Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 to 3. This is the debate on clauses 1 to 3—“Title”, “Commencement”, and “Principal Act”.

Thank you, Mr Chair. First of all, I’d like to comment on clause 2, which is the commencement clause, which says, “the day after” Royal assent. There is some irony to that, given that we’ve just passed an Amendment Paper that has a retrospective clause in it so that, in fact, the commencement for that retrospective clause will be today. Perhaps there should be some amendment to clause 2.

Focusing on the title in clause 1, the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, well, there certainly are a number of other matters here. We’ve spoken today in this debate about the specificity of that Amendment Paper having a retrospective effect for today, and that is because the Otago Regional Council is going to meet tomorrow. Of course, this law won’t have commenced by tomorrow, because it needs to have a third reading, which is not going to happen tonight, and then, of course, it needs Royal assent—also not going to happen tonight. In fact, the Otago Regional Council can go ahead with its meeting tomorrow. I think a more reflective title clause now—

Hon David Parker: And they should.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: My colleague David Parker is saying the Otago Regional Council should go ahead with that meeting tomorrow, because they need to follow the law as it is, and the Resource Management Act requires them to act at pace. Perhaps this title should be the “Resource Management (Specific Amendments to Stop Democracy in the Otago Regional Council and to Put Up Rates) Amendment Bill”, because this is a very inefficient process that the Minister is inserting, and it goes just against so much work that people have done on that plan to be notified tomorrow—and I hope it still is.

Of course, the Minister has told us that a new national policy statement for freshwater is coming and that it would be inefficient to change anything until that happens in another 18 or 24 months, but that’s such a spurious argument, because of course consenting becomes much more efficient once you have a plan in place, because then the plan tells you if things are permitted or not permitted and you don’t have to go up the chain to national documents and to the purpose of the Act to make those decisions. It is the most efficient thing to have those plans in place. It’s the most efficient thing for the Otago Regional Council to notify that plan tomorrow, but the Minister can only think that it will be inefficient, because her changes to that national policy statement on freshwater are going to allow for increased pollution. Another suggestion for the title would be the “Resource Management (Increase Pollution) Amendment Bill”.

We’ve seen the Primary Production Committee say to one submitter, “No, don’t talk to us about section 107; that’s not in scope. Of course it’s not in scope. Why would that be in scope? It’s not in the bill as introduced to Parliament.” but then say to other submitters who have a financial interest in section 107 changing, “No, no, tell us whatever you like about this and we’ll listen to you closely and we’ll just slot it in the select committee report. We won’t have the select committee analyse what this change means.”

I have here the High Court decision. I didn’t get to talk about it in Part 1, but you can see that it’s a very large decision, likely to be appealed—doesn’t talk about whether or not the existing exceptional circumstances in 107 has been used or not. Some parties don’t get to submit on it and other parties do. This is a disgrace to our process, so a further title suggestion would be the “Resource Management (Skip Due Process Again and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”—that would be better. The “Resource Management (Override the Otago Regional Council’s Democratic Processes and Other Matters) Amendment Bill”—again. Or perhaps it could mention bogs, which one of the other Ministers is so interested in.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I do support those names from my colleague Rachel Brooking, but I want to remind the committee of a moment of extraordinary candour on the part of Minister Bishop when he first spoke to this bill. He very honestly described it as quick and dirty—quick and dirty—and we can’t do better than that.

I mean, we can take the Minister’s own characterisation of this bill and we can say that it very well describes what this bill does, because if anyone has had a look at intensive winter grazing, it’s pretty correct to describe it as dirty. It’s mud farming, which is what it could well be called, and this is a bill for facilitating that sort of mud farming, among other things, so it’s certainly dirty.

If we were to have a look at the dirtiest fossil fuel available to us, it’s coal, and this is legislation which facilitates the mining of coal through the destruction of wetlands. So there it is: the dirtiest fossil fuel—quick and dirty.

A truncated process—another truncated process—from this Government. Who would have thought? Who needs a full-sized select committee when you can have a short select committee, or no select committee at all? It has been quick—it has certainly been quick—and what’s the consequence of having large-scale intensification of farming, nitrate leaching, and all those things, and sediment getting into waterways? It’s dirty water.

What is the source of our drinking water? They’re getting rid of Te Mana o te Wai, the hierarchy of obligations, where even the principle that drinking water should be protected as a greater priority than industrial uses of water—no, they’re getting rid of that. Just to be clear, folks, your drinking water is now no longer—

James Meager: What number is it—what number in the hierarchy?

STEVE ABEL: It was number two in the hierarchy, and now there’s no hierarchy, so drinking water will not be prioritised—

James Meager: So it could be number one now.

STEVE ABEL: —over industrial uses of water, and do you know what happens? Well, listen, I’m happy to put forward an amendment to make drinking water the number one priority over industrial uses, but I’m sure that the Government wouldn’t support it.

