schedule 1, around Treaty settlements, and then clause 8 in Schedule 1, on the fast-track consenting process.

But I want to raise a bigger-picture question for the Minister on the subject of transitional arrangements, because this is an unusual bill in many ways in that it will in Part 2 attempt to repeal two Acts, but in Part 1 it wants to keep some of that legislation. The choice about what bits of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act are kept is the question I want to put to the Minister—the big-picture question I want to put to the Minister—because I want to know what consideration the Minister gave to other ways of the transitional provisions working.

For example, while accepting that the Resource Management Act (RMA) is still in force, keeping it that way, suspending the application of the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act to the extent that they are inconsistent with the RMA, retaining the bits—and I want to come back to the question of the Treaty clauses because I don’t think they do exactly what the Minister said before, but why just those and the fast-track consenting process? Why not give some space to the Minister to be able to, effectively, allow him to do this without pulling the whole house down?

I’m going to make a prediction that at a certain point, the Minister is going to be back with a whole lot of clauses that look really similar to the thing that he’s just pulled all down, and what I would suggest to the Minister is that he had an alternative. He had the alternative of actually allowing the system that we’ve created to continue but actually give himself six months, nine months, 18 months to decide whether the bits that he’s now getting rid of work.

So that is the first of my questions to the Minister. It is the extent to which he has considered other options that would actually allow key features of the new system to continue and the RMA exist as it did, rather than have to go through and do this exercise, which I think he’ll end up doing twice.

Moving to the more detailed questions I’ve got; I need an explanation from the Minister as to exactly what clauses 4 through 7 are designed to do when it comes to Treaty settlements. It seems to me on reading this that they are specifically about fast-track consenting and nothing else. I had the great pleasure of chairing 19 meetings of the ministerial oversight group on resource management reform—

💬 Hon Member: You’ll never get those back.

I’m never ever getting those hours back, and I’m sure the Minister may look forward in his future to something similar to that. But in all seriousness, the discussions—and the most intense discussions—during that period were around the way in which planning law affects iwi, hapū, and the Treaty process. It seems to me that clauses 4 through 7—and this is the question that we need answered by the Minister tonight. It is whether this justifies the fast-track consenting, because if it does only apply to fast-track consenting, the problem is much, much bigger for this Government, because the changes that were made to protect and support Treaty settlements and processes that have followed by post-settlement entities—

💬 Simon Court: They’re all preserved—they’re all preserved.

—have been significant. So why are they not in the transitional provisions, Mr Court? Why are they not in the transitional provisions? Why is it just the fast-track consenting clause? I don’t think it is clear to a lot of people, outside of this House, that that’s what it is, because, at the beginning, in the explanatory note, it makes it sound like the whole Treaty settlement process has been protected, but, actually, it hasn’t. It’s just the fast-track consenting process.

Now, Mr Bishop’s going to stand up and tell us that the RMA protects that. Well, no it doesn’t. You can ask any iwi or hapū around New Zealand, and they’ll tell you it doesn’t. There were other changes that could have been brought forward in the transitional provisions.

I want to now come to the fast-track consenting process changes that are also covered by clause 8—[Bell rung] Madam Chair?

I call the Hon Grant Robertson.

💬 Hon GRANT ROBERTSON: Thank you, Madam Chair. I won’t take the whole of this call, because I want other colleagues to have a go.

My other set of questions, then, are around the fast-track consenting process. It’s a similar point to the one that I’ve just been making on clauses 4 to 7. In the explanatory note, on page 3, it says, “Schedule 1”—which we’re debating—“provides … interim arrangements, including … continuing in a modified form the fast-track consenting regime in Schedule 10 of the Natural and Built Environment Act”. Now, if we had a select committee process, this would have been the time at which we would have been able to understand in what way, specifically, is this a modified fast-track consenting process.

Now, I can see, in clause 8(3), a series of modifications. I want the Minister in the Chair, Chris Bishop, to explain to this House in plain English how this fast-track consenting process that will be the result of Part 1, is different from the fast-track consenting process that we saw in the Natural and Built Environment Act. The reason I say that is because a number of members in the Chamber have raised their concerns about what the fast-track consenting process will look like and what will be allowed and facilitated under it. We would know, I suspect, today, if this was a normal committee of the whole House stage, the answer to that question, because we would have had those answers in the select committee process.

