Fast-track Approvals Bill

on behalf of the Minister responsible for RMA Reform: I present a legislative statement on the Fast-track Approvals Bill.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the parliamentary website.

Hon SHANE JONES: I move, That the Fast-track Approvals Bill be now read a second time.

It is my privilege to demonstrate to the vast number of New Zealanders, Kiwis, waiting anxiously to see progress as we move beyond the cobweb of green, red, and brown tapeworm-like obstructiveness that has impeded the development of our economy—because projects in mining, energy, infrastructure, and other such developments have been blighted—that today is a day of light, not a day of blight. Now, we actually introduced this bill, in urgency, in March. That reflected the importance we attach to getting our economy enjoying a higher level of acceleration, and it’s my pleasure to celebrate with this wee speech the return of this bill to the House.

Of course, we all know that this is modelled on Labour Party legislation. We all know it was the Labour Party who originally introduced the fast-track legislation, and included a list of projects—quite an inspired development at the time. This bill picks up that earlier version and makes a host of overdue refinements, and connects it with the pulse in our economy, which needs to be injected with fuel that will power the ambitions and give greater certainty and confidence to those who actually want to get things done in a rapid period of time. That’s why this bill is slightly more extensive than the efforts of the Labour Party.

We know that the Wildlife Act has cost millions and millions of dollars as a consequence of it being manipulated—impeding fish farming, worsening road construction—and we also know that because of a calcified level of legal decision-making, it represents a major impediment for garden-variety Kiwis wanting to make progress, build businesses, create jobs, and reward investment. That’s why this bill should be conceived as a broad umbrella, where different statutory permissions will be synthesised into one single consent, and the genius of this bill is it represents a one-stop shop. Sadly, regulatory thickets have stood in the way of building roads, whether it’s up in Mount Messenger or whether it’s an attempt to expand offshore salmon farming down in Marlborough, and this should be seen as accompanying the work associated with what my colleague Mr Simon Court is responsible for in relation to moving—with the honourable Mr Bishop—resource management forward.

Now, I don’t need to remind everyone how many jobs will be generated. Confidence and certainty will grow. I only wish that iwi leaders wouldn’t waste their money in the New Zealand newspapers pretending that mining ironsands is going to affect crayfish, or mining ironsands is going to have a bad impact on surfing. I’ll take jobs for Māoris before surfing for hippies any time of the day.

Let me move now to the business of listed projects. Listed projects are those identifiable initiatives such as the boon coming to Taranaki in the form of ironsands. Now, that was reflected in a very, very sacred document otherwise known as the coalition agreement between New Zealand First and the National Party, and in that document is a reference to a highly sought - after mineral called vanadium. I know that, for many of my critics in Taranaki, they’ve had to consult the dictionary to learn how to spell that word, but, rest assured, that economic boon is on its way, and it occupies a position with a host of other mining projects that are on the listed projects.

Initially, New Zealanders flooded the process and overworked the independent committee—ably chaired by Mr David Tapsell—and there were nigh on 390 to 400 projects, but we showed judiciousness on this side of the House. We chose not to be reckless, we chose not to be cavalier, and we said we’d settle upon 149 projects. Now, those projects represent quarrying. You cannot create infrastructure or build roads in the absence of quarries, and, sure, from time to time there may be one or two modest minor species and critters in the way of the quarry. They will be dealt with appropriately, but we are not going to get into a situation of developments’ progress and jobs held ransom to or hijacked by a random frog, a multicoloured skink, or other such elements of the natural world when there’s thousands and millions of them around us.

Of course the advisory group was independent, and that’s what it means when the politicians can stand up and say that, on this side of the House, we’ve taken high-quality advice. These projects represent an enormous fillip, an enormous injection of confidence into our system, and that’s why the fast-track legislation is so important. Of course there will be a Minister involved in terms of after the bill passes, and there may very well be some opportunities through the committee stage for the other side of the House to make suggestions. I fear that those suggestions will only represent further pollution—further pollution—but we will be resolute on this side of the House because we know the economy can no longer tolerate any more policy seances, any more protracted processes of consultation where the result won’t change; all you do is celebrate—celebrate the mentality that costs are always understated and risks are overstated.

Who are the final decision makers in this highly sought - after legislation, which I hope will be the most permissive regime in Australasia? In fact, it’s the OECD, because, if I’m not mistaken, the Labour Party in England actually has its own fast-track legislation. Now, the final decision maker will be a panel. There was a period of time that I had arrogated that distinction to my good self, but I’m a member of a Cabinet that is blessed with common sense. I’m a member of a Cabinet who wants to ensure that the public has confidence in governance and the institutions where decision makers lock in with the issues. That’s why a High Court judge or an Environment Court judge will chair the panels that will be empowered to make decisions pertaining to either the projects on the existing list or those that will be referred in the future by the Minister for Infrastructure, and there will be an opportunity, in appropriate circumstances, for a member of the panel qualified in Māori development and te ao Māori.

Now, “te ao Māori” means “the Māori world”, and so that’s this planet; not the planets up there in the galaxy, where, sadly, a lot of the Māori hogwash that I have to tolerate, as someone who puts my credentials against anyone in te ao Māori as to where does our language begin and end. This notion that tikanga Māori applies 30 kilometres off the coast, and you can’t go exploring and creating wealth looking at ironsands—not only is that a degradation of tikanga Māori; it shows how ideology has weaponised our Māori identity.

I must acknowledge the efforts of the Environment Committee. In conclusion, I am immensely proud, with appropriate levels of modesty and humility, to play this small role to bring this legislation to the House and to assure New Zealanders, assure investors, and assure our communities that jobs, growth, revenue, and progress is on the way and we will no longer allow the deification of the environment to stand in the way of jobs and growth. Kia ora tātou.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is a sad day that I am standing here with a bill that has changed a little bit through the select committee process, but not nearly enough. It is not—

Hon Shane Jones: Labour policy.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: The Minister for Resources says it is Labour policy. It is not a refinement, it is not slightly more extensive than Labour policies for fast track; it is a huge overriding of all of our environmental protections, and the Minister doesn’t even pretend that it’s not. The Prime Minister might, the Minister whose name is on the bill might, but this Minister just told us he wants it to be the most permissive regime in Australasia, and what does that mean? That means that all our normal environmental laws can be overridden because some private project has got on to the list that he just told us about, and that is disgraceful.

He has told us that he wants the public to have some trust in the system, but what we have here is a Government bill that will give private rights to private projects to private companies. That is not how we make law in New Zealand, because Government bills are there for the general New Zealanders—they’re not specific. We have local bills when councils want to change the status of a reserve or something like that, and we have private bills when private entities such as trusts want to change something about their trust deed. Those sorts of things are private bills. They are not Government bills, but here—

Hon Shane Jones: Red tape.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: —we are told—and the Minister is just yelling out “red tape” because that is how he holds the constitutional norms in New Zealand: with disdain. It is a disgrace, and New Zealanders should be very concerned that this Minister is in Cabinet and that the Cabinet that he says has some common sense is letting these changes come through. It is a disgrace.

The Minister for Resources, who just spoke, said that maybe there’ll be some amendments in the committee of the whole House stage of this bill, because, of course, we’re only at the second reading stage. Here is a wad of amendments that both the Labour Party and the Green Party have already submitted, and they make all the changes that are needed to make this bill—what did he say?—a “refinement” of the Labour Party fast track. The Minister has said that he’s very proud that “the genius of the bill is it represents a one-stop shop.” That is an interesting idea that it’s a one-stop shop, and that is different from what Labour had done in fast track, but it is something that I’m not fundamentally opposed to. What I am fundamentally opposed to is any legislation that overrides our normal laws that protect the environment, and that is what this bill does, and the Environment Committee have reported back and amended clause 3, which is the purpose clause.

