Fast-track Approvals Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Fast-track Approvals Bill.

💬 SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found also on the parliamentary website.

I move, That the Fast-track Approvals Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Environment Committee to consider the bill.

This is a momentous day for the coalition Government, which is up to day 99 of our 100-day plan of action since the election. This bill continues the Government’s continued commitment to deliver on its coalition agreement with New Zealand First, and, at the outset, I would like to acknowledge the work of Matua Shane Jones, Minister for Regional Development, in the development of this bill. I also want to acknowledge the hard work of my colleagues the Hon Simeon Brown, the Hon Tama Potaka, and the Hon Paul Goldsmith. It would be fair to say that Ministers and officials have moved at extraordinary pace to develop this legislation. There were many long nights devising this, and it has been put to me by people who know this sort of stuff around the town that Ministers and officials have done about two years’ worth of work in about two months, and it’s something that I think is worth commenting on.

I would like to also acknowledge the hard work of the officials at the Ministry for the Environment; the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment; the Department of Conservation; Te Arawhiti, the Office for Māori Crown Relations; the Infrastructure Commission; and almost certainly I have left an agency off there. This has been a joint, team effort, as readers of the Dominion Post will know. We’re going to say thank you later on this afternoon.

I’m very proud of this legislation. I have believed, and the coalition Government has believed, for a long time now that it’s too hard to do things in this country. It’s not just my belief that that’s the case; we know from the facts that it is. To quote the recent Infrastructure Commission report: “The time it takes to consent a major project has doubled across a five-year period.”—that’s 2014 to 2019. We spend $1.3 billion—

💬 Hon David Parker: Who fixed that?

Well, you didn’t fix it—that’s the whole point. That’s partly why you were thrown out. We spend $1.3 billion in resource consent fees per year. It is just too hard to do things—too hard to build houses, too hard to build roads, too hard to build public transport, too hard to build geothermal and wind power stations, too hard to build mines for the future, too hard to get aquaculture projects up and running—and this is part of the Government’s process of unclogging that.

We’re viewing resource management reforms in three phases. The first was to repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act; we did that before Christmas. The second is to introduce a fast-track consenting regime and make targeted amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA) that we’ve returned to to make it easier to do some of the things I’ve just been talking about. Then the third part of our reform agenda is to replace the resource management regime with one based on the concept of property rights, which some members had previously decided is sort of by definition anti-environment. But, actually, proper respect for property rights and using market-based frameworks can do a lot for the environment and improving things. I’ll have more to say about that in due course.

But to return to the bill, what it does is set up a process which is firstly a one-stop shop but also a fast-track regime. What we are doing is setting up a process that will put nationally and regionally significant projects in the fast lane. Projects become eligible for the fast track through one of two ways: either through a referral by the joint decision of the Ministers of infrastructure, regional development, and transport upon an application, or by being listed in Schedule 2A of the bill. Once a project has been referred into the fast track, it will be considered by an expert panel. Essentially, we have adopted, with some modifications, the regime of the COVID-19 fast-track expert panel process that the previous Government introduced in its wisdom as a response to COVID.

As I pointed out during question time earlier in the day, the difference between our bill and the previous bill is that this bill doesn’t actually contain any projects in it. To the contradistinction of what has been some rumours around the town, the bill does not include any projects. So projects become eligible either by referral or through being put in Schedule 2A, and then it goes to an expert panel, and their job is to apply the relevant consent and permit conditions.

I, as Minister for Infrastructure—it’s me currently; hopefully for a while. The Minister for Infrastructure will appoint a panel convener, and the panel convener will appoint the various relevant members of the expert panels. The panel convener must be a High Court judge—either current or former—or an Environment Court judge. Notably, what we are doing is we’ve changed the regime from the COVID-19 legislation—the fast track—in relation to the expert panels. So, as I understand it, in the COVID-19 framework, expert panel members had a daily rate, and the evidence that’s been put to me is that that was a bit of a disincentive for the relevant RMA experts and practitioners and planners and lawyers to participate—the exact sort of people you’d want doing these sort of panel hearings—because, frankly, they could make more money doing other things other than sitting on the panels. So instead what we’ve gone to is a market-rate system. So simple supply and demand, simple economics—if you let the market clear, then it will clear, and if you let people pay what is required, then we’ll get more people into the system to run the regime. I think that’s a sensible step forward.

So they will apply the relevant consent and permit conditions. We’ve also set a time frame of six months. The project will then be sent back to joint Ministers. Now, there’s been a bit of debate in the Parliament about: is this a constitutional overreach? I see my good mate Gary Taylor going out there saying it’s the worst Government since Rob Muldoon and all sorts of other nonsense. He needs to get with the programme, and members who believe that need to get with the programme. We are deliberately making a policy-design decision to give the executive Government more power over this process. So that’s not a criticism. That’s actually a design-policy choice by the coalition Government, and I believe it’s possible to get to a sweet spot where Ministers, essentially, refer projects to a panel, the panel applies the conditions around the environment and around conservation, and then it goes back to Ministers for decision making.