What happens when you don’t treat drinking water as a priority? That is the reason the hierarchy was created, and it was created after the Havelock North event—the Havelock North event. To understand, Mr Meager, why protecting water and the health of fresh water should be first is that that is actually the way that you protect drinking water, because the source of our drinking water is rivers, lakes, and aquifers. If you do not protect that source water, you end up with contaminated drinking water.

That’s why we’ve got outrageous levels of rising nitrate in Canterbury—down your neck of the woods, Mr Meager. Perhaps you should take some care for the health of the water that your people are drinking, because the most exposed to nitrate-contaminated water are rural people on private bores. They’re the people who get exposed—

James Meager: How good is the drinking water in Auckland?

STEVE ABEL: —to nitrate-contaminated drinking water. The drinking water in Auckland is fantastic because we’re drinking rainwater. We’re not drinking—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): If I could bring back the member’s attention to clauses 1, 2, and 3, that’d be good.

STEVE ABEL: Quick and dirty—quick and dirty. I’m proposing that we call this bill the “Resource Management (Freshwater)”—no, I’m not. “This Act is the Resource Management (Quick and Dirty) Amendment Act” is the suggestion we have for it.

The final dirty part of this is the unprincipled, retrospective shutdown of democracy in Otago. It is dirty politics on toast. This is a Government that is very happy to override local decision-making. It has no care for the principle of localism, for having decisions being made there. I propose that this bill rightly be called: “This Act is the Resource Management (Quick and Dirty) Amendment Act 2024.” Thank you.

I just rise to make a quick point about this bill. The first is to invite Mr Meager, who seems to be so eager to contribute, to stand and take a call. He’s got plenty to say from the seats over there. If he’d like to contribute to the debate, I’m sure we’d all like to hear it.

I want to stand and propose a different name for this bill. It’s a name that has been inspired by some of the discussion that’s come through tonight. I propose that we call it the “Resource Management (Anything We Don’t Like We Call a Bog) Amendment Bill”. That’s because, to my astonishment as I listened to the debate tonight, I heard at one stage that the Minister in the chair—I’m not quite sure which Minister it was—had referred to wetlands as “bogs”; referred to them as “bogs”. Now, that type of language, I think, reveals a lot about what the Government have in mind with this bill. It says that anything they don’t like they will stick with a nasty name.

When we talk about “wetlands”, it conveys the idea that there is an ecosystem, that there are waterflows, that there is something of natural worth that is worth looking after and preserving, that it is something that counts and that matters and that needs to be taken into account when the land around it is being used; that needs to be taken into account when it comes to all sorts of matters, obviously around agriculture but also around urban development, around the development of all sorts of activities like that. Wetlands actually matter. But, if you can call them a “bog”, then they don’t matter. A bog is just a dirty, nasty stench. I mean, we all remember the “Bog of Incredible Stench” from Labyrinth, the movie. [Interruption] I know—there is a reason why we call things a bog; it’s to say that they have little worth. In fact, this is what this bill demonstrates from this Government: they think that fresh water, that wetlands, have little worth.

I suggest that they should at least be honest about their intentions with this bill, and I propose renaming this bill the “Resource Management (Anything We Don’t Like We Call a Bog) Amendment Bill”.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I think I too have some choice proposals that I would like the Minister to consider in terms of the title, in clause 1, but I want to first pick up what has been said before in terms of the deliberate attempt to undermine local democracy when it comes to what the Otago Regional Council is proposing.

I think, just, again, picking up from the previous speaker, the Hon Dr Deborah Russell, around the fact of the lack of distinction between “wetlands” and “bog”—it is all so disingenuous. It would be so problematic and heartbreaking for the people of Dunedin, this very moment, who have just recently suffered a flood. If we were to mitigate it better through the use of wetlands, particularly in South Dunedin, maybe something like this wouldn’t have been as severe during a climate change - induced extreme weather event. I think, for the Minister probably to consider this—not just the Minister, but the broader Government parties—the “Resource Management (Hate on Otago) Amendment Bill”—I think that captures some of these particularly disingenuous attempts at undermining local democracy very appropriately.

However, one of the things we have heard as a running theme tonight, in terms of the committee stage, is the idea of what the governing parties perceive to be—erroneously, I might add—benefits to our rural communities and particularly to our farmers. We know for a fact that by having lower requirements, it puts our rural communities and it puts our farmers at harm—not only in terms of extreme weather events that might harm them in the future or, indeed, as we see it more frequently, this very moment, but also the fact that in a lot of our trade agreements, etc., there are certain environmental obligations that we must uphold. I would ask if the Minister would consider the title “Resource Management (Further Harm to Farmers) Amendment Bill”, because what is being proposed here absolutely will not be helping our farmers in the future. They are already under pressure and they will be under further pressure as a result of extreme weather events.

