Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

I move, That the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

This is an important bill, and I want to thank the Environment Committee for their hard work in considering it. I understand that it was reported back from the committee by majority, but I also understand that there was a constructive and collegial atmosphere during the select committee hearings, which was good. I also understand, subject to hearing the speeches from the other members, that there are indeed some elements of the bill that other parties in the House support, which is good to see.

This is an important bill. As I’ve said publicly a few times, we’re in this three-phase programme to reform the Resource Management Act (RMA). We’ve done phase one and we’re in the middle of phase two. The allied changes that are being made to the national direction that are under way at the moment complement this piece of legislation, which the Government wants to get into law very quickly, and then, of course, we’ve got the replacement of the RMA coming later in the year, going into next year. But this bill makes some quick and targeted—well, not that quick, but it makes some targeted changes to the existing RMA in order to unlock productivity, housing growth, economic growth, and primary sector changes.

The first area of the bill concerns infrastructure and energy, and it will bring to life the Government’s Electrify New Zealand reforms and provide certainty for ports. The second package is around housing, and it includes reforms to enable the first pillar of the Government’s Going for Housing Growth policy. There is a third series of changes around farming and the primary sector, to reduce the regulatory overlap between the RMA and the Fisheries Act for flexibility around marine consent processes. There’s also a section in the bill on emergency and natural hazards—we’re making that more efficient and effective—and then there’s a whole series of changes to system improvements that I don’t intend to canvass today but I think they are widely supported.

The bill proposes broadening the definition of “long-lived infrastructure” to provide for more activities that support electricity generation and more types of transport, which is a good thing. The Environment Committee has looked at the changes to section 70 and recommended changes to clarify that section 70 amendments will apply to plans already notified, including those under appeal and subject to court proceedings. The Government supports those amendments made by the Environment Committee.

When it comes to housing, there’s been this complex interplay over the last few months between the Government and the Auckland Council. Mayor Wayne Brown calls it “RMA gymnastics”, and members probably aren’t aware of the complicated legal process that’s happened. So, back in 2021, Parliament legislated the medium-density residential standards (MDRS) on top of the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPSUD). Most councils have now got on with that and have put those plans into effect, which is good. Auckland has not, for a variety of reasons; some of which are good, and some aren’t. The council has asked the Government to have the ability to withdraw proposed plan change 78 (PC 78) because PC 78 as it was originally drafted pursuant to the MDRS law allows the council to upzone but it doesn’t allow it to down-zone. And, post - the floods, there’s a willingness by the council to reclassify some areas as being within flood-prone areas, which, obviously, everybody supports.

The bill as reported back from the select committee allows the council to withdraw PC 78 and resubmit a new plan change, which the council is—without breaking the Fitzgerald v Muldoon conventions, I can say that the council is duly getting on with that quite quickly. It requires the council to notify a new plan change by 10 October, and, crucially, it means that the council has to provide as much development capacity as was in PC 78 as it was originally notified. So, in other words, we’re going to achieve a similar level of housing capacity uplift in Auckland, which is a good thing because, fundamentally, house prices and rents are linked to urban planning rules that make it hard for cities to grow, including Auckland. But Auckland Council will have more flexibility around the flood-prone areas that it’s dealing with there, and it will also be allowed to not use the medium-density residential standards, which many people in Auckland are keen on not using. It was a too one-size-fits-all solution. However, the bill also makes it clear that existing council plans that have incorporated both the NPSUD changes and the medium-density residential standards are now locked in.

As members will be aware, the Government campaigned on allowing councils to opt out of the medium-density standards. We’ve come to the simple view, to be honest, that giving councils the ability to opt out of the medium-density standards would involve another plan change. That’s time-consuming and expensive, and given that the RMA phase three—the new RMA—is coming next year, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to make councils go through that complicated legal process. I see that the former Mayor of Wellington—Celia Wade-Brown—is shaking her head, and I think that she probably agrees.

Plan changes—people think they’re easy, but they’re not.

💬 Cameron Brewer: The other one isn’t.

They should be easier, frankly—oh sorry, sorry.

💬 Cameron Brewer: Oh, there’s two: Your Worship, Your Worship.

Your Worships, my apologies. I didn’t see my good friend and colleague Andy Foster—and two Mayors of Wellington. Hey, you never know—

💬 Cameron Brewer: There’s a third coming.

—you never know, there could be a third coming. The rumours could be true. There could be a third coming. Who knows? Who knows—and I’m not talking about Dame Kerry Prendergast. Who knows? There could be a third coming, if the rumours are to be believed. Well, we’ll wait and see.

💬 Cameron Luxton: What, is Andrew Little coming back?

Is Andrew Little coming back? I wasn’t talking about him, either. No, no, he’s got important work to do in Wellington—soon.

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: Are you supporting him—is that an endorsement?

Hey, I’ve been prescient about this. I said on radio that he was a solid candidate and that I thought he’d win, and I said that six weeks ago.

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, well done!

Well, I’m just saying, you know. Anyhoo—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): Anyway, back to the bill—back to the bill. Easily distracted.

Back to the RMA, after a minor diversion into the tawdry embarrassment that is Wellington local body politics and the centre-right in Wellington. So where was I?

Plan changes are complicated, expensive things. We’re not going to make councils that have already adopted the MDRS, most of which are actually comfortable with it—we’re not going to make them go back through and change it. Auckland is going to be exempt. There’s a separate solution for Christchurch, which—again, for very complicated reasons, I won’t traverse—is halfway through its process, and so there’s a separate solution for Christchurch.

The Auckland changes are really important. We’re in the second reading debate, but just to flag up to the House that there will be Amendment Papers that will become available for the House during the committee of the whole House stage in which the Government will move that a requirement of the new plan change that will be done in Auckland will be upzoning around City Rail Link stations in Auckland. There will be 15 storeys around three of them, in particular, and 10 storeys around the other two stations—and I see the MP for Mt Albert is here in the House, and I’m looking forward to her support for the upzoning around her wonderful suburbs, which will allow for great urban density in that wonderful part of Auckland.

It’s sensible density in the right place, because the Government is spending 5 billion bucks on this extraordinary new rapid transit system for Auckland, which is the City Rail Link. It’s a wonderful thing.

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: It’s wonderful.

It is wonderful—it is wonderful—and I thank the member for her support. But the Government has got a simple view, which is that having spent that money, we’ve got to make sure we have the housing outcomes that come from that, and having single-family home zones right next door to big train stations doesn’t make a lot of sense. It doesn’t make a lot of sense. So Auckland is going to have to upzone around those stations. There will be controls around how they do it, but they have to upzone because that’s how we drive a more productive economy. You know, I don’t want to relitigate the point, because members have heard me rant on about this often enough.

The other change I just wanted to briefly mention is heritage. The bill makes some changes around having a streamlined planning process to make it easier for councils to delist heritage-listed buildings in their district plans. We went through this ridiculous exercise with Wellington. We’ve had two different attempts to get rid of the Gordon Wilson Flats, and, again, I’d just flag for the House that there’s an Amendment Paper coming once we get to the committee of the whole House stage in which we will move to make the demolition of those disgusting flats up on The Terrace a permitted activity. You might well ask whether it’s a bit ridiculous that Parliament has to legislate to permit the destruction of heritage-listed, earthquake-prone, asbestos-ridden eyesores in Wellington; you’d be right, and the new RMA will make it a lot easier. But in the meantime, we have to take these sensible steps. I commend the bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Debate interrupted.