The reason why the schedules don’t contain any projects is, we felt, on reflection, it was better to run a process that was insulated from Government and insulated from Ministers and where Ministers could have the ability to assess the advice of an independent panel about what projects should be included and what projects should not be included, and then, ultimately, the projects will go to the Ministers and go to Cabinet for approval. The bill—it’s not, as I say, wildly dissimilar to what the COVID-19 fast-track regime did. That bill included 17, from memory, and potentially 19 projects which were automatically referred.

We’ve also put in place Schedule 2B, which is best described as projects that are shovel worthy but not quite yet ready for consents. What we’re trying to do is deliberately create a pipeline of projects. What I would like to see flowing out of the fast-track regime is lots and lots and lots of projects that have resourced consent and are ready to go. They’re on the shelf; they’re ready to go.

What we do in New Zealand too often is we spend all this time and money getting things ready to go, and then we get the money together—whether it’s public or private—and everyone goes, “Righty-o, this is good.”, and then we go off to get resource consent, and, seven years later, we wake up, and the resource consent hasn’t happened, inflation has improved the cost of everything, and, all of a sudden, the project’s not necessarily viable or economic. What I want to do, and what the Government wants to do, is reverse that.

So we have a whole lot of stuff that is consented, part of a pipeline, on the shelf, and ready to go. It may not necessarily be economic right now, it may not be economically viable in five years’ time, but it may be economic in the future depending on the people’s deployment of capital and depending on the capital deployment of Government. That is part of building a modern, functioning, 21st century economy with infrastructure that actually works.

Part of the problem in this country is we’ve become the obstruction economy, and what I want to say is that there is a better way. We don’t have to become a country which has a “can’t do” attitude; we can become a country that says yes to growth, yes to more roads, yes to geothermal power, yes to wind energy, yes to farming, yes to mining, yes to housing growth, and yes to growth. Because that’s the problem with this country. We’ve got a slow-growing economy; we’ve had productivity growth problems for 30 years. It’s too hard to do things in this country, and I’m proud to be a member of a Government that is changing the obstruction economy and saying yes to growth.

So many problems in New Zealand could be solved by more economic growth, more projects, more roads, more mines, more renewable energy, more building stuff that will actually improve the economy and get things going. I commend this bill to the House.

How about “Yes” to decreased biodiversity and “Yes” to pollution? That seems to be what the other side of the House is interested in—nothing else apart from economics, and shame on them. Now we have heard—

💬 Hon Member: You clearly weren’t listening.

I’m told I wasn’t listening. I can tell that member that I’ve been listening very attentively and that I of course will be spending a lot of time with this bill that was introduced only 12 minutes ago. We’ve had this bill for 12 minutes and we’re speaking on it now—that is shameful, like everything else about this bill.

Now, we know that there are problems with the Resource Management Act and that it takes too long to consent things. That would be why the last Government did—

💬 Grant McCallum: It took you six years to work that out.

I’m hearing about how we had six years to do things—that’s right, and we did things. We did the Natural and Built Environment Act and we did the Spatial Planning Act because we need to plan better for infrastructure in New Zealand, we need to do long-term planning, and that was there in the Spatial Planning Act that this Government repealed—repealed under urgency. All stages, urgency—no referral to the select committee. Shame on them. We also, in the last Government, provided for fast tracking, and that fast tracking was put into the Natural and Built Environment Act. And when this Government repealed that Act, the fast-tracking provisions were retained—there is no need for this legislation. We want to keep the fast-tracking provisions of that Natural and Built Environment Act—they are there already—but this Government shows no interest in using those, and instead wants to go ahead with this very dangerous proposal that puts far too much decision making into the hands of a select few Ministers.

You might think that the relevant Minister—if you’re chugging through the Resource Management Act—would be the Minister responsible for that Act, who is, of course, the Minister for the Environment. The “environment” is not a word we’ve heard in this debate from the other side or in answers to questions today, because there is no interest in the protection of that. This Minister, the Minister for the Environment, is not involved in this process. Instead, it is the Minister for Infrastructure, the Minister for Regional Development, and the Minister of Transport.

Now, this is very different—and I want to pause on this for a moment—from the COVID legislation that we’ve heard the Minister talk about. The COVID—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Siamese twin—Siamese twin.

Oh, we’re hearing it’s a Siamese twin. No, no, Mr Jones, it is not a Siamese twin. It is very importantly different, because in that COVID legislation it was very clear that the panel, after Ministers had referred a project—a referral is not a decision. A referral to a panel—not making the decision. They referred it to a panel—

💬 Hon Shane Jones: Minor detail—minor detail.

This is not a minor detail; this is very serious, and it seems that the Ministers on the other side of the House think this is some sort of game. You are not a serious Government and this is not a serious bill. What happened with the COVID legislation is that the panel could decline one of those listed projects. It was very clear that it could be declined on either inconsistency with the national policy statement or inconsistency with the Treaty.