However, it does not surprise me that during the committee stage, what we are hearing from the Minister is the same response, going around in circles. When the Minister couldn’t respond to a particular question, we heard that level of grandstanding. This would not surprise me, coming from the Minister, who is the Minister for the Environment, that said that the balance has swung too far towards the environment. There was very little talk of environment and actual, genuine understanding of environment, our ecosystem, in that committee stage. So, finally, I would like to ask if the Minister would consider as a proposal the “Resource Management (Swung Too Far Towards the Environment) Amendment Bill”.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I would like to propose that this be called the “Kamikaze Bill” because of the style of intervention from this Minister. I do have some serious questions—[Interruption] Great to see the other side so enthusiastic about it. The reason that I believe that it should be called the “Kamikaze Bill” is because of the roughshod riding over local democracy.

I want to speak to clause 3 and ask some questions around the commencement date, picking up off points made by my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking. As far as I am aware now, the vote that was due to take place tomorrow is no longer on the agenda of the Otago Regional Council. I do have some questions around that because it seems that the Government has not relied on urgency for the passing of this very eleventh-hour bill, and so my first question to the Minister is: was she expecting the vote to be taken off the agenda tomorrow? Did she have any communications with any of the councillors at the Otago Regional Council over the last week—so from last Sunday through to today—regarding any matters relating to this bill or the agenda? Would she consider communicating with the council and encouraging them to put the vote back on to the bill?

My next question is: if the council were listening to this and decided, realising now that they could still proceed with the vote, would the Minister—

Hon Mark Patterson: It’s not question time. We’re talking about the bill.

INGRID LEARY: Yes, but this is the purpose of this: would the Minister consider, then, asking the Leader of the House to put the House into urgency to pass the bill tonight if she thought there was a chance that the councillors—particularly those who are in favour of notifying—decided to get this vote on to the agenda tomorrow? Those are my questions and I do hope she takes particular care in answering the questions regarding communications with councillors.

As she is well aware, I do have a number of Official Information Act requests in and Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act requests. I would also like to ask the Minister, since she is in the chair, just to save me a bit of time having to wait for those, whether she has had any direct text messages or other communications on this bill—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can we focus on the title and commencement.

INGRID LEARY: —from the Hon Shane Jones; just so I can make sure that the information that comes back through the official information channels is correct. I’d be very grateful for the Minister’s responses.

I can confirm to the member that just before lunchtime today, I rang the chair of the Otago Regional Council and informed her, as a matter of courtesy, that this bill was coming to the House.

There are some deep ironies in this, aren’t there? It’s not so long ago that we had an election on three waters where the now Government, then in Opposition, was complaining about centralisation of these issues and how these issues were going to be taken off local government and regional councils and handed to a water regulator and a centralised provider of services. And, now, this bill, rather than actually upholding the principles of resource management, which do also include economic outcomes, which would have been considered by hearings on the Otago regional water plan had it been notified—or if it is notified; and maybe it will still be notified. I hope it will be. Even if this is passed, it could be notified and then just sit in abeyance because it wouldn’t be able to be progressed. Essentially, this is about centralisation. It’s not about localism. It’s not about applying the principles of the Resource Management Act. It’s about subverting them.

I would suggest that a better title for this, without being loaded, would just be “Centralisation”, the “Resource Management (Centralisation) Amendment Bill”, because that’s what’s going on. The power of regional councils to take their own decisions against the background where we have had a plan that is in breach of the Resource Management Act for over a decade is something that will not go down well in Otago.

Miles Anderson: It will go well.

Hon DAVID PARKER: No, it might go down with some of your farming constituents, but the majority of people in Otago know that the industries, like tourism—the people’s own regard for the quality of their waterways, and the Otago Regional Council, which I know is on the periphery of your electorate, and you seem to prefer the interests of the area that you live in, which is not in the Otago Regional Council.

Miles Anderson: I think you are just making things up there, Mr Parker.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Do you think so? Well, you know, I think it is a tragedy—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Can you keep your comments to the Chair, and if you folks want to have a conversation, go outside in the hallway.

Hon DAVID PARKER: Yes, thank you, Mr Chair. I would suggest that this would be better to turned into “Centralise”—I also lament the fact that this is going to have retrospective effect, even though the commencement clause pretends that it comes into effect on the commencement date. Its application is then retrospective even if that is the commencement date. I would suggest that this is not well described as the Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I am going to talk directly about the title and commencement. I think the commencement date is really wrong. I think it’s wrong in that it is having this retrospective effect on councils, and particularly Otago Regional Council. I will leave that there; that’s been stated.