So just to reiterate—I know the Minister was getting some advice while I was speaking then—I want to know how this fast-track consenting process is different. The explanatory note tells us it is, clause 8 appears to show how it is, but I don’t see that clearly in this bill, and I need an answer from the Minister on that.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the member Grant Robertson for those good questions. Let me deal with them in turn. In relation to how the Government came to the position that we came to when it comes to going back to the Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA), yes, it is correct we considered a range of options. The advice from officials was the most legally simple way to do it was this bill, which, essentially—it’s a slightly odd legislative vehicle, and I acknowledge that the member’s point around that’s true. The simplest way to do it was to repeal both pieces of legislation and save some specified things—small things, including fast track. The member makes the point that I may well be back here before the House, making a series of amendments to the RMA. That is potentially true. In fact, it’s quite possible. But the point is that will be done in a thorough way by us, and by the Government. It may be that we take some of the changes made through the Natural and Built Environment Act and re-legislate them, and it may be that others fall by the wayside. But we will work through that in due course. So that deals, I think, with the first question.

The second question is in relation to fast track, and the third question was in relation to the—I’m just trying to remember the member’s point. Do you want to remind me what it was, Mr Robertson? I can’t read my notes, do you want to remind me what the second question was?

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: The one about Treaty.

Oh, the Treaty—yeah, yeah, yeah. In relation to the Treaty, the fast-track provisions just make that—so our position is that the RMA upholds various Treaty settlements. I acknowledge the point the member made, that reasonable people could disagree about that. I’ve no doubt that we will work through a robust process around that, as a Government. I’m looking forward to those meetings. So our position is that it does and that it can give effect to those Treaty settlements. The point around clauses 4 through 7 that the member was talking about is to make it very clear, as a result of fast track, that it doesn’t affect Treaty settlements.

In relation to his third question around a modified form of fast track, I’m advised that it isn’t. It is the Natural and Built Environment Act fast track that is being preserved and saved.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Slightly related to that last contribution and discussion about the fast track and what’s included and what’s not, I would like a confirmation from the Minister that clause 14 of Schedule 10 of the Natural and Built Environment Act, which says what the eligible activities are that can be fast tracked, won’t be changed.

I ask that, because we just had Mr Robertson go through and say, “Well, there’s a whole lot here that we don’t necessarily know in plain English what the changes are.” But also there is clause 18, and this appears to be a “King Henry VIII” clause, which is never a good thing. Why I’m particularly worried about it in relation to the fast tracking and what is an eligible activity is because of what we’ve been hearing in the debate today. I would say that the eligible activities at the moment are all very reasonable. But should, say, mining be included in that via a regulation made under clause 18—so amending the primary legislation—then that would be a very big deal indeed. So I would like confirmation from the Minister that that will not happen, and also an explanation of why such a “King Henry VIII” clause is needed in clause 18.

Also, to make the point, that in the departmental disclosure statement at 4.7, it says “Does this Bill create or amend the power to make delegated legislation that could amend an Act, define the meaning of a term in an Act, or grant an exemption from an Act or delegated legislation.” It says “NO”, next to it in the departmental disclosure report, but it very much seems to me, in my reading—and I can see that the Minister will respond to me about clause 18 and the impact and the justification for having a “King Henry VIII” clause.

Thank you very much. Very quickly, in relation to clause 14 and the activities covered by fast track, they are exactly the same as the Natural and Built Environment Act (NBA), I’m advised.

In relation to clause 18, which is the so-called “Henry VIII” clause, I was averted to this by my good friend Dean Knight, now professor of law at Victoria University. I saw his tweet. As members know, I’m an inveterate tweeter—got to get off the old Twitter. But anyway, I saw his—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: You really do.

Yeah, I know; yeah—

💬 Arena Williams: Say more about Dean.

He’s a good guy. I’m sure he’s listening, so this is for you, Dean. It is a “Henry VIII” clause and, as members will know, I don’t like them and if you really cared you could go and look up my various contributions to Parliament over the last nine years. It is a “Henry VIII” clause. It can be used to modify primary legislation.