There is no such section that I have been able to find in this bill, and, in fact, we just heard the Minister say that this was very purposeful, that he wants the Ministers to make the decisions, that the executive needs to be involved. If that is the case, then surely there should be a wide range of criteria that specify the sorts of projects that are in the public’s interest to proceed with. Public projects, maybe, like the ones that were in the COVID legislation; maybe ones that are to do with iwi groups—also in that COVID legislation. But, no, this is not just about infrastructure; this is about mines, potentially; this is about all sorts of development that has nothing to do with the public good. A lot relies on what is in Schedule 2—Schedule 2, “Listed projects”—and we see that there are no projects listed in that schedule at the moment. I need to say, in my remaining seconds, that it is just beyond vitally important that there is a public process about what goes into these schedules, and I hope all lawyers will be submitting on this bill.

Well, Think Big is back. For the first time in over 40 years, we have an executive that is granting itself powers—Ministers granting Ministers powers, using their parliamentary majority through a dodgy process under urgency to override some of the most significant environmental legislation we have. We’ve gone from unbridled power to unhinged power through the use of this bill. This is one of the most significant assaults on the environment undertaken by any Government in my lifetime.

These Ministers are handing themselves extraordinary powers to approve projects that could include new coalmines, mining on parts of our precious conservation estate, and the destruction of the seabed. And if you’re denying it and pretending that that’s not so, listen to your own Minister for Resources, your own Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, who is certainly saying he hopes that that’s what happens. He wants coalmines. He wants the destruction of the ocean floor. He wants the destruction of our conservation estate. He actually wants the extinction of some of our endangered species. He has said so in this House, and this bill grants that Minister the power to make it happen.

The Minister responsible for this bill, the Fast-track Approvals Bill, is clearly doing what his coalition partners are wanting him to do on this—despite what otherwise would be his better parliamentary and democratic instincts—and in his own somewhat Potemkin blue-green visage that he’s been pretending to have.

Some of the key differences between this bill and either the COVID-19 fast-track legislation or the fast-track provisions that that Minister repealed earlier this year—which had been in replacement to the Resource Management Act (RMA), bringing back the RMA—is that this puts the power into the hands of Ministers to finally approve those projects.

Under the previous fast-track legislation, Ministers could refer projects to an expert panel but could not decide. And, actually, the vast majority of projects did get approved, and they got approved quickly, and they got approved sometimes with additional recommendations or conditions in order to make them either more sound or less risky or less environmentally damaging. But the vast majority of them went through, both under the COVID-19 legislation and under the fast-track provisions that Minister Parker put through.

What this legislation does is it gives those expert panels the ability to propose conditions back to Ministers, who can then say, “Oh, we don’t like those. Have another crack. Keep coming back until we get an answer that we like.” So, yes, you might say, “You have the power to make those conditions” but the point is that the Ministers can then say, “Sorry, those look a little bit onerous to us. We don’t like those. Have another crack.”, and the project’s already been approved. We know that the Ministers want them, and the Ministers get to decide that, so those expert panels are completely toothless.

This rides roughshod over not just the Resource Management Act—which everybody in this House, including us, agrees is a very flawed piece of legislation. We couldn’t believe that this Government preferred to bring that legislation back into existence. It rides roughshod over the RMA. It rides roughshod over the environmental protections in New Zealand law, including the exclusive economic zone Act, the Wildlife Act, the Conservation Act, the Reserves Act. There is no acknowledgment in the bill of Te Tiriti beyond settlements. It contains weaker environmental conditions for applying for and approving consents. There is no mention of well-established environmental law principles, such as the precautionary approach—no mention at all of that.

Consenting panels can give more weight to the purpose of the fast-track bill over having to give effect to Part 2 of the RMA or other relevant legislation. It allows coal mining. It allows other destructive activities on conservation land. It allows seabed mining. It overrides projects that have already been declined by the courts on environmental grounds because they were so destructive they have no place in society.

So my question, really, to those grinning members of the blue-green National Party caucus who are sitting there is: where the hell are you? Where the hell are you? The ghost of Rob Muldoon has inhabited the mind and body of Shane Jones, and he is riding roughshod and exposing the blue-green caucus to be an absolute Potemkin village of toothless, spineless people who have no say whatsoever in this bill.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. The ACT Party supports the Fast-track Approvals Bill. New Zealanders have lamented the wasted opportunity left by the previous Labour Government. Lots of talk, lots of wasted time and money, and for what? Auckland light rail: $220 million on a business case—not a single metre of track laid. They didn’t even try and get a consent for it. That was just spinning the wheels. New Zealand’s infrastructure is dire. It’s not just what we need to build for growth; it’s all of those asset renewals and large-scale replacements, whether it’s ports or hospitals or roads which do need a much smoother consenting pathway.

We’re in a ridiculous state of affairs now. It’s so expensive and time-consuming to get anything permitted and consented. The Infrastructure Commission produced statistics—that were used as a reason to reform the resource management system by the previous Government—that it’s costing $1.3 billion a year just to get consents. That’s not to build the sediment pond, that’s not to put in the diversions, that’s not to actually replant the site after you’ve finished building the motorway; that’s just to do the paperwork and get a consent—$1.3 billion. The amount of time taken to get a consent has almost doubled in the past five years. All the while, the former Minister Rachel Brooking in the Labour Government was giving advice on how to reform the Resource Management Act. Instead of actually getting on with fixing it, that previous Government wasted five years not fixing it. This Government is different.

