Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill

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

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

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I move, That the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

It’s a privilege to be back before the House to present the bill for the second reading. When the bill was introduced on 3 November, I said, and repeat again, that the bill has two complementary priorities. The first is promoting competition in the grocery retail sector, advancing a core part of the Government’s Going for Growth agenda, which will have flow-on effects for productivity and living standards. The second is to make changes to improve the fast-track regime’s workability and efficiency. Fast track is working pretty well, actually, and we’ve had a number of projects that have already been consented and received approval. In fact, some of those projects are under way, like the Port of Auckland expansion or extension and the new cruise ship terminal, and Maitahi, which I’m visiting tomorrow, which is a housing development down in Nelson. Fast track is working pretty well, but all regimes—particularly ones as complicated as fast track—benefit from fine-tuning. Over the course of this year, there has been feedback sought from targeted engagement—with applicants, with agencies, and the panel convenors themselves, actually, who are doing a good job of processing all these applications—to try to find operational and procedural efficiencies.

The bill includes a range of amendments to speed up the application process, reduce time frames in key areas, improve flexibility, and to clarify a range of operational matters. I do want to acknowledge the Environment Committee, who have a had a short but thorough look at the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill, hearing submissions and considering the bill. There were many submissions during that process. There were quite a few themes that came through from submissions, including if proposed changes would allow for consideration of environmental issues; how they would accommodate Treaty and other arrangements with Māori; concerns about Government input in the decision-making process; representation for local communities; the Government policy statement (GPS) process; and time frames, including for panel decisions.

Some submissions concerned changes to the current clause 42 of the bill, under which parts of an application can be withdrawn after an application has been lodged. Some submitters expressed concern that this change could lead to project scope being expanded mid-process. The legislative process has led to a clarification: modifications cannot be made that result in the application expanding the scope of the project beyond its original description in the referral application or as it was listed in Schedule 2 of the Fast-Track Approvals Act 2024. Ministerial direction in this area is intended as a backstop in the event that expert panels are uncertain if a project, if modified, will continue to have significant regional or national benefits. This makes it clear that expert panels can continue processing applications as modified without seeking a direction from a Minister.

Several submissions referenced previous mining cases or applications under the Resource Management Act, or concerns regarding long-term environmental risks or considerations. The bill does not seek to change the expert panel’s role in determining whether identified adverse impacts are out of proportion to the project’s benefits and to impose appropriate conditions on approvals. The bill introduces a new requirement for applicants to provide information on effects in their referral application, which will help inform ministerial referral decisions. The Minister for Infrastructure has the discretion to decline a referral application if it would have significant adverse environmental effects—and I note that I have declined some referral applications already through the fast-track process.

Changes will be made to several key time frames for decisions in the fast-track process. Decision time frames to date have varied due to the complexity of individual applications. However, in line with the Act’s requirement for efficient processes, clear statutory time frames give applicants and investors greater certainty about process and cost. Having heard submissions, it is sensible to increase the maximum time limit for an expert panel’s decision from 60 working days to 90 working days, which can still be extended with agreement from the applicant. The time frame for parties to provide comments on referral applications is reduced from 20 to 15 working days. Regional councils must respond to requests for information about existing resource consents within 10 working days; previously, there was no statutory time frame. The intention is to achieve a balance between the requirement for timely information and the need to maintain accuracy and avoid placing unreasonable burdens on councils.

The panel convenors and others provided informative submissions on how reducing the time taken to establish panels may not be workable in practice, and the Government has established that it is preferable to maintain the status quo and have no statutory time frame for panel appointments. Efficiencies will be realised when certain steps in the substantive process, such as completeness checks and competing application checks, happen concurrently. Applicants invest significant time and resources, and it doesn’t make sense that they should be penalised if application circumstances change and they want to pause their application. The maximum time that an applicant can request a suspension of their application is proposed to be increased from 50 to 100 working days. This is to allow applicants more time to provide information to address concerns raised by parties invited to comment on applications.

In relation to Government policy statements (GPSs), these were proposed so that projects’ regional or national benefits were more easily related to Government policies and priorities for development or growth across a range of sectors. They will be issued by the Minster for Infrastructure. GPSs set out the Government’s policies on the regional or national benefits of certain types of infrastructure or development projects. The Minister for Infrastructure will consider any relevant GPSs during the referral process. The expert panels will do the same when deciding whether to approve a project and set conditions or decline them. Some submitters were supportive of the GPS mechanism as drafted and thought it would provide greater clarity and certainty for nationally significant issues. Others considered the grocery retail GPS a good template for future development in other areas, such as urban development and to enable infrastructure. Developing GPSs will not happen in a vacuum; Section 10A of the amendments outlines how they will be issued and who may be consulted.