Interestingly, it was carried over from section 801(1)(m) of the NBA proactively by the drafters. So it turns out it was already there. It is there to manage unintended consequences, I’m advised. Clauses such as these are present in other legislation that relates to health and safety, civil aviation, and trusts. So, basically, the sought point is there was a “Henry VIII” clause in the NBA and it’s just been transferred across to the new bill as clause 18.

Kia ora, Madam Chair, and thank you very much for the opportunity. There were a couple of matters that I thought were left on the table for the Minister to answer. One of those, in particular, was the second part of the question or the second leg of the question by my colleague Arena Williams, and that was about the Mana Whakahono. The Mana Whakahono part talks to those who are iwi authorities who are already engaged or who wish to initiate the engagement.

My question to the Minister, which was alluded to by my colleague, is for the example given by Ngā Puhi for the well over 100 hapū who—

💬 Simon Court: We’ve had this one.

It wasn’t answered, Mr Court. That’s why we’re asking again. The 100 hapū—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: Point of order. I apologise to my colleague for interrupting. There are longstanding provisions in Speakers’ Rulings that members shouldn’t move to improve their position in order to interject, and Mr Court was consistently interjecting through Mr Henare’s contribution from a seat that is definitely not his.

💬 Simon Court: Just responding to the point of order—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I don’t think it’s necessary, Mr Court. Thank you very much.

Madam Chair, thank you very much. It is important, the question about Mana Whakahono and the 100-plus hapū of Ngā Puhi—some of whom are already authorised iwi authorities. Some aren’t yet have been recognised through a Waitangi Tribunal process that has heard from those hapū with respect to their mana i te whenua, their ability to have interests across their rohe, across their lands. I’m asking the Minister, because I’m sure they’ll be curious how they’ll be engaged in this. The Mana Whakahono provision is quite clear here. But for those who aren’t an iwi authority here but yet are recognised through the claims process in the Waitangi Tribunal and in other forums, I’m wondering whether or not the Minister has any suggestion for Ngā Puhi, or advice for Ngā Puhi hapū—and the many hapū around the country—about how they might be able to be engaged here.

I also ask with respect to the Treaty provisions here, 5(1)(b), and it talks in there, and, yes, relating directly to the fast track to “support the capacity of the relevant party to participate effectively in those discussions, including by providing appropriate resources;”. Madam Chair, I’m wondering: what do the appropriate resources look like to the Minister and to the ministries here? For example, when the Labour Government was involved in this, it wasn’t just money. It’s talking about bandwidth, it’s talking about capacity, it’s talking about expertise and skills. I’m curious here whether or not the Minister has thought about what these resources are and how he might be able to explain to those iwi and hapū how they may be appropriately resourced in order to engage in this.

The next question I have is around the report backs through 5(2)(b). It says here: “use the Crown’s best endeavours to promote the enactment of the Bill not later than 18 months after the commencement of this clause.”, and moves into (3) and says, “The Crown must also—(a) monitor the progress of the matters set out in subclauses (1) and (2); and (b) make a report to the relevant party on progress every 3 months after this clause and clause 7 come into force.” My question here to the Minister is when we look towards the regular three-month updates, there’s going to be a number of questions that iwi and hapū will have, so I’m going to offer some of these here now: one, who exactly will he be reporting through? And by through, I mean the agency, or is the Minister expecting his office to directly engage in that? Two, does the Minister have a strict key performance indicator on both the 18-month report back as well as the three-month report back to the relevant party? I’m sure many will be interested to know there are a number of events coming up in the coming months where I’m sure that iwi and hapū will want to hear from the Minister with respect to these particular parts of his repeal bill, because the Treaty settlements have often been spoken about in this House as sacrosanct, and now, here we are; we seem to be going back on them.

I think I’ve left three, maybe four, questions on the table for consideration by the Minister. Just finally from me with respect to the Mana Whakahono, the Minister said that none were officially engaged or have officially signed up to be Mana Whakahono, but that doesn’t preclude the fact that many have already been on a journey to sign to a Mana Whakahono agreement under the legislation that’s being repealed today.

I just want to hear once again from the Minister confirmation whether or not it simply goes back to the Resource Management Act process, and, if so, then how does that impact those who have come on their journey to be a mana whakahono in the consideration after this bill is repealed by this Government?