Now, across New Zealand, a lot of major projects—a lot of major projects—are desperately needed and they face giant hurdles. [Interruption] They’re desperately needed by people in your community too. The fast track is the first step in a wider work programme to create an enabling environment for things to be built, that deliver wellbeing to communities—wellbeing to communities just like yours. The first step was to repeal the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act, which, as many lawyers pointed out—and the Hon Rachel Brooking said, “Bring all the lawyers to the hearing.” Many lawyers pointed out to the Hon Rachel Brooking when we were hearing submissions on the Natural and Built Environment Bill, as it then was, it’s a terrible idea. So that’s why it’s gone. First step: Natural and Built Environment Act, el fuego.

Second step: introducing the fast-track legislation. The third step, once we’ve carried out some further targeted amendments to the Resource Management Act, will be the wholesale replacement of the Resource Management Act with a system based on enjoyment of property rights—a system based on enjoyment of property rights. And that underpins this fast-track legislation and the rest of the work programme.

This concept of property rights has become an almost foreign concept in New Zealand in recent times.

💬 Steve Abel: The Muld-ACT Party

How profound that people should be able to do with their own property, Mr Steve Abel, what they like, so long as it doesn’t affect the ability of others to do the same. New Zealand’s lost sight of this with an increasingly precautionary approach to environmental management—environmental naval gazing over actually getting things built.

💬 Joseph Mooney: That’s right.

That’s right, Joseph Mooney. But I’ll tell you what New Zealand thinks of this bill. Infrastructure New Zealand: “We have to be more productive … The link between infrastructure and stronger economic performance is undeniable yet often underappreciated.” Infrastructure New Zealand, the peak body for infrastructure developers in New Zealand, also makes this point, to those members of the Green Party and the Labour Party who’ve raised concerns about the environment: “The process can move faster without compromising environmental standards.” And I know that there are members of the Green Party caucus—and I myself have worked as an environmental professional, we know how to deliver projects and stick within environmental limits, and we can do that with fast tracking.

But, oh no, that’s not good enough for the Environmental Defence Society, who claims that this bill is the Government’s war on nature continuing. Well, that type of unhelpful rhetoric will not get New Zealand moving faster and get things built.

This week, I was lucky enough to host the political scientist Bjørn Lomborg recently in Parliament last night, who articulates this concept of a cost-benefit analysis and how to best spend time and money to make a positive impact. That is not spending time in the Environment Court or trying to convince council planners why you should be allowed to use your own land and development assets.

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: Yeah, that’s right. So you put in the plans, like the Natural and Built Environment Act and you have spatial plans that fix it, Simon Court.

This bill is an important—Rachel Brooking, this bill is an important step in restoring the concept of private property rights and getting stuff done.

This bill has longer and wider ramifications than Geoffrey Palmer’s Resource Management Act. In another 20 to 30 years, people will look back to this bill as the day that New Zealand moved from “cancel” economics to “can-do” economics. This bill is to provide a fast-track decision-making process that facilitates the delivery of infrastructure and development projects with significant regional and national benefits. Regions need to benefit from their resource endowments. Gone are the days of the multicoloured skink, the kiwi, many other species that have been weaponised to deny regional New Zealand communities their right to a livelihood, their entitlement to live peacefully with their environment but derive an income to meet the costs of raising families in regional New Zealand.

This purpose will overwhelm the decrepit, irrelevant provisions of the Wildlife Act that have caused hundreds of millions of dollars of unnecessary expenditure in projects that, if they’re not happening in a timely fashion, are hobbling the interests of garden variety Kiwis who have been written out of the script as the Resource Management Act has been colonised by green NGOs who have no conception of economic benefit, weaponised by the legal profession who have turned resource management law into a rich vein of fiscal ore.

Let me talk about veins. There are veins of wealth throughout Te Tai Poutini. There are veins of wealth throughout the South Island, and with this legislation, mining will be turbocharged. There are consequences from voting, and the consequence of Kiwis electing this group of politicians is that we are no longer going to tolerate tainting, stigmatising, marginalising of the rich mineral endowment in New Zealand.

The echo chamber for my speech is trans-Tasman; it’s global. I am already getting messages from North America, from Singapore, from Australia. At long last, New Zealand is open again for business. No more eco-romanticism, no more colonial guilt, but a very focused, very direct level of interest upon causing Kiwis to be more resilient, causing Kiwis to be able to afford to live in their own country, not watching their sons and daughters go to Kalgoorlie and dig up Australia whilst parliamentarians on that side of the House oppose, daily, the mining industry.