Clause 3, as in the bill that was introduced, said something about processes to facilitate development and projects, and now that “process” word has been deleted—to make it very clear that this is a substantive bill. The purpose does not refer to the environment, and it does not refer to sustainable management; it just refers to the facilitation of projects. That is very concerning, because then how the rest of the bill works is that that purpose is the thing that decision makers have to give the most weight to, and that is the mechanism by which this bill leapfrogs all of our normal environmental protections—our environmental protections that don’t apply to the things that haven’t managed to get on to the listed projects list, that don’t apply to things that are medium-sized and not regionally significant, which have no way to get to this fast-track process, and that don’t apply to the projects that, demonstrably, the Resource Management Act does the worst job at, in terms of costing those people more money for the process and taking more time than it should.

These large projects, which would always normally go to a court because of how large they are and the effects that they’re going to have, go through the system now reasonably quickly. They could go quicker and they could be cheaper, but, comparatively, the real problem is with those medium-sized projects, and this bill does nothing to fix that. All the talk of how it’s improving the economy and efficiency is just not right. All this bill is doing is overriding our environmental protections for the good of a few—for pet projects of that Government and of that Minister—and it is a disgrace.

Now, the Prime Minister has stood up in question time many times and referred to this fast-track bill as something that is going to help us in our climate emergency. He goads Labour and Green politicians and says, “Well, you should support this bill.” No, we should not support this bill in its current form, because it is not all about doing things that are good for climate change, it is not restricted to renewable energy, it is not restricted to public-good infrastructure, and it is not restricted to stormwater improvements or things that are going to help adaptation. No, as the Minister very clearly just said, it is for mining projects and other things that might be in totally unsuitable areas. It is a disgrace.

This bill, where something is prohibited in a plan—and it’s very hard for councils to make prohibited rules. When they make a prohibited rule, they have to be able to demonstrate that something like, say, building houses on a flood plain is so bad and so dangerous that nobody can ever apply for a consent for that—it’s un-consentable. What this bill does is say, “No, no, it doesn’t matter if something is prohibited. You can still get a consent for that activity.” That is a disgrace and it’s dangerous.

The water conservation orders: we heard from people that there are only 16 water conservation orders in New Zealand over 16 pristine water bodies, and it’s a very long and arduous process to get a water conservation order, but these projects can just ignore the water conservation orders, because that is what this bill does. It overrides our normal environmental protections, and it’s a disgrace. It stops public participation, and I acknowledge that the Labour pieces of legislation around fast track definitely restricted public participation, but not to this degree. There are the Labour—

Hon Scott Simpson: Oh, so it’s OK when Labour does it.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, I’ve got an amendment here, Mr Simpson, and I hope that you will support it because it lists all the groups that were listed in Labour’s emergency COVID legislation, such as some of the environmental non-governmental organisations and Business New Zealand and other entities. Not even those groups are involved in this process in this bill.

It’ll make more wrongs against Te Tiriti. We know that projects can override our normal environmental protections and we know that that will cause environmental harm. We’ve heard the Minister say he’s not worried about killing a few animals because there’s thousands or millions of them. What a ridiculous thing to say in this House, when we are talking about—and I assume he is actually talking about—threatened New Zealand native species, where there are not thousands or millions of them, but they are the last ones on the planet, and we are very privileged to live in a country with such wonderful biodiversity and such interesting endemic species that are not found anywhere else in the world. He thinks, for a few bucks, that one of his pet projects should just be able to ram through all those protections that those species, those frogs, would normally have—whatever that animal is—and that is disgraceful.

There is no Treaty clause in this bill. There’s reference to Treaty settlements, but that’s pretty much it, so we know there will be more wrongs. And it enables coalmining in kiwi habitats. That is just mind-blowingly bad. We know that that cannot be a good thing: (1) why do we need more coal when we already have a climate crisis and are trying to stop burning fossil fuels; and (2) kiwi are regarded as taonga species in New Zealand, and that project has already been declined. It can’t get through the current environmental tests, and yet with this bill it will be able to, which demonstrates how this bill is not protecting our environment. It is overriding our environmental protections. The problem definition is wrong. The problem here is not to make things faster and to help the economy; the problem definition is the consenting of—

The member’s time has expired, thank you.

Tēnā koe, Madam Speaker. Well, we knew at the outset of this Government signalling their intention with the fast-track bill that it would be bad. We knew it would be bad for the environment, we knew it would be bad for Te Tiriti, we knew it would be bad for local voices and for local democracy, and it was actually not only all of that but it was also just really poorly put-together legislation. Officials have made that really clear throughout the select committee process and there have been so many changes as a result.

We’ve had some really concerning developments over the time of that select committee process. One of the most concerning was the fact that the Schedule 2 projects did come out and were announced, and we saw the possibility of what this fast-track bill actually could enable and the reality of that for communities. We had the media point out, even just at a cursory glance, that $500,000 in donations have been linked to companies that are on that Schedule 2 fast-track list, and we really welcome the Auditor-General launching their inquiry into how Ministers managed conflicts of interest with the fast-track process. I wanted to quote here because the Auditor-General said that this inquiry was “vital for maintaining public trust and confidence, as well as New Zealand’s global reputations for transparency, accountability, and integrity.” This is really serious stuff.

There are aspects of the bill that have not yet been addressed by the select committee, and we’re still in the position in this House now where there are so many questions yet to be answered that the public still have so many concerns about, as does the Green Party. What’s noteworthy at this time in this bill’s passage through Parliament is that, despite the 27,000 submissions that we got on the bill and the 23 days of public hearings that the Environment Committee went through, which had so many voices, with such eminently sensible recommendations that could have been adopted and put through into this bill from organisations, from iwi, from hapū, from companies, and from industry that would have made this bill something that actually was of value to New Zealand and could stand the test of time—despite this whole process—quite incredibly, this bill has now emerged that is actually worse than when it first started out.

Sure, there have been some welcome changes. The removal of the ministerial decision-making has been removed, and there has been a clause put in so that on referral decisions, the Minister for the Environment will now be consulted, but I’m not sure that offers New Zealanders any comfort when we have a Minister for the Environment who says that the balance has swung too far toward the environment at the cost of getting things done, despite the overwhelming weight of evidence within her own ministry saying the contrary. I want the public of Aotearoa to know that, under this bill, the meagre environmental protections that once constituted a framework of what we would consider to be environmental protections are no longer, under the fast-track bill. They now amount to mere considerations, and this is because the purpose clause has actually been strengthened so much that it now gives the greatest weight to significant development over environmental considerations. Now, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the Government saying that the Green Party should support fast track, and talking about things like renewable energy, but if it’s just about public infrastructure, then let’s make it about public infrastructure.

The Green Party proposed at select committee that we would actually define what constitutes significant, regional, and national benefits, and we proposed that this would mean public infrastructure, like transport, water, hospitals, education, renewable energy generation, and telecommunications. This would have narrowed the scope of the bill, but that was rejected, and why was it rejected? It was rejected because fast track is, unfortunately, not just about public infrastructure. It’s about the damming of rivers to progress farming intensification and the pollution of rivers and streams; it’s about the flooding and mining of conservation land; it’s about hydro schemes that degrade and diminish some of our last remaining wild rivers; it’s about so-called waste-to-energy plants, which sound great in theory but are human and ecological health nightmares, and now, overseas, similar plants are being decommissioned or banned; it’s about the mining of our last remaining areas of seabed habitat; and it’s about this Government being so incredibly lazy with their policy making that they would rather open up swaths of the Mackenzie Basin for massive solar farms than actually do the policy work to enable the use of the millions of existing square metreage available on industry and domestic roofs that could be used instead.