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A great attempt, but not quite. There are a lot of questions on this side of the House. I stress to those new members of this House: this bill is going under urgency, there is absolutely no select committee process on it; therefore I think it is more than fair that the members on this side of the House who have call after call, who have a number of questions—that’s why the Chamber is so full, it’s because we’ve got so many questions in relation to this bill. The Minister, just before, has acknowledged that even people in the public, even though it’s on X or Twitter or whatever you may call it, are also asking questions.

So, therefore, my question really will be short to the Minister, because I really want to clearly understand—because when we get out of this House, whenever that is, because this side of the House has lots of questions, and I suspect that it’s going to take a number of hours to get through them—when this bill goes through, I have a huge question in relation to clause 7. That is, in relation to the regulation to uphold other arrangements.

So there have been about three different questions from three different members in relation to the operation and the reconciliation of clause 7. One, is this in relation to Treaty settlements or arrangements only as part of the fast-track consenting; I think the Minister made it clear that, yes, it was around fast-track consenting only. There was another question, from the MP for Manurewa, Arena Williams, around who were the hapū and the iwi who have actually entered into these arrangements, and the Minister has clarified that there were none. So the Minister also said that there were none, this is belt and braces, and it’s going to revert back to the Resource Management Act (RMA). I was listening to the Minister’s answers at the time.

However, that is my question as to how that reversion back to the RMA reconciles with clause 7, because clause 7 takes it out of primary legislation, and therefore gives a secondary legislation - making power to the executive in relation to these Mana Whakahono ā Rohe joint arrangements. How does that actually work? How does that reconcile? I ask the Minister to put it very clearly on record how it reconciles, because his comments—given we don’t have a select committee in relation to this—in relation to the Hansard, I think will be very important for iwi when they go back and they engage in this, if they don’t believe that this legislation is very fair if they decide to enter into a joint arrangement.

So I ask the Minister in very clear layman’s terms to absolutely, expressly provide the policy intent for clause 7—how it reconciles with the RMA—because it is a secondary legislation - making power, so that iwi and hapū who may be listening to this debate, or in future once they realise what actually is happening, have a very clear policy intent as to what the Minister on that side of House intended with that provision.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I thank the members for the good questions. In relation to the Hon Peeni Henare’s questions, Mana Whakahono ā Rohe made under the Resource Management Act continue with no changes. Clause 11—that I think he was talking about—relates to Mana Whakahono ā Rohe initiated under the Natural and Built Environment Act of which there are none at this point.

💬 Hon Members: Madam Chair.

Hang on, I’m still going! The member asked about clause 5, which is the process for upholding Treaty settlements. I’m advised that this is, basically, a belts and braces approach. It’s there if it’s required to make any changes pursuant to a fast-track process that is undertaken. So it’s there if required.

Of course, in relation to the question he asked around what process the Crown will go through with KPIs, I will follow the law. I’m a guy who believes in the rule of law.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: First time for everything.

Well, that’s—that’s—that’s—

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: It was a joke.

OK. All right. I’ll take it in the spirit with which it was intended. We’re a Government that follows the rule of law.

Thirdly, in relation to the Hon Barbara Edmonds’ question, the regulation-making powers—there’s nothing particularly unusual about this. This is a standard regulatory-making power, again, if required in relation to the matters that it gives effect to. Again, it’s belts and braces for those that are required.

Before I take the next call, can I just remind members that we will be looking for new material. Some of this is becoming quite repetitive.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to offer some help to the Minister, because I know he has got a lack of expertise on his side of the House.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Stick to the bill, please, Mr Jackson.

Well, I just want to help him out because there’s probably only one person over there who knows what we’re talking about, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): How is that relevant to the bill?

I want to help the Minister out. He knows I’m very supportive of him.

Grant Robertson was talking about the fast-track process, and I want the Minister to consider this because I think he hasn’t quite addressed the status of Treaty settlements. We’re talking about Part 1, Schedule 1, “Preserving the status of Treaty settlements”, Madam Chair, just for your information. I know that he’s gone down the fast-track process, and that’s good, but I think when iwi look at this, you know, I don’t want the Minister in court. He’s only been a Minister for five minutes, and we want to look after the Minister’s interests.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Come back to the bill.

We know he’s quite representative of the Māori over there in Wainuiōmata. But what sort of support can he give te ao Māori with regards to this? It’s really a worry. All the work that the former Minister Grant Robertson did is all going to go down the tubes if he does not address this.