They quietly hide as we bring Indonesian coal into New Zealand every month to keep the lights on, because they know that the most important thing in a modern economy is a secure, resilient energy system, something that was destroyed as our sovereign risk collapsed after the unwise decision made about oil and gas. Gas will be around for at least another 30 years. Gas, under this bill, where it’s needed, will be processed in a professional, timely fashion.

There will be those who exaggerate, those who worsen the prospects under the rubric of climate change. Climatologists, climatarians, join the fray. These are items of debate for the development of our country. Our country is going to grow at long last, because this bill will not only build dams, open mines, develop infrastructure, it has the Ruataniwha clause. Kia ora tātou.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai. Look, the previous speaker, Shane Jones, has proven one thing: you cannot take capitalism out of colonisation. That is what we’re hearing—those who cannot think of anything else but the life of a typical capitalist.

What we need to be thinking about—and I need to share a story. I come from the vein of these areas which are promised all this richness, the wealth of the white gold, the black gold. And not once—not once—as an iwi with the largest amount of oil companies in its backyard, have we ever seen the fruits of the economic profits that that side of the House continues to promise our people. Not once—not once.

We’ve got to keep remembering, this kōrero about a one-stop shop, the one-stop shop, or the one-stop chop, which we heard today, is full of forked tongues and false promises. I want to really appeal to our people, because what we’re seeing before us, there’s this belief that there’s going to be this Tiriti principles bill that’s going to come up and it’s going to take everything out. In fact, this is the start of the erosion.

And that matua who is just in the eve of his career is trying to promise to our people the richness of economic development—it’s not true. It is not true. We have communities who are messaging me, not from Singapore, not from Japan, not from anywhere else overseas—from Taranaki, from W’anganui, from Te Tai Tokerau who are sitting there, saying, “W’aea, we don’t want what this matua is promising.”

We are seeing our rights eroded from a Government that has no respect for tangata whenua—no respect—because their whole idea of growth is sitting there. It’s so hard to think about transformation. It’s so hard to think about how we look after our communities, how we don’t leave anybody behind, how we look after those who are struggling. No, let’s go into the communities that are struggling; let’s dig them up even more. Let’s mine them even more, despite the fact that at their own cost, they have gone to courts to fight seabed mining, fight Trans-Tasman Resources—won five times in the courts, 12 years consecutively. But this Government has taringa mārō [stubborn, no ears]—doesn’t want to listen to the arguments and the fights.

Let’s go back—and they’re proposing to cut red tape. Oh, how original! Really, what that spells, w’ānau mā, is that they’re going to cut consultation, they are going to cut reference to Tiriti, and they’re going to cut corners, because that’s what matua does really well, when he comes to the marae—and any matua—making big promises to our whānau: “We’ve got your back. We’re going to grow you. We’re going to do everything for you. You’re going to be a richer country.” But, actually, the shareholders take that, and the shareholders are often not in Aotearoa; they often take their money and go away—go away.

Look, I want to talk about some of the things that we have—I wouldn’t have a problem, to be honest. I think that Minister Bishop’s been as honest as he can, because he’s focused on what a lot of our iwi are. We want to remove bureaucracy. We want to build our houses. In fact, we could put some on Premier House if we wanted to; give the land back to the mana whenua. We want to sit there and remove barriers so we can get our land that is blocked unblocked and be able to have papa kāinga. But the reality is, what we have is another Minister—another Minister, Minister Jones—who has said, “We are going to extract the dividend from mother Nature’s legacy on the DOC estate in those areas previously called stewardship land.” This is a Government that wants to rape, pillage, and take everything they’ve left on our wā’i—wā’i tapu, on our maunga, by our rivers, by our moana.

Whānau, when you go into this document that’s barely arrived on the Table 40 minutes ago, you can see some of the things that are being considered. There is absolutely no requirement to consider Te Tiriti—no requirement to consider Te Tiriti. We are already seeing the rewriting of Te Tiriti. We have a Minister, we have officials who were crying about what was being subjected to with this process. We have got experts—experts from post-settlement governance entities, Te Tai Kaha, advisers to the national iwi chairs—and it’s quoted here, “It was not possible”—it was not possible—“to be a thorough review of this bill.”, and acknowledging its significance, because they were limited in nature in the engagement of the policy proposals. They were insufficiently organised, but they had a Minister who said, “We are removing Te Tiriti and any reference to Te Tiriti.” This is the start, w’ānau mā. This is the start of that matua, in the eve of a career, who is sitting here with a legacy of failure, trying to say, “We need to make this work.”, at the cost of us, whānau mā—at the cost of us.

When we sit there and we see the fact that this Government and all of its supplementary analysis, the Treaty impact analysis, gives reference to the fact that this Government was cautioned as taking the wrong path, but will it listen to you, whānau? Will it listen to you? Kia ora rā.

E tū ana ahau, e taku piki amokura, me te mihi ki ngā raruraru, ngā āwangawanga e tae mai nei i aku hoa whanaunga kei tērā taha o te Whare. Me te mea nei, e tautoko ana au i ngā mahi a te Manu Pīhopa nānā anō i kawe mai i tēnei pire, i tēnei wā ki te tēpu, e kōrerotia nei, ā, kei mua i a tātou.