The bill amends a number of project descriptions and updates the respective project descriptions, locations, and authorised persons, including for the Stella Passage project. There are also transitional provisions to ensure fairness and clarity for applications in progress. Any changes that do not require system or IT updates will take effect immediately, but some changes that require system updates will take effect on 31 March 2026. The bill’s legislative process has delivered a range of sensible outcomes that, if adopted by the House, will balance the need to improve fast track’s efficiency and workability while still preserving the ability to facilitate regionally and nationally significant infrastructure and development projects and deliver robust decisions.

As I say, fast track is working well. We have listened to some of the feedback that’s come through the select committee, who, I think, did a good job of hearing the submissions. Members will note that the Government has lodged an Amendment Paper—yesterday, actually—which is available for everybody to see. As we get into the committee of the whole House, we can work our way through that, which picks up on some of the submissions. My understanding is that the select committee did not do a revision-tracked version, so, essentially, the committee of the whole House stage is the ability for the House to make amendments to the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill, and I’m looking forward to considering that in the committee of the whole House.

As I say, there are twin objectives to the bill: one is around grocery sector competition, which I think is broadly supported across the Parliament—I think I’m right in saying that—and the second is some efficiency and workability improvements to the original fast-track regime. Having decided to do the grocery sector competition, the Government thought it was worthwhile making these sensible finesses and tweaks to the approvals Act. As I say, it’s working well, but everything can be better, and that’s the aim of this bill. Thank you.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m interested in one of those last remarks from the Minister: that he acknowledges that there is general support from around the House for increased grocery competition, and if he will remove his Facebook post that he made immediately after the first reading of this bill saying that Labour didn’t support supermarket competition—that Labour had voted against it. Then noting his further comments that he made, whereby he said, “Oh yes, yes”—and I’m paraphrasing somewhat—“Labour has some fair points about the fact of the supermarket competition being entwined with a whole lot of other issues, but they can vote on that clause by clause when we go through the committee stage of the bill.” I hope the Minister holds to that.

My main point, of course, is this bill is not about supermarket competition. If it was about supermarket competition, we would not have been rushing this through the select committee in the way that we did. There may be general agreement about all of the changes, but there is not, because what this bill is about is enabling Ministers to delve down into the substantive decision making on these decisions. These are decisions that already have normal environmental protections degraded. That is the problem with the Fast-track Approvals Act—the principal Act—and what this bill does is make it even worse. It’s not about speed; it’s not about a one-stop shop. It’s about Ministers making decisions.

We saw, when the fast-track bill, which is now the principal Act, first came out some time ago—there was talk of Muldoonism. The Minister says he doesn’t like Muldoonism and that, in fact, he has Fitzgerald and Muldoon on his wall. We had protests down Queen Street, and Glen Bennett was at that protest, and it was all the way down Queen Street, because people were particularly worried about Ministers making decisions on important issues that need to be considered with evidence in front of a robust decision-making process. That seems like something that the Attorney-General would want, and the change was made.

Sorry, the Ministers in the Fast-track Approvals Act do not have that ability to make the decisions, but what this bill does is introduce a new mechanism, a Government policy statement—a Government policy statement that is made on the whim of the Minister. There are no criteria. There’s a little amendment that’s just been made that, “Oh, they can consult other people if they want to.” Whoop-de-do! That is not a robust process, that is not criteria, and it is different from other pieces of legislation—apart from, of course, the recent amendments to the Crown Minerals Act—whereby there are criteria for anything that is called a Government policy statement, or words to that effect.

I have suggested an amendment, which I hope the Minister will consider, that provides some criteria for that Government policy statement. Now, if the Minister was committed to this bill being about supermarket competition, then the provisions in the bill could specifically refer to supermarket competition—that the Government policy statement is to be about grocery competition—but it does not do that. No, no: it is much wider, and that is the concern that we have and that many submitters—many very thoughtful submitters, including the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, amongst others; even the New Zealand Institute—have about how this is ministerial overreach, and it is very serious. That is one issue.

Another issue is the process this bill has gone through to this point. Normally, if we’re reporting back from the select committee that has a report-back period of under four months, there would have been a debate in this Chamber from members across the Chamber about that shortened time frame. This did not happen for this bill. Instead, the chairperson decided to have a very short submission period and then the majority of that select committee agreed to report back early. That is not a good process. The Environment Committee did work very hard and the officials all worked very hard, as well, and I, of course, commend their dedication to doing their job and being good public servants, but it did mean that we did not have a long time for submissions and, of course, we haven’t got a revision-tracked version with the select committee report back.

The Minister just referred to the amendments coming in yesterday. When I was looking for his amendments yesterday, I could not find them. I note that they have been tabled now, for at least an hour or so, and I have been going through those diligently and will refer to them at some length in the committee stage. That is not a good way of making laws, and it also has meant that a whole lot of submitters brought to us good points.

Now, the Minister has described this bill as “supermarkets” and “rats and mice.” There are some rats and mice in this bill, and, being from Dunedin, I’m careful when I talk about supermarkets and rats!

Hon Andrew Hoggard: Don’t go there!

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I note that the Minister for Food Safety is in the House. That’s just outside my electorate, on the other side of the road.