I want to talk about the lack of iwi, hapū, and public voice in this fast-track bill, which has not improved, because, again, if this bill was really about enabling projects of such significance that they’re of regional and national significance, then logic would dictate that, actually, the breadth of expertise within civil society—groups and experts having their say—could contribute to the informing of the expert panel and actually result in projects that not only have a social licence but robust evidence and understanding that allow conditions on these projects that actually makes sense and do not unnecessarily risk human health and environmental health. We proposed just that—that all projects should be publicly notified—and got nowhere.

We hear, like a broken record, from this Government that they’re the Government for farmers, and what’s really concerning about this bill is that there are no protections for the rights of existing consent holders in this bill. I can tell you, from being on the select committee and from talking to very unhappy consent holders in some of these proposed project areas, that they are extremely concerned about their consent rights being overridden by fast-track projects, particularly when it’s limited resource constraints like in the water space. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment so accurately described this as there being one set of rules for everyone and then there being special, fast-track rules “for the big end of town”. We think that is unacceptable, and our proposal to actually protect the rights of consent holders in this bill got nowhere.

Here we have this bill that could have got the basics right. It could have enabled a one-stop shop for development within environmental constraints in a way that actually upheld Te Tiriti and allowed public voice. Instead, we have this bill that is so definitively short-sighted that it ignores the voices of our people, the need for the protection of te taiao—our environment—and the right of current and future generations to a livable future. This bill has no clear justification and rationale to justify its continuation through Parliament. Te Pāti Kākāriki thinks that this bill should be binned and left to the ashes of history. It’s reckless. It should not go any further, unless the Government really seriously looks at our amendments and considers them in the next stage, the committee of the whole House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. The ACT Party will be supporting the fast-track legislation. It’s a really important tool to unlock what is currently a system that’s been running with the handbrake on, getting nowhere, and, in fact, costing $1.3 billion per annum, according to the Infrastructure Commission, to consent infrastructure projects alone in New Zealand. We’ve got a resource management system which required a friend of mine building a house at Mangawhai, north of Auckland, to apply for a consent because his 1-metre-high retaining wall, according to a council officer, was actually 1.2 metres, and that was a $4,000 cost and a six-week delay to building a family home.

This is the system that this Government has inherited that the previous Government failed to fix—five years of navel-gazing. The Randerson panel, of which the Hon Rachel Brooking was a member, in five years couldn’t come up with a concept that was enduring and that would allow us to get on with building infrastructure, developing the natural resources that we need in order to build roads, make concrete, and build buildings—which includes hospitals and schools, by the way. The fast-track legislation is the best solution we’ve got to knock the blockage out of the system, and you know how important it is because hundreds and hundreds of applicants put in their projects, seeking to qualify for fast-track approval on a nationally and significantly important basis.

It turns out, though, that everybody’s infrastructure and development project is important to them. New Zealanders are currently forced to get about 40,000-odd consents a year, as at the most recent peak of our construction boom. In the 1990s, and a few years after the Resource Management Act was passed, about 5,000 consents were required every year. Now, we’ve got to 40,000. We’re sure as heck not building 40,000 consents’ worth of stuff; this is all paperwork. It’s all red and green tape. It’s all asking questions by councils and commissioners and planners to protect their own reputations and to protect and manage their own risk, not to ask questions to help get things built faster.

Fast track is an important first step to unlocking our resource management system, making it easier to build, making it easier for Kiwis to use their property in ways that they see fit, making it easier for local government to get their vital infrastructure projects over the line, to upgrade water and waste-water treatment plants, to get housing developments over the line, and to get renewable energy projects up, but it’s also to get those really important quarries and mines that we need to consent and develop so that we can have access to the natural resources like hard rock for building roads, and minerals like coal and gold, which we need to power our industries.

What many people in this House on the Opposition side don’t realise is that coal is not just something to be burned; it is a chemical. It contains carbon. It is used to turn into products like the coal tar in our trading partners like Japan and South Korea, which is then used to make those wonderful waterproof backpacks and rain jackets that so many of my friends who might want to go for a hike on the weekend rely on to keep warm and dry. Coal is not just something to be burnt; it’s a vital mineral resource in technology and healthcare, as well as in many of the products that we use and consume every day, and it’s important that New Zealand has access to our own resources, rather than being strategically vulnerable on importing other people’s resources.

I’d also like to talk about the one-stop shop factor, and I want to appreciate the fact that the Hon Rachel Brooking did acknowledge the improvements that this bill brings to the decision-making process and the assessment of information about the environmental impacts of projects. This bill brings in consideration of the Conservation Act, getting access to land managed under the Conservation Act. It brings into consideration the Wildlife Act. There are species out there that when we’re building roads, when we’re developing residential housing subdivisions, and when we’re building commercial precincts, there will be little creatures and there will be habitats with plants and other species on them that we want to know about, and, if at all possible, we want to avoid or remedy or mitigate the effects of development on these places. Now, unfortunately, the system to do that is so disparate, the Wildlife Act is a 1953 piece of legislation which presumes that when you apply for a wildlife permit, you intend to kill it.

Now, I can promise those members of the Green Party, Te Pāti Māori, and Labour, who were so concerned about the last frog, that the ACT Party, in supporting this bill, is confident that there are processes in place to identify threatened species and to identify special habitats to make sure that they are protected and that consent conditions issued as part of approvals under the Fast-track Approvals Bill will recognise those important places and creatures. The problem we’ve got is it’s taking too long to get these approvals. You get one and it might take two years; if you still have to get another, that might be another two years; and then you still need to acquire the land under the Public Works Act. We’re bringing all of these things together.

I also want to talk about the catastrophism that we’ve heard. When this bill was first proposed, I read comments that this bill was an example of this Government’s war on nature and that it was going to cause—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Because it overrides the environmental protections.

SIMON COURT: —an ecocide—Rachel Brooking—

Kahurangi Carter: The truth hurts.

SIMON COURT: —an ecocide—Kahurangi Carter. Well, here’s the thing: there is no developer of residential housing or of long-term residential care for the elderly. There is no one I know—a civil engineer, an environmental engineer, an ecologist—who works for a company that’s developing quarry resources to build the things we need who wants to take part in an ecocide. That is a complete nonsense. It is catastrophising, and it is completely unhelpful—it is unhelpful and immature from people who want to participate in the debate about how we build the infrastructure that we need, and how we also protect the special places and creatures that are important to New Zealanders. I would call on all members of this House to quit the catastrophising, quit the use of these terms like “ecocide” and a “war on nature”, and go back and tell your supporters and the members of your political parties that there’s a way through this, and we’re going to participate in a constructive way, because this is just round two of this Government’s resource management reforms.

Round three—which we’ll be talking about more soon—is replacing the Resource Management Act with a system based on property rights which sets environmental limits to protect these special places and provides for mechanisms like compensation and offset and trading biodiversity credits to make sure that where we do do development that’s really needed, we recognise that there are other places that we want to protect and enhance. New Zealanders do share values about our love of the environment, but, by goodness, we also want to live in affordable homes, we want to be able to drive at a decent clip on modern roads, we want to be able to get into ports and airports, and not have a whole bunch of nimbies and people who catastrophise the impact of land development on the environment to such an extent that, essentially, they’ll say that we can’t build anything anywhere, ever.

Kahurangi Carter: No one’s saying that.