Me te whakatuarā hoki i a ia me tōna kāhui, a Minita Tararā, me Minita Paraone e noho nei ki te kawe mai i tēnei pire ki tua o ēnei komiti whakahaere. Me te mihi anō ēnei āhuatanga. Koinei hoki i whakaritea mai ki te mahere kotahi rau rā, kia whakatere, kia whakahutihuti anō i te haere o ēnei momo take ki runga i ngā whenua me ngā moana o Aotearoa-Niu Tīreni. Me te mea nei, nōku te whiwhi kia kawe mai au i Te Papa Atawhai me Te Arawhiti ki ēnei kōrero me tā rātou tautoko ki te anga whakamua.

Āna! Āna! Kua kitea hoki i roto i ngā tohutohu me ngā pepa e tautoko ana Te Papa Atawhai me Te Arawhiti me tō rātou hiahia kia whakahaumarutia hoki ngā take taunga Tiriti i roto i te ture, ā, ko wai ka hua, ko wai ka mōhio, engari kei roto hoki i ngā pire te whakatau, te oati hoki o tō mātou Kāwanatanga haumi, ka tū toka, kia tū tika, kia tū māia hoki ngā whakataunga Tiriti i roto i tēnei pire. Nā reira, kei te pakanga tonu ētehi, kāore e kore, engari koinei pea hei āta whakamataara i te hinengaro, hei āta whakamīharo hoki i tā koutou e tohe nei ki taku i wheako atu ki te kamupene o Tainui.

Ko tā mātou, e rima tau e whakapau kaha ana i te pūtea ki te whakatārewa i te kaupapa mō Ruakura, ki te kawe hoki i ngā uaratanga o tō tātou iwi o Waikato-Tainui ki te whakatū whekeretere, ki te whakatū whare kaitā, ki reira tū ai hei Logistics Centre ki reira. Engari ko te patu parāoa, ko te taiaha me te tewhatewha o te Karauna ko te RMA. Nā te kaunihera tērā kaupapa i whakatōmuri kia toru tau, kia rima tau, kia toru miriona tāra a Tainui i whakapau i te mea, nā te mea, nā te kaunihera hoki i paopao hoki i te anga whakamua mō tērā kaupapa nā te RMA te take. Ehara i te mea nā te Fast Track Consent, ehara i te mea nā ngā uaratanga o te iwi engari nā te RMA me te kaunihera me te RMA i tōmuri ai, i pōturi rawa te whakatere i tērā waka.

Nā reira, ki ahau nei, ki ahau nei kua kite i ngā piki me ngā heke o te RMA—tōna pai, engari tōna kino hoki me tērā wheako i roto i te iwi e tau nei a Waikato-Tainui. Ko te mutunga kē mai nei o te kūare tērā āhuatanga, te rironga mā te RMA te whakapōturi i te anganga whakamua a ngā iwi me ngā ohu o ngā iwi. Nā reira, ko tāku ki Whare nei, kaua e riro mā te tū a te ture ki te kakī o te kamupene Māori. Āe, e tika ana te kōrero kia whakatau tika ngā āhuatanga ki te taiao, ā, te āhuatanga ki ngā mahi ohu, ngā mahi whai pūtea, engari kaua e riro mā te RMA e patu te anga whakamua o ngā iwi. Nui ngā tēpa hāpiapia whero e whakahaukoti nei i te anga whakamua mō ngā pā wai, ngā pā ika me ngā pā hikohiko. E hoa! He pōturi rawa te whenua nei ka pōhara katoa tātou, ka makariri kē ngā kāinga.

Te Papa Atawhai kei te tautoko, kei te tautoko i te anganga whakamua. Āe, e kī ana te kōrero e ono tekau orāu o ngā whenua o Te Papa Atawhai kāore i te whai kaha i ngā āhuatanga o te taiao kia riro mā tēnei kaupapa e whakatārewa. Engari, whā tekau ōrau ngā whenua o Te Papa Atawhai kua rāhuitia, kua taea te aha. Kua rāhuitia ki tēnei pire, ka whakahaumarutia hoki ki ngā kararehe me ngā tamariki a Tāne me Hineahuone ki ērā whā tekau ōrau.

Te Arawhiti, ko tā rātou, me ngā kāhui rangatira a ngā iwi, kia whakahaumarutia ngā take o ngā whakataunga Tiriti—e tautoko ana. Kei roto i ngā whārangi me ngā kōrero o te kaupapa nei, o te pire nei e kitea ana kei ia taumata whakahaere, kei ia taumata whakatau me toro atu te kaitono me ngā Minita me te panel nei ki ngā Māori, ki ngā iwi, ki ngā hapū, āta wānangatia te anga whakamua. Kaua e pōhēhē mā te kōrero noa iho e āta whakatinana hoki i ngā uaratanga o ngā iwi. Tēnā tātou katoa.

[I rise, Mr Speaker, to acknowledge the challenges and trepidations that have come from my friendly relatives on that side of the House. And I support the work of Minister Bishop, who brought this bill before us at this time to the table, that we are speaking about, that is before us.