I also want to follow up on what Peeni Henare said in terms of some of the hapū and iwi. We’d like to know—or I’d like to know—who are the hapū and iwi who the Minister has consulted with. We’d like that. And who are the iwi technicians that he has consulted with, because that’s a process that we went down thoroughly, and you heard Grant Robertson, he was turned up and down by some of his relations, but he enjoyed that, you know, that’s part of his whānau.

So we went back there because we believe in a thorough process. What’s been the feedback? Can he tell me one recommendation that the iwi technicians made that has gone into this bill? Just one—just one will do. If there’s any, I would really, really appreciate that—I’m glad you’re looking for it now—because we are so concerned about this process. We’re so concerned that there’s so little knowledge—Madam Chair, I’m saying that very respectively—within the National Party caucus. As I’ve said, there’s only probably one person who knows te ao Māori; the rest of them, you know, with respect, probably don’t even know they’re Māori. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I need to go down this track because Grant Robertson has, quite rightly, put this on the table with regards to the status of Treaty settlements. How are our leaders going to feel tonight when they hear the Minister skirting away, saying, “Yes, the fast track’s OK.”

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: But what about the rest?

What about the rest? What about Ngāi Tahu? What about Tainui? These are iwi who have been invested in by the National Party, and now we have this attack from Minister Bishop. I don’t know if he’s meaning the attack or not, but we still can’t work out why he won’t go through a democratic process, in terms of a select committee, and why he is so reliant—Madam Chair, I say this very respectively—on some of the useless Māori in his party.

I’m going to ignore the pejorative comments from the former Minister.

💬 Hon Willie Jackson: Very good of you.

Thank you. This is not an attack on Māoridom; it’s not an attack on te ao Māori either. He asked me a question as to what contribution iwi technicians had made. I have an answer for him: section 104 of the Natural and Built Environment Act which deals with Te Ture Whaimana, in particular with relation to the Waikato River, there was a suggestion made through the iwi technician process which we inserted into the bill at their suggestion. So there has been a—I accept the short process; I accept there’s been a short process. However, as I’ve said multiple times now, our opposition to this legislation has been well known essentially from the start of the regime, and the three Government parties have made that clear right from the start. Look, we can traverse back through the history. There was an opportunity at various points in the last Parliament for consensus. That did not arrive.

I’ve received a letter from the Hon Rachel Brooking in relation to a pathway forward. We’ll be considering that letter and the contribution that maybe we are able to make. So we’ll be considering that. It is important that there is some certainty and stability when it comes to our planning regime. Actually, the Resource Management Act (RMA) 1991’s been on the statute book for 30 years.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: And you’ve been criticising it.

We have, and so have you. So has the entire Parliament.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: And now you’re just going to take us back there for no reason.

Yes, we’re going to go back there, because our view is that this Act that we are repealing is worse than the RMA, which is saying something.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: And that is ridiculous. That is ridiculous.

It is not ridiculous. Many, many people think that.

💬 Hon Grant Robertson: Nobody who understands the RMA would agree with that.

No, I’m sorry. Greatest of respect. I acknowledge the former Minister who sat through a lot of meetings that I’m probably going to sit through in the next three years. I acknowledge his hard work on this, and a lot of people put a lot of time and energy into it. But just because you have put time and energy into something doesn’t make it right. That goes back to the point I made before. You’re actually better to cut your losses and walk away, and that’s our point. Anyway, I’ve made my point about three or four times now.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that motion be put. All those—

💬 Hon Kieran McAnulty: Point of order. Thank you, Madam Chair. Two calls ago—one call ago, actually—you asked for new material. I’ve been here for two hours seeking the call throughout and have not had one call. I am the Labour Party spokesperson for local government, housing, and regional development. They are very relevant portfolios to this. If you’re seeking new calls, I would put it to you that you should be giving those that haven’t had a call and have genuinely been attempting to get one the opportunity to introduce new material.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Point taken. I’ll ask the Clerk to conduct a party vote.

Arena Williams’s first tabled amendment to clause 3 is ruled out of order as not being a serious amendment.

The question is that Arena Williams’s second tabled amendment to clause 3 be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’s third tabled amendment to clause 3 be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’s fourth tabled amendment be agreed to.

The question is that Arena Williams’s sixth tabled amendment to clause 3 be agreed to.