SIMON COURT: Well, you say, Kahurangi Carter, that no one’s saying that, but the implication of what the Green Party is calling for and of what Labour is saying is that we must remain anchored in this status quo and that the status quo you see today in terms of our traffic congestion and in terms of our inability to build major infrastructure projects on time and on budget is acceptable, and, in fact, we have to slow them down further and apply more layers of precaution. That’s what we’re hearing. Now, if you disagree with me, what I’d like you to say, Kahurangi Carter—and maybe some other members of the Green Party, like Lan Pham, will get to speak on this bill again—is that you do support land development, you do support housing intensification, and you know there are pathways to actually codify environmental effects management, and that we shouldn’t have to apply for 40,000 consents a year to get permission to do the things we already need to do well.

Now, I can tell there are some members of the Opposition here who can’t get their heads around this concept. The ACT Party supports this bill. We’re going to do more of this stuff. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The member’s time has expired.

Madam Speaker, thank you very much. I rise in support of the second reading of this Fast-track Approvals Bill in the name of my friend and colleague the Hon Chris Bishop, who is our Minister responsible for RMA Reform.

I also do so in my capacity as chair of the Environment Committee. It’s a role and a privileged position that I came to halfway through the deliberations and hearings on this legislation. As other members have already indicated, there were a lot of submissions. There were some very strong views put both for and against the proposed legislation, but I can report to the House that, after the select committee process, the bill that the select committee has reported back to the Parliament is, I think, a significantly changed and better bill than the one that was first introduced at first reading.

In telling the House that, I just want to reflect for a moment on the timetable that has been transpiring while this legislation has been considered by the House and by the select committee. It’s just over a year since the last general election and it’s not quite yet 12 months since the formation of this current coalition Government, and it’s been 12 months of action and activity and positive change for a brighter, bolder future for New Zealand and for our people and for future generations.

One of the first things that the new coalition Government did before Christmas last year was to repeal Labour’s very ill-conceived natural and built environment legislation. It was full of red tape; it had slowed down the economy; it did very little, if anything, to preserve, maintain, or enhance our natural environment; and, most importantly, it was symbolic of Labour’s view that everything should be controlled from the centre and that issuing proclamations from the Beehive was the way that New Zealanders should receive consents—that was the way that information should be conveyed to them and that’s the way that all things should happen.

That’s of course a principle and a philosophy that’s not unique to the New Zealand Labour Party; it’s a policy that is, essentially, the same in left-leaning parties all around the world. What they fail to understand is that in New Zealand’s case, we’ve got a woeful deficit of infrastructure. We’ve got an economy that is struggling and that has been made far worse after six years of a Labour-led Government, we’ve got a desperate need to improve the health, wellbeing, and certainty of future for all New Zealanders, and we’ve got to get things done. That was a key, fundamental element of last year’s general election. This coalition Government was elected to get things done, and this bill represents exactly that kind of momentum that’s required to get things done.

Minister Shane Jones made comment about it being a one-stop shop piece of legislation. Far be it from me to even try and emulate any of his magnificent eloquence and oratory in this Chamber, but I think he did make a number of serious points that are well worth repeating and focusing on again, and they are that New Zealand needs a growing economy, we need more renewable electricity generation, we need more capacity to build roads and infrastructure that give us the kind of lifestyle that we want as a First World nation, and we need to have a decision-making process that can expedite that growth, that development, much quicker than has been the case, frankly, over the last 30 years or so, since the inception of the Resource Management Act.

Then when he says—and as do others in this Chamber—that Opposition parties should be supporting this legislation, he’s 100 percent right, because, surely, if they continue to want and demand better housing, better education, better health facilities and all those sorts of things, then we need to have the economy that can sustain that. We simply can’t, as a nation, continue to divide the pie into ever-decreasing slivers. We can’t continue to do that; we actually have to grow the pie. I know that that is a difficult concept for members of the Opposition to grasp, but we have to have a thriving, growing economy if we want all the things that we are to have as a First World nation. This piece of legislation goes a long way to ensure that the obstructions, that the roadblocks, and that the logjams that have so stultified our economy for so long will be freed up and removed.

Now, the bill makes a number of changes as reported back from the select committee, and I just want to focus on one or two of them in the time that’s available to me. One of the main changes is that the select committee has recommended on a suggestion from Cabinet that the expert panel projects be referred to the expert panel by the Minister for Infrastructure alone and that that Minister will be required to consult with the Minister for the Environment. I think that’s a positive change in this piece of legislation. Importantly, also, final decisions on projects will not sit with a group of Ministers but with the expert panel. I think that’s appropriate. I think that’s appropriate; in fact, it’s identical to the same system that the Labour Government had when they were in power, so I’m sure that they’ll be supporting that. Then the expert panels themselves will include expertise in environmental matters, and that, of course, is important as well.

On this side of the House, we don’t accept that having protection, enhancement, and maintenance of the environment and having a growing, thriving economy are binary options, and that you can’t have one without the other. In fact, you must have both—you must have both. That’s the reason why, on this side of the House, we’re supporting this piece of legislation. We’re grateful for the support of our coalition partners in ACT and New Zealand First, and we are determined, as a Government, to get things done. We support this legislation.

This is a split call.

Tēnā koe e te Pīka. First of all, obviously, we stand in absolute opposition to this bill, and, to be very specific, it is giving unprecedented powers to politicians who have deliberately chosen to remove Te Tiriti and who are doing everything they can to resurrect zombie projects previously turned down by every court that exists in Aotearoa. That’s not progress. That is not economic progress; that wreaks of desperation. When we see nearly 27,000 submitters, 83 percent of whom are opposed and many of whom weren’t heard because they were relegated to a ballot system over 23 days, it sort of tells you how desperate this Government is. There is nothing innovative or transformative in what is being proposed. Absolutely, we should progress—absolutely, and there’s no debate on this side—but “At the cost of what?” is what we’re really, really opposing you on.

We have a Minister who has been proudly championing this kaupapa. I think the terminology was to milk mother Earth for all we can. Shane Jones, in his valedictory speech, said that what matters more than anything in the world was he tangata, he tangata, he tangata, and yet not once has he listened to ngā tāngata—not once. What we have is a person who, actually, would have been marching beside those across the Auckland Harbour Bridge today. He would have been part of the hikoi—that is his background—but, instead, the people he chucks off at today are now sitting there, ashamed of his background. We have a Minister who was involved in the Ministry for the Environment, who was involved in Māori fisheries, and who led a delegation to the Pacific on transparency, and, in 44 years, now has every one of those groups—iwi Māori, environmentalists, Māori fisheries, and Pasifika—against what it is he’s proposing. In 44 years, we see this downward, desperate spiral, and it’s just so sad that, again, if we were truly listening to the people, we would provide economic solutions and transformation that we could all be proud of.

We in Taranaki are sick to death of hearing everyone here act as if they’re experts in a sector that they’ve never had in their backyard. I call BS on this Minister—Minister Jones—because not once has any of this gone back to his backyard. I’ve just come from there, and there’s no way, with all the anti-mining signs I saw, that they would allow him to do that in his own backyard. But, no, in Taranaki we have to enjoy the fruits of this unimaginative Government. We have to sit here and see—and I want to share that some of those who so bravely have invested in making sure that mainstream media have got advertisements showing how toxic the decision to have seabed mining in Taranaki is viewed, because nowhere can we trust that any of their political representation is going to do it except for us, on this side.