I must support he and his team, Minister Jones and Minister Brown, who will bring this bill beyond this committee. I must acknowledge this. This is why it was included in the 100-day programme, was put into place to speed up, to hasten the process of these kinds of issues that are upon the oceans of Aotearoa New Zealand. And what’s more, it is my honour to bring in the Department of Conservation and Te Arawhiti into these discussion with their support to progress.

Indeed! Indeed! We have seen in the advice and in the papers that the Department of Conservation and Te Arawhiti, and their desire to safeguard as well, the Treaty settlement claims in the legislation, and who knows what will happen, but within the bill is the decision and the oath of our coalition Government, that we stand strong. The Treaty settlement claims will stand strong, will stand true, will stand brave in this bill. And so, some will still battle, without a doubt, but this may be the thing that alerts the mind and brings one to admire that which you are arguing with respect to my experience with the company of Tainui.

Our view is that five years’ worth of money has been exhausted to delay the Ruakura initiative and to carry the values of our tribe of Waikato-Tainui in establishing factories, and to establish large buildings there, such as a logistics centre there. But the whalebone club and the long staffs of the Crown are the Resource Management Act (RMA). It was the council that slowed down that initiative for three years, for five years, expending $3 million from Tainui, because the council also impacted the moving forward of that initiative and the RMA was the reason. It was not because of the fast-track consent, it was not the values of the tribe, but it was the RMA, the council and the RMA who slowed down that ship.

And so, to me, we have seen the ups and downs of the RMA—its advantages but also its disadvantages and that experience within the iwi that presents here, Waikato-Tainui. That situation is the epitome of ignorance, to let the RMA slow down the moving forward of the tribe and the boards and committees of the tribe. So, I say to this House, don’t let a law stand on the throat of the Māori companies. Yes, it is true we must correctly decide the conditions of the environment, the conditions of the working groups, money-making opportunities, but don’t let the RMA negatively affect the progress of the tribes. There is lots of red sticky tape that is preventing the moving forward for water plants, fishing plants, and hydro-electricity plants. My friends! This country is too slow, and we will all be poor and houses will be cold.

The Department of Conservation supports the moving forward. Yes, it is said that 60 percent of Department of Conservation land is not strictly complying with environmental conditions, and this is what is delaying it. But 40 percent of the Department of Conservations land has been put aside, and nothing can be done with it. It has been put aside for this bill and will be protected for animals and the creatures of Tāne and Hineahuone in that 40 percent.

With regards to Te Arawhiti, and the leaders of tribes, their view is that the Treaty settlements issues be safeguarded—agreed. In the pages and discussion of this initiative of the bill, it can be seen that at every management level, at every decision-making level the applicant and Ministers and the panel must make contact with Māori, with iwi, and with hapū, to discuss in-depth the way forward. Do not think mistakenly that by mere discussion the values of the tribe will be realised. I thank us all.]

I only have five minutes to contribute to this part of the debate—I will try to cover a lot of issues, because there are a lot of hooks in this. For a start, can I say something about the discussion around property rights. Simon Court said that he wants a property rights - based regime for the Resource Management Act (RMA). If you had a property rights - based regime for the RMA, you would not be able to have a non-point source discharge from a farm adding to pollution to rivers. That’s not what we’ll end up with, though. If you had a pure property rights - based regime, the farmer who was discharging into a river via an increased number of cows, would be subject to the law of nuisance and could be injuncted for their farming practices. They don’t mean that—they don’t mean that.

The Hon Shane Jones’ comments before—with respect, Mr. Jones, you take the issue, the assertion of property rights, too far. It has never been the case anywhere in New Zealand, or indeed anywhere in the Commonwealth, that a private property right to a piece of land in a city that is used for a house can be turned into a foundry. I don’t think the member thinks that that should be the case. But it’s also true in rural areas. It has never been the case that a private property right to rural land includes the right to kill the last tuatara. What a nonsense it would be if that was the law. So I dislike these simplistic references to public property rights in that sense.

In respect of wasted cost on the process for consenting, there has been a problem in this country with that, and we did address that in the last Government and I was the responsible Minister that did it. In respect of the COVID-related legislation, the decision maker was the panel, not the Minister—that’s a big difference in this proposal. Notwithstanding that, the vast majority of projects were consented within a reasonable time. We knocked the average time of consenting back by 18 months and we dropped costs considerably. It did work and was a good model.

We carried it forward into the Natural and Built Environment Act with a number of changes. What was the main change? The Minister for the Environment—which was, at the time, me—was no longer the gatekeeper for whether projects could use that process. Why? Because I actually thought it was inappropriate that I had that role. I thought that decision should sit with officials rather than me. In addition, the panels under those fast-track referrals could hold an oral hearing if necessary, and, on occasions, they should be able to. If, for example, it is the first waste-to-energy project and it was put through fast track, I think people should have a right for public submission and to make oral submissions, rather than just written submissions.