I have an amendment on the Table about a change to the title of this Act. I would like to call it the “Resource Management (Delay and Degrade) Amendment Act 2024”. I want to do this because, you know, we used to have clean, healthy waterways across Aotearoa. That is a fact. I think, no matter where we are in this Chamber, we can all acknowledge that in our lifetimes, that’s changed—it’s certainly changed in my lifetime. That’s changed, unfortunately for the worse, and it’s changed in a way that has polluted our freshwater environments not only for ourselves but for our kids and grandkids. That’s something that, again, I know none of us across the Chamber actually want to leave as our legacy, actually want to leave for our kids and grandkids to pick up the mess.

Now, the problem with that is that to actually change that tide and to turn around that overall decline in our freshwater environments, we actually need to change our actions. Look, there’s a lot of, you know, critique about the way things have been done. No one and no effort has been perfect in any of this, but we really do need to change things.

I have had the privilege of working really closely with farmers across Southland, Otago, and Canterbury over a decade and a half, and farmers know this as well—they do. What’s really unfortunate is when bills like this turn that tide in a really, really unhelpful way, because we know that the future of Aotearoa, and actually the future of a thriving primary sector, is with strong rules and limits that work with our communities, that actually enable and support them to make the changes that we so desperately need now. Now, things like this are not helping us do that.

Why I’m talking about this “Delay and Degrade” title is because the elements in this bill consistently delay and degrade. We’ve got the delay of the identification and protection of significant natural areas. This delay will see less biodiversity protected and restored, and more indigenous significant ecology degraded and destroyed. Now, this isn’t necessarily purposeful; this comes about when—just the example we’ve been talking about—someone sees an area as a bog and thinks they can do activities to it, when actually it was a thriving wetland, it was a significant wetland, because we don’t have many of them left. These are the issues. This is exactly what the identification of significant natural areas was meant to address so that landowners knew very clearly where on their properties these significant natural areas were.

We’ve got the delay in the farm plan roll-out. We’ve got the degradation in terms of destroying wetlands and significant natural areas to allow for coalmining. We’ve got the removal of stock exclusion and intensive winter grazing regulations, and of course this removal of section 107, meaning that we’re risking setting inadequate conditions to actually meaningly improve the state of our already significantly degraded water bodies and protect aquatic life from significant adverse effects.

Now, the cherry on top with all of this, or perhaps the democracy at the bottom of the pole, is this democratic override. This Government can’t keep saying they’re about localism and then put through bills like this which not only directly override it but leave our environment in a much worse state.

I call Ingrid Leary. I’ll just remind members, I have been watching this debate and I’ll be looking for new material.

Absolutely. The reason I’m standing is to thank the Minister in the chair, the Hon Penny Simmonds, for her response to my last question, and, in a back and forth exchange, ask some more questions around the conversation that she said she had with the chair of the Otago Regional Council (ORC) today. This is relevant because this amendment did not go through a select committee process; it was dropped on the Table this morning. It is due to pass tomorrow, the same day that the vote would have taken place—

Hon Member: And still can.

INGRID LEARY: —and still could, except that it has been taken off the agenda. I think there’s a real public interest in understanding the level of influence this Government has had, and the Minister in particular, in getting the agenda item taken off the agenda and—

CHAIRPERSON (Greg O’Connor): In how it relates to the title and commencement.

INGRID LEARY: —her justification. This relates to the commencement, Mr Chair, because the commencement is, effectively, going to be retrospective, as has been alluded to by my colleagues—that’s in clause 3.

My specific questions to the Minister are: when she did ring the chair today, how would she characterise the conversation? What I’m seeking to find out here is: did she direct the chair of the ORC to take the item off the agenda, or did she suggest it, or what was the nature of the conversation? Also, in her view, what authority or appropriateness did she rely on to be able to reach out unilaterally and directly to the chair of a democratically elected council to have that conversation that resulted in that action? That’s one suite of questions.

My second suite of questions is—she did mention this particular conversation; I didn’t hear answers regarding other conversations dating back to last Sunday. This is all relevant to the commencement date, because the commencement is going to be retrospective—or not, if this item ends up on the agenda tomorrow, which is looking increasingly unlikely. I would like to hear a confirmation from the Minister that she had no other conversations, text messages, or digital communications or letters with any other elected member of the Otago Regional Council or any of its staff or contractors since last Sunday.

My last question is: did she receive any of those communications, as I’ve described, from any Minister of her Government, requiring her, directing, or suggesting to her that she take the course of action that she has taken today in terms of communicating with the Otago Regional Council? I will just put the Minister on notice that I will be doing Official Information Act requests on this. I would just like to use the opportunity of having time in the House to get these answers more quickly, given that there’s huge public interest in this, in the whole of the lower South.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The tabled amendments to clause 1 in the names of Steve Abel and Lan Pham are out of order as not being an objective description of the bill.