What we had were so many ex-voters of National walking with us, opposing seabed mining, absolutely disgusted that their Government—or the people that they’d previously backed—are doing this. Ngāruahine were absolutely opposed, saying, in fact, that the Crown had failed them and, again, it is prepared to continue to develop on the back of our pain, as Taranaki. We’ve got Ngāti Tama, who said that you are so focused on the significance of economic development at the cost of our kaitiakitanga. KASM—Kiwis Against Seabed Mining—said that you are breaching the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. And who cares—who cares? No one is listening. Also we’ve got, again, Greenpeace, who said this is extremely problematic and that the bill is setting up a clear hierarchy that will allow development, regardless of the cost to threatened wildlife. Horowhenua Lake Trust Muaūpoko also talked about how the bill prioritises development goals over existing rights and interests. Again, 25,000 people on the bridge today are telling us that you—this Government—will never ever listen to the lament of those who are disgusted at how you’re treating our Tiriti.

Taranaki don’t want this, those who care about our mokopuna don’t want this, but, instead, what we have, unfortunately, is a Government that is executing this so damned fast—so fast—that what you don’t realise is you’re fast tracking your way out of Parliament, and let this be a one-term Government, for all we can do. Kia ora rā.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I was fortunate to be part of the fast-track bill hearings earlier this year and to hear from submitters, and I have to say up front that if this bill is an example of the way this Government intends to keep on operating, I see clearly that they really only want one term. One term is actually one term too many for a Government intent on trashing our environment, running roughshod over our communities, and destroying our children’s future.

Let’s consider the numbers, the facts. There were 53,000 submitters, including petitions, individual submitters, and a thousand organisation submitters. Of those, 0.3 percent gave outright support to the bill—0.3 percent—1.1 percent gave support in principle, 5.7 percent had an unclear position, and 92.9 percent outright opposed the bill. Let’s be clear: this bill was rushed prior to introduction, is incredibly unpopular, and has no public mandate to proceed, and yet here we are, facing a Government determined to destroy our environment and our international reputation and to threaten trade agreements and override communities, all in the pursuit of short-term financial gain.

I firstly want to thank all those submitters who presented, and all those who sent in written submissions, but were denied an opportunity to speak. I can understand why this Government would be unwilling to face the full glare of an outraged public, a public dismayed by the arrogance of this Government to push poorly written fast-track legislation through a blitzkrieg of urgency. It just demonstrates how out of touch this Government is, and it also demonstrates an astonishing denial of the climate crisis we face and an unwillingness to work constructively across the aisle for wellbeing.

There were some in support of fast track. There were companies who made submissions in support of the fast-track legislation who are developing renewable electricity generation projects, and we certainly need more renewable electricity generation. They noted that they participated because they did not want to miss out, and made it clear to us that, even if they participated in the fast track, they would still engage with communities, with iwi, with hapū, and with councils, because, ultimately, they need social licence to continue to operate. Without social licence, we will see development tied up in courts. We’ll see protests galore. We will find it much harder to build social cohesion if people, if communities, if iwi, if hapū, and if councils are overridden by the Minister for Infrastructure, and what will happen in those situations where people are overridden where people, iwi, hapū, and councils oppose proposed projects listed in Schedule 2? Who will the Minister listen to: the developer or the people?

For example, members might be aware of Project Kea, a proposal that’s in Schedule 2. It’s a proposal to burn toxic waste in a small, rural community, in Waimate in South Canterbury, and we heard in their submission that this is a project that will increase harmful climate emissions. It locks in dependency on a constant stream of waste. It will produce toxic air pollution. It will produce toxic materials to pollute the soil, water, animals, and people. It is proposed on a site on a flood plain—it could all wash out to sea—and it’s located within two kilometres of a school. On 5 November, the Waimate District Council passed a motion to request that the Government remove the toxic waste plant from the fast-track list. All councillors are against the incinerator, as is iwi, as is the community, and as is the local school. Who will the Minister listen to: the developer or the people? And what about our international obligations? How is it that the Environment Committee proceeded with the bill, despite not receiving any legal advice on the potential impact of the bill on our international obligations such as emissions reduction targets or trade obligations?

This bill is a solution in search of a problem. We’ve got an existing fast-track process which has managed to protect the environment while enabling more infrastructure, renewable energy, and housing. This fast-track bill is simply a dog’s breakfast and it deserves to be consigned to the bin.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Goodness me, that was hard work listening to that, wasn’t it? I agree with our great chairman of the Environment Committee, the Hon Scott Simpson. He said that we used to be a country that got stuff done and now, quite simply, we’re a country where it’s become impossibly hard to actually get anything done at all in a timely and cost-effective manner, and that’s despite a housing crisis, despite a roading crisis, despite an energy crisis, and despite an economic crisis, and we’ve got serious issues with our basic infrastructure. As Chris Bishop has described it, we have become an obstruction economy. Well, we now find ourselves in a position of infrastructure vulnerability—a position where those that we need to invest have just lost the confidence to want to invest.

In regards to the 149 projects included in Schedule 2 of the bill, they include housing, aquaculture, infrastructure—including 180 kilometres of new road, rail, and public transport routes—quarries, renewable energy, and, yes, mining. This bill will provide confidence and will provide the ability to plan our transition to renewable energy, and I quote Alan McDonald from the Employers and Manufacturers Association, who said that “Given the recent issues caused by higher energy prices and the demands on generation capacity to further electrify the economy, these new fast-tracked projects have increasing significance.”

This country also has a housing crisis. Again, this bill will go a long way to addressing this. We heard through the submission process of the sheer frustration from those that wanted to get a consent about the time and the cost to do so, and we need to get this country moving again. We’ve got an economic crisis. We need this bill to help facilitate that investment in projects such as aquaculture and roading projects, and I quote Nick Leggett from Infrastructure New Zealand, who said that the list of projects was “balanced” and that “it really speaks to the need this country has to get its act together and build some infrastructure”.

There are roading projects, quarries, and, yes, also utilising the minerals that we need because we have choices to make as a country with minerals. We can create jobs, we can create economic growth, we can create export income that helps us pay our bills and provide the services to New Zealanders, and we can have control through the fast-track build process of the environmental impact and the conditions that are contingent with the projects, or we can have no jobs, no economic growth, and no export income, and continue to import those minerals that we need in our everyday lives and have no control whatsoever on the environmental impacts.

I quote Gary Taylor, who is the chairman and the executive director of the Environmental Defence Society. He has conceded that “while I come from an environmental perspective, I am also a Kiwi interested in economic welfare of our nation, and a lot of the infrastructure projects look good to go to me, subject to environmental assessment … a lot of the renewable projects, a lot of the housing projects, although there are obviously important questions about impacts from them … a lot of them are all good to go”. There is a process in the bill to assess environmental impacts. I commend this bill to the House.

It is a tough day for democracy, and a tough day for my ears as I listen to the information shared from the previous speaker, Mike Butterick, and other speakers in this Government. When the deputy chair of the Environment Committee talks about the fact we have a housing crisis—yes, we have a housing crisis. Therefore, Mr Deputy Chair, why not ensure that Kāinga Ora is building the houses that we in Government actually put in place? Why not come to New Plymouth and make sure that those houses that we had planned and that were budgeted for were actually being built? If you want to talk about the housing crisis, then take some responsibility for the fact that you and your—that the Government—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you.

GLEN BENNETT: —is actually making decisions and making choices that have implications for our housing space, which has nothing to do with this legislation.

Now, our world is burning, and if you look around at what is going on, I feel like this Government is just throwing fuel into that fire, literally—literally. Nature is in retreat, it is under attack, and this Government is fast tracking its way to collapse those things. For example, if you look around the world and you look at New Zealand in terms of our biodiversity, and we are one of the worst offenders in terms of what’s going on. Almost two-thirds of rare ecosystems are threatened with collapse. We have the high—

Cameron Brewer: Oh, Labour is very rare in New Plymouth.