What is this really about and what will be the outcome? What is the most expensive power project ever built in the history of New Zealand recently? It’s the Clyde Dam. It was the Clyde Dam. It was an appalling waste of money. It was forced through by the Clutha Development (Clyde Dam) Empowering Act 1982. It was actually one of the things that led to, eventually, the RMA. It was an appalling waste of money, and you should avoid those sorts of mistakes, through due process. You’ve got to be careful that you don’t go too far with processes that are too shortcut.

Now, what clause 25 of this bill says—that when the panel refers back to Ministers, the “Ministers must not decide to deviate from a panel’s recommendation unless they have undertaken analysis of the recommendations and any conditions in accordance with the relevant assessment criteria.” I’m not sure what that means, and I find it inconsistent with the next subclause, (5), which says that the Ministers may go back to the panel and “give … any directions the Ministers think appropriate as to the reconsideration of whole or part”. So they can, effectively, tell the panel what to do. If this is going to survive as legislation, that has to be limited because, if it’s not, the threat—and it was a threat from the Hon James Shaw—is that there will be investment uncertainty in New Zealand because those consenting decisions will seem, on occasions, to be tainted by allegations of corruption, as allegations of special favours, and they will lack legitimacy. Accordingly, you will find that the other side of politics will react the other way and you will create investment uncertainty. In some of those consents, there is a risk that they will not last.

The final point I will make is that there are two things that this bill needs to do that it doesn’t yet do, and this is relevant to aquaculture and to wind farms at sea. Sometimes you need a spatial planning approach where a high-level decision is taken as to where things can happen, and then you work through later details. That’s the way to sort out wind farms and aquaculture, not through individual consents.

It’s with pleasure that I rise to speak about the Fast-track Approvals Bill, because ultimately one of the biggest challenges we have is addressing the climate change challenge, and what has been holding us up in doing that is the Resource Management Act, because it’s taking far too long to get projects approved so we can create more sustainable energy. It’s for that reason, I take a blue-green approach and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I’m very pleased to have the opportunity to speak against this bill today. Everyone in this House, if they haven’t personally confronted situations like this, they certainly would have had representations from constituents about the frustration of long and drawn out consenting processes. There’s no doubt that the Resource Management Act (RMA), as it was originally formed, had become costly and it had become cumbersome. I personally think of the example of the proposed water storage scheme in Wairarapa, which, despite getting significant levels of support from the previous Labour-led Government, was unable to get through what was a long and winding consenting process, and I think that is regrettable for the region. But it was still important that a process was followed.

It is important that the local community has the opportunity to have a say, and I simply do not accept the argument from the Government that the RMA, which they themselves have decided to go back to, let’s not forget—there was a replacement that considered all aspects of planning in this country and took on board the perspectives of those that submitted. They got rid of that, they’ve gone back to the old system, and now they’re saying that the country’s being held back by the system that they have reintroduced. It is absolutely counter-productive.

I also do not accept that their Ministers are a better process than giving communities a say. What is stopping vested interests from wining and dining Ministers to encourage them to support their application? What is stopping them?

💬 Joseph Mooney: Oh, that’s—

💬 Grant McCallum: Scurrilous!

And they scoff at that, but they don’t have an answer to it. There is a reason that New Zealand consistently rates among one of the least corrupt countries in the world—because we have processes to keep elected representatives away from decisions like this. They are opening themselves up to these accusations, and if they don’t like it, don’t support the bill, because that is what this bill is doing.

While they’re at it, I invite them to speak to the residents of Makomako Road, near Pahiatua, who have been getting in touch with me lately. They are concerned that their views and concerns about the proposed windfarm, right above their properties—they are not going to have their voice heard. They don’t even know if their project is included in those that will be listed in the Schedule, because this Government is keeping it secret. If they wanted to be upfront, if they were so confident that this was a better approach, if they were so confident that they were happy to have public submissions in select committee, why on earth are those schedules not included? They are doing it deliberately, I believe, and I think it is disgraceful.

The good people that live near Pahiatua, who have already done their bit, have already got a windfarm near their farms, so close that they can hear them working, are now, potentially, facing another windfarm with turbines twice the size, just as close. The Tararua district, an area just north of Wairarapa, is perfect for windfarms in many places. There are huge swathes of land that don’t have people living near them. Why on earth are these people having to face the prospect of having a second windfarm right on their doorstep when there are more suitable places for it? No one here is saying that windfarms shouldn’t be built; in fact, there should be more of them. But they should be in appropriate places. They certainly shouldn’t be next to people who already have them surrounding them on one side of their farms.

I also think of the people of Mt Munro near Ekatāhuna, who now may face the possibility that their views, and the processes that they’ve been engaging in over weeks and months, mean absolutely nothing, because Ministers on that side of the House want to dismiss their views and think they know best. This isn’t about a better process; this is a worse process. This is about doing what they think is better, and what takes no consideration whatsoever of the local views. It would have been very simple if they were that confident. If they really believed that this was a better process, why the hell aren’t they publishing the things that are going to benefit from this bill?

Debate interrupted.