GLEN BENNETT: Thank you, sir, I really appreciate that comment, but it’s no laughing matter, actually, when we talk about things like the destruction of our ecosystems and the destruction of things like birds and creatures that have lived here for millions and billions of years, and that you choose just to make a joke about it is unacceptable. When you look at 90 percent of seabirds being under threat, when you look at 84 percent of reptiles being under threat, when you look at 76 percent of freshwater fish being under threat—when you look at all of these things, and this is an underestimation of what is potentially happening, we need to make sure that nature and that the environment is in this bill. What are you afraid of? What are you afraid of in terms of the purpose of the bill?

DEPUTY SPEAKER: “What is the Government afraid of?”

GLEN BENNETT: What is the Government afraid of—it’s hard, Madam Speaker, when it gets really angry—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: I know it’s hard—the word “you”. I know it’s hard, and other people have done it too.

GLEN BENNETT: Part of me rages, because—why? What is the fear of the Government to put into the purpose of the bill “environmental protections”—what is it that this Government is afraid of and why would they not do that? That is my question.

We look at the Minister who championed the bill this afternoon, the Hon Shane Jones, and he spoke of this Government presenting this bill under urgency back in March because it’s so important and this is such complex and important legislation. Well, that didn’t give them many months to write the legislation, and as we listened through the submission process, there was person after person, submitter after submitter, who said that this legislation is undercooked. This is actually something that doesn’t just happen overnight and appear. This legislation is undercooked, and it needs to go back to the drawing board and be rewritten—we heard, time and time again, submissions coming through about that.

When we listened to the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, the Hon Simon Upton, a previous National Party Minister—

Hon Rachel Brooking: “Rt Hon”.

GLEN BENNETT: —the Rt Hon Simon Upton—he talked about this bill lacking many of the environmental safeguards that the predecessor legislation contained. He talked about the significant risks to our environment. This is someone whom this Parliament commissions to make sure that we have the checks and balances in place to ensure that New Zealand is a place that is a leader in the world when it comes to our environmental protections. He even talked about Muldoon’s National Development Act of 1979 having far more environmental protections in place than this piece of legislation. He talked about the fact that this would achieve suboptimal outcomes, poor decision-making, and, in fact, a lack of legislative durability, and also the fact that the litigation risks are high because of this bill being so undercooked.

I want to take a moment to consider one of the submitters who spoke, and he was a farmer from the Tararua area. He was talking with regard to the Puketoi Wind Farm and the process of consents for that, and he talked about social cohesion and the importance of ensuring that we bring communities with us. As I listened to this farmer speak, he was vehemently opposed at the beginning to this wind farm being built next to his farm. The community was opposed to this, and, through the process we currently have, they worked, they listened, the company understood the challenges, then they made changes to the design and to the placement of that wind farm, to the point where this farmer said that he and his community sat comfortably with that wind farm being built near them, because they had been listened to. They were not only listened to; action had been taken where they’d actually made sure that that wind farm worked for the community.

That is a submission that I think is significant, because this legislation is just about ignoring locals. This legislation is about ignoring hapū, ignoring iwi, and ignoring neighbours. This legislation actually is about shutting down participation in the democratic process. It’s about shutting down social cohesion and involvement. Even members of the electricity companies, the lines companies, talked about this. Clarus, which used to be Firstgas, talked about the fact that they have pipes running throughout the North Island that are on farmers’ land and that are on communities’ land, and a big part of their job is around community engagement to build social cohesion because they know it’s a privilege for them to have their products on the land of landowners. We need to consider that although there have been some changes, this bill still does not allow for the community and it does not allow for local iwi or hapū to actually engage and challenge some of the processes and some of the things that have been thrown on this piece of legislation.

Now, I want to talk about our international obligations, because this concerns me. This concerns me greatly. This concerns me, and I know that for us on this side of the House, it was a key part of our discussions towards the end of the select committee process. Many submitters raised the challenge of what this is going to mean for our international trade obligations, and also talked about things like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the global biodiversity framework, and the Paris Agreement and our obligations to the climate. We did not get advice that was reasonable, and I’m sure everyone who sat on that committee can agree to the fact that we were not informed.

As a committee, we do not and could not tell this House and tell this country that this piece of legislation, as it comes back to the House and is read a second time today—we don’t understand fully the consequences of what this bill will do in terms of our international obligations. For us, as the Labour Party, that is highly concerning, and I know that the other parties in Opposition agree with me on that, as well. We had inadequate advice on the consequences of this legislation on our international obligations, and I think that that is something that the Government needs to seriously consider. We have amendments that we have already tabled and we will continue to table in the committee of the whole House stage, and we hope that this Government seriously considers them, because if this becomes law, then I think all parliamentarians will want to know that at least with regard to our obligations internationally, we will honour them.

I want to close with just some quotes from some of the submitters. As we heard, many were unable to be heard, but for the few that we did hear from, I want to close with some of those reflections and thoughts. “Democracy takes time”—democracy takes time. As I listened to that, I thought, yes, we understand, and I know that, in the Labour Party, we’ve talked about thinking through some of the challenges when it comes to a one-stop shop, or how we do actually fund properly the process of consenting. But democracy takes time. “We want a fast track, not a short track.”, and then another submitter talked about how this is 19th century thinking. “This bill is the worst ever to be presented to this Parliament.”, a submitter said.

Finally, I want to say the final quote from a submitter. They said that “Democracy works best when everyone has a voice.”—democracy works best when everyone has a voice—and I believe that that is important for us, as a lean, mean democracy in New Zealand. This legislation does not allow that, and we cannot commend this bill to the House.

The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.

Sitting suspended from 6.03 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Look, I just want to say that it is a pleasure to speak on this bill, which the Environment Committee has spent such a long time working on. There is a lot to say, but, first, I just want to acknowledge the committee and all the people that joined us for the hearings and submissions, because, of course, there were many and it did take many hands to make light work, and there were a lot of hours spent.

I just wanted to acknowledge, first, that members opposite are talking a lot about the nature of the bill as it was introduced, but it’s important to remind those who are listening of both sides of this, because, of course, it was a draft. It’s the first reading when it’s introduced, and they know that it’s about to go through this process. They were honest about the fact that it could have been better, and, of course, that was the part that we played, as a select committee.

I think it was really amazing for us to walk away from this process, knowing that we had had some incredibly constructive submissions, and in those submissions, in some cases, I felt incredibly lucky to have had free legal advice, actually. There were some really helpful things. If you read the debate on the first reading and saw how this bill went in, and see now how the bill has come out, you will see what has changed. If you were to go through painstakingly—as it would be—every single submission that was put through, listen to the public hearings, and see, you will see the process and how we came about the change, and I think that that’s a really important thing to consider. Look, it is our job, as a select committee, to go through this process. We did hear from thousands of people and some of them were incredibly constructive, and I do say, very often, that this is not a poll. It is not our job to weigh each individual submission; it’s our job to consider them, and, because of that, the bill is now in a better place.

One thing that struck me was the feedback that it is the complicated parallel processes that were the most difficult thing that got in the way, and in some cases it’s as simple as reconsenting a power station. I have a power station in my electorate, up in Tūai, a very remote part of New Zealand, and this power station provides power to almost the entire settlement of Wairoa, which is a very special place to me. One of the projects that could get fast-track consent is the hydro energy station in Tūai. Now, this is just reconsenting. This is an existing power station, but the processes that they have to go through, as it stands, are so complicated that we are risking cutting the power to the entire settlement of Wairoa, and this is something that is very important for people to understand. It is not just controversial projects; it is complicated projects that are going to benefit from this process, and, as people have said, they are those complicated parallel processes.

I just wanted to highlight in this legislation the many different laws and Acts that the bill will go through: the Resource Management Act—as we know—the Conservation Act, the Reserves Act, the Wildlife Act, the Heritage New Zealand Act, the Freshwater Fisheries Regulations, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, the Crown Minerals Act, the Public Works Act, and the Fisheries Act. Some of these projects would have to deal with over half of those different Acts, and that is what has complicated it, and the feedback that we got was that in many cases it’s the one-stop shop aspect of what we’re introducing that is most important. The slow pace and the tediousness is not necessarily because there is one Act that is taking such a long time; it’s that they have to go through so many different parallel processes, and that is what this bill does—it amalgamates those processes. It says, “We acknowledge that as a regionally significant project, you are going to be more likely to be complicated, there are going to be more hoops for you to jump through, and we don’t want that to get in the way of progress for our regions or for our country.”—and that is what is so important.

Building roads, repowering power stations, building housing developments that are affordable housing, business parks, recreation parks—this is the kind of stuff that this bill is aiming to solve, and it is an important thing for us to do. I have been pleased to be part of the process, the rigorous process that our select committee has gone through, and, with that, I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. You know, something smells rotten about this bill, and—[Interruption] Yeah, and I can see why there are murmurings on the other side. I can understand that because many of those members will be as uncomfortable as I am about this list. I mean, Radio New Zealand did a great job: $500,000 of donations from people who are on the fast-track list, and there’s no good explanation for that. I’m concerned that there are close connections between donors, members of the National Party, and the fact that they’re on this list. I mean, one of the people who made donations, in fact, made the comment. He said donating was there because he’s “looking to be heard”. Well, that donor appears to have been heard.

There are projects on this list which have been thoroughly considered by the relevant panels and courts and have been turned down—turned down for environmental reasons, turned down because the project wasn’t needed, turned down because there wasn’t the resource to support the developments that were proposed—and the Environment Committee didn’t get to consider them. In Canterbury, one of those projects was the Carter Group project. Philip Carter of Carter Holdings, uncle to Matt Doocey—donor of $60,000. I asked the Prime Minister, in written question No. 66395, “Did Matt Doocey recuse himself from any consideration, deliberation or decision-making in respect of the Fast-track projects and in particular those concerning the Carter Group Limited?” The Prime Minister gave me a long answer. I needed one word—“no”—and he didn’t give me that word. That’s problematic. I want to be sure that we have a transparent decision-making process, one where conflicts of interest are clearly and openly and effectively managed.

The Carter Group is a donor. The Carter Group has a direct family relationship into this House, and this—

Hon Scott Simpson: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I have hesitated while I’ve been listening to the member on his feet making inappropriate imputations and assertions and veiled allegations that are inappropriate in a debate of this sort. I would invite you to consider the content of the words that he has been making, in consideration of appropriate Standing Orders, and ask him to desist from this type of insinuation during this debate.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Thank you, Mr Simpson. I was just about to mention to Mr Webb that in naming the names as you’ve gone, you are getting close to, if not crossing, a line, and I think you can make your point with the generalities which you began your speech with.

Hon Dr DUNCAN WEBB: Thank you for that guidance, Mr Speaker. Every one of those statements I’ve made can be found in the Radio New Zealand article, and I invite people to look at it. There are plenty more. There is a list, and we know that a Minister had a dinner, which he omitted to disclose, with people who are now on the list of the fast-track projects. I’m deeply concerned that this country’s position as somewhere where people do business honestly, transparently, by the rules, and on an equal footing is at risk.

The Government can take points of order and be uncomfortable and squirm when it’s pointed out to them, but I won’t stop pointing out that there are critical shortcomings in this procedure, because the fact is that we can’t examine what’s going on. It is a black box, and we are being told “Don’t worry. We’ve managed the conflicts of interest.”

The Prime Minister informs me that there was a letter which I’ve read outlining how the key Ministers will recuse themselves from projects that they’ve had particular and personal contact with. Chris Bishop himself has stated that he’s recused himself from the project where he advocated in favour of that developer prior to the election, as he should. Those kinds of close connections are uncomfortable—they are deeply uncomfortable—and that party on the other side should be ashamed.

Well, if there was any doubt where the Grinch was going to be hiding this Christmas, I’d be looking in central Christchurch, because what we’ve heard is an Opposition and a Labour Party—

Hon Rachel Brooking: You’re not serious. Give us one serious speech—come on.

TIM COSTLEY: Ooh! We’ve touched a nerve tonight, haven’t we? They don’t just want to kill this bill; they want to kill 55,000 new homes for hard-working Kiwis that just want to get a chance, that just want to get a break, and that want more houses. We are in the middle of a housing crisis. Here are 44 developments with 55,000 homes, and they’re saying, “No, we don’t want that—oh, we don’t want that.”

Then they’re saying, “We don’t just want to kill them, we want to kill 180 kilometres of new roads.”—just like they killed the Ōtaki to North of Levin Expressway in 2018. Everyone in our region, in Horowhenua, knows exactly the impact that had—the needless deaths that we experienced on that road—because of the six years of delay. It’s back on track now, but 180 kilometres of new roads coming in just the first tranche—that’s what this bill unlocks. They want to kill that.

They want to kill 3,000 megawatts of new, sustainable power generation—new generation—like a new solar farm in Foxton. That is transformational for a town like Foxton, and Labour is saying “We don’t want it, we don’t want it, we don’t want it.”

They don’t want a billion dollars of new revenue for this country from mineral exports. They don’t want a chance at growth. They want to kill growth. They want to kill our economy—that’s what they’re campaigning for here.

I’ll tell you the difference it makes in a community like Ōtaki. In our region alone, it means 3,400 new homes, it means a new solar farm, and it means integrated rail mobility and improving public transport. That’s what this bill is doing.

I note that Mr Parker is the one sitting quietly, as he should because he wrote the bones of this. We’ve made a few improvements, but it is the same principle.

We need to cut through this. We have tied ourselves up in red and green tape in this country, and we can’t keep going like this. We need to unlock potential. We need to tell the world that we are open for business, with a whole pipeline of infrastructure, and that’s what this bill is doing. I am so proud to stand here in support of this bill and in support of my region, because we need the five specific projects that come from it but, more than that, our whole country needs it.

Fifty-five thousand houses, sustainable power generation, new roads, flood protection—that’s what we need. We need to unlock our potential and get this country back on track. That’s what this bill does. I commend it to the House.

It’s quite fortuitous, then, that I have the next call, because I’m going to educate the member Tim Costley—who obviously hasn’t been paying attention to the debate—to understand the important differences between this version of fast track and the other, earlier versions for which I was proudly responsible.

Now, it is true that New Zealand’s cost of consenting projects has been far too high. In fact, when we were in Government there was a study done, led by the Infrastructure Commission, proving that New Zealand’s cost of consenting mid-size infrastructure was higher than the top end of the range for Europe. Over 5 percent of the project cost was being spent on the consenting process, which was far too high. What did we do? We fixed that. We introduced a version of fast track which overcame most of the problems.

There is one aspect of this legislation that I do support in principle, which is combining the decision making under various other pieces of legislation, including the Conservation Act and the Reserves Act, but only if the tests that apply under those pieces of legislation still apply and are not overridden in the process, because what that does when you do that is mistake the substance of proper decision-making with the process.

What did we do in Government? Well, we introduced a fast-track process which cut through the red tape and which the National Party says this is modelled upon, and in one part it is actually modelled upon it. Why is that? Because the National Party knew it worked, even though they repealed it as soon as they got into office, which was absolutely ridiculous and wasteful.

What was consented under our process and what was the difference? Well, we consented many thousands of sections, apartment buildings, business parks, retirement villages—

Hon Member: Quarries.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Did we do some quarries? I think we did. We did some quarries, and that was held up at one stage with a problem with some of the wetland rules, which we also fixed. We consented New Zealand’s first big solar farms—really good decisions, if you read them; I thought the panels did a really good job of that, considering new issues like reflection from photovoltaic panels for people who live nearby. We consented wind farms. The legislation enabled the re-consenting of hydro facilities and other electricity facilities, although not new hydro facilities, which, in our view, should go through a full process, because if you dam a large river you change that river environment for ever, and that should be the subject of public participation.

There were a number of safeguards in that legislation which didn’t slow the process down, but included the fact that we only changed the process, not the environmental test. There was no need to override the Resource Management Act (RMA) or any of the other legislation which is there to protect the environment from undue harm—not from any harm, but from inappropriate harm. Another protection was that there were parties that could, effectively, represent the public interest or sectors of the public interest, and the legislation that we passed enabled the likes of the Environmental Defence Society and Forest & Bird—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Business New Zealand.

Hon DAVID PARKER: —and Business New Zealand—it was both sides of the of the debate; development interests and the protection interests—to, as of right, make written submissions and, through that process, be heard on every one of those applications. Do you know what? Ninety-five percent of the applications that were made through our fast-track process were approved and, indeed, of the 5 percent that weren’t, there were probably some applications that were withdrawn or that proceeded through some other process outside of fast track. We had a process that was principled and worked.

What’s the difference between that and the current process? The current process doesn’t just change the process; it enables the decision maker to override RMA plans to actually allow activities that are prohibited under the Resource Management Act or under Resource Management Act plans, or are contrary to the legal requirements of the Conservation Act or the Wildlife Act or the heritage protection legislation, to name but some. That is the major difference between this legislation and that.

There are a number of other differences. For example, this legislation comes back to the House worse than the state it was when it went to select committee, in one important regard. After tens of thousands of people submitted against the legislation and even more demonstrated up and down the country in public protests, and at the one in Auckland, the people were still leaving Aotea Square when they were filing into the square outside Britomart because it was such an enormous protest—notwithstanding that, the legislation is made worse by stripping out any reference to the environment in the purpose of the bill so that not only can they override all that legislation but the purpose of the bill is only development.

Another thing that they’ve done through this legislation and the list of projects that are up first time is they are introducing projects that have previously been declined. Now, anyone can always apply for reconsideration of something that has been rejected, but to give them a hand up through the ability to override the environmental protections that lie at the heart of the likes of the Resource Management Act or the Conservation Act is, in my opinion, wrong. If the Government wanted to change the Conservation Act because they thought that court decisions had made too narrow land-swaps or offsetting under the Conservation Act, the Government should have brought a bill to that effect to this Parliament. They shouldn’t have taken to themselves the ability to give a panel an instruction that they can override the Conservation Act, rather than apply it. That is another mistake that is made in this legislation.

The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment is no radical. The Rt Hon Simon Upton has in the past been the secretary for the environment for the OECD, probably the highest environmental office ever held by a New Zealander. He is a former National Minister for the Environment, and he said that this legislation is wrong and is worse than the National Development Act under Muldoon, which was so criticised at the time, after pushing through projects for Think Big. He further made the point that if this legislation was to proceed and override the environmental protections normally found in legislation, then that right should be limited to projects that are of a public benefit. There are occasions when there is a case for overriding normal environmental protections. I would say that those exceptions are already well provided for under the Resource Management Act through infrastructure exceptions to the protections of wetlands and biodiversity and the like. If the Government thought that that was not the case, they should have taken these powers for only public projects, rather than projects for a private benefit.

Now, we heard from the Hon Duncan Webb the shady side of this, and those were not his words alone; they were quoting media commentary. We, in this House, do have freedom of speech in order to raise to the House and the public of New Zealand the risk of corruption that can occur if Ministers can give private interests a leg-up in respect of private projects that confer a private benefit overriding normal laws, and that’s all that Duncan Webb was doing. He was perfectly proper to do so because he was right that that is another risk from this bill, and many, many submitters pointed to that.

Scott Simpson, at one level, did a very pleasant job of administering the chair for this bill—and he is a decent chair—but, by goodness, he’s going to be at risk in the Coromandel election next time, isn’t he, because he has, effectively, brought through legislation which is incompatible with the values of most of his voters in the Coromandel. He is not only overseeing the unwinding of water regulation and the taking of money, as a Government, away from waste management to put to other things, because they’ve cut the money; he’s actually been in charge of the select committee that has brought forward this terrible legislation.

This legislation is entirely unnecessary. The earlier form of fast track was working well. It changed process, it saved money, and 95 percent of the projects that went through it were consented. Some of the other huge projects, like the first ever waste-to-energy project in New Zealand—a large one—is going to go through fast track without even proper consideration of the greenhouse gas implications of a project like that. This is poor legislation.

I rise in the second reading to support the Fast-track Approvals Bill. I am the last speaker in this debate, and so I think it gives me a chance to kind of correct some of the things that we’ve been hearing.

This bill is about a one-stop shop for approvals for projects which are of national or regional benefit, because, as we’ve heard, New Zealand has an obstructionist economy. To prove a point, I’ll just pick two examples, but in the select committee we heard many more. The Raetihi Hydro Dam—an existing dam—took 18 years to reconsent—

Hon David Parker: When was that?

Dr HAMISH CAMPBELL: —and I appreciate that the other side are going to say that they had fast-track legislation to do that.

I will get to some of those numbers: 65 percent were actually consented through that legislation, 16 percent are still in the process, and 11 percent fell into a black hole of who knows what. A medium track would be a complement. Then, if we look at some of the other things, the Mill Creek wind farm took 1,437 days to consent, and we’ve just heard from the other side that re-consenting is different to new. This was a new thing. It was a wind farm that took close to four years to actually gain a consent.

If we’re going to achieve our ambitious goal of boosting our economy and reducing our emissions, we need to make a fundamental change to our planning and regulatory settings, and before us today, this bill represents a vital step towards that—a brighter future for all New Zealanders. We’ve already heard about some of the projects. In Schedule 2, there are projects that, if approved, will deliver up to 55,000 sections, 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy, and 43 infrastructure projects enabling 180 kilometres for roads, rail, and public transport routes.

The fast-track bill is about more than just efficiency; it’s about a vision. It’s about creating a future where all New Zealanders can have access to affordable housing, where our economy is powered by clean energy, and where our communities are connected by modern and efficient infrastructure.

Now, we heard from the other side that we’re going to disrupt our international trade, but the Opposition did fail to mention that in the select committee process, we heard that the UK currently actually has a centralised planning process like this for large infrastructure projects. Did they mention that? No, they didn’t. The EU has adopted a fast-track permit-granting process for renewable energy projects. They’re also exploring options to speed up permitting for critical raw materials to make sure that mining can support their green digital transition. Did they mention that? No, they didn’t.

There have been a number of things that have been said in this debate, but I think we really need to make sure that we actually get the point of this. We can develop and protect our environment, we can grow to our net zero—and that’s what we’ve got to do. We have not heard about the environmental expertise that is on the panel, which, just like our Resource Management Act, can put conditions on these projects. It is something that we’re well aware of in this country. Therefore, I urge everybody to support this bill, and join me in building a brighter future for our nation.

The question is, That the amendments recommended by the Environment Committee by majority be agreed to.

This bill is set down for committee stage next sitting day. I declare the House in committee for consideration of the Building (Earthquake-prone Building Deadlines and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.