Hon Andrew Hoggard: I’ve got a spare cat for you.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Thank you for the offer of cats. Whilst there are some small issues, there are also these bigger issues that I’ve been talking about. If you’re doing a tidy-up of a bill that you’ve only passed a year or so ago—and I’m all for reviewing bills and all for having good regulatory systems—then we could have had a good robust process.

For instance, Queenstown has an awful lot of listed projects that relate to Queenstown. Queenstown’s population is not giant, and the council has limited ratepayers and limited resource. Queenstown is a beautiful place and it is growing, and the council has been trying to plan for its infrastructure and where that additional housing growth should go for a long time. It’s very important that there are more houses in Queenstown; nobody is debating that point, but the councils from both Queenstown and Central Otago District Council—so that includes Cromwell, where there’s a lot of commuters living who go and work in Queenstown—came to the select committee and said, “Look, Queenstown has the most unaffordable housing in the country.”

Queenstown has had special legislation about housing before. Nick Smith did a special housing accords piece of legislation and, as a result, there was a requirement for affordable housing. Now, they made a submission to the select committee: “Look, we’re the ones with the most unaffordable housing in the country. We are the ones with the most per capita fast-track applications happening here. Surely there is an argument for a specific requirement for those developers who will be getting huge uplift from rurally zoned land that will now be developed with housing. Surely there is an argument for a special requirement for, say, 5 percent affordable housing in those projects.”—and that seems, to me, like a very legitimate argument.

I, of course, don’t want to make a decision on it, because we haven’t heard any analysis from officials about that, because, of course, there was no time to do so. That is a missed opportunity, and that is because this Government continues to want to just rush things through and not have some good thought to what is actually happening. We’re going to have many questions about the Amendment Paper that the Minister has put up about what the consequences of the changes are, because, again, we have not had that analysis.

There are many other changes in this bill that are not to do with supermarkets or rats and mice, and some of them are to do with limiting participation of other groups. There are some changes in the amendments that we’ll talk to in the committee stage. Particularly, we heard from iwi groups that the time frames in the fast track at the moment are already near impossible, so any further reductions of those time frames will mean that their participation is mere rubber-stamping. They cannot do substantive, thoughtful contributions, and that is what we want, because we are concerned here about our environment and protecting it. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker—

Simon Court: General Treaty protection, Steve—tell us.

STEVE ABEL: Are you doing it? General Treaty protection—I’m happy to talk about that because 100 years hence, anthropologists will take a bird’s-eye view of this particular moment in history and this particular Government and this suite of bills that have been rushed through the House without democratic process or proper consultation or consideration, or any respect whatsoever of the constitutional foundation of this country in Te Tiriti o Waitangi and He Whakaputanga. They will go, “That was the point when Aotearoa set itself on ecological ruin under the manic ideology of corporate power, anarcho-capitalism, whereby our view of the world is shaped entirely by the idea that private property rights and the accumulation of money is the most important human value there is.”

You only have to look at some of those ancient books of old that tell you that the accumulation of wealth is not good for anybody—it is not good for the planet, it is not good for people, it is not good for communities, and it’s not even good for the people who accumulate the wealth, at the end of the day. There is no version of a life on this planet that is not centred around protection of the basis of that life, which is the health of our ecology.

The bill before us today is a worsening of what was one of the worst pieces of legislation this Government passed—the fast-track legislation—and what is more, as my colleague just pointed out, they’ve just dropped a stack of amendments on this bill. So we haven’t even had half a minute to read through what those amendments are, but we will certainly be debating them over the course of the next few hours.

One of the most egregious parts of the fast-track legislation—and this bill makes it worse—is that it takes community out of decision making; it takes local iwi out of decision making; it takes the environment out of consideration, in so far as it dismisses the upholding of our existing environment laws; and it certainly has no regard for climate change, the existential challenge that threatens us all.

We made a commitment, as the Green Party, that we would correct this extreme legislation and the things that it has committed to make happen. The basis of that commitment is a recognition that there is an appropriate place for development. There is an appropriate pathway for people to get a consent and a permission to undertake certain activities—business activities or whatever they are or farming or whatever you like—but it must be with the consent of the people, it must be consistent with Te Tiriti o Waitangi, and it must be consistent with protecting the common good, which is the health of our rivers, the health of our atmosphere, the health of our oceans, and our biodiversity, because those are the things that are the first duty and responsibility of the regulator and the legislator to protect. It is our responsibility, as parliamentarians, to protect the public good and the commons from those who would exploit it and harm it and destroy it. That’s our job. This fast-track bill seeks to bypass that responsibility.

One of the more egregious things that it does is it allows projects that have been through a substantive and an extensive process, such as the Taranaki seabed mining project, which has been rejected and resisted by community and iwi in Taranaki for more than a decade. It was opposed by even the commercial fishing industry. It was opposed by the offshore wind industry, who have been put off the prospects of building offshore wind in Taranaki because of the prospects of seabed mining by Trans-Tasman Resources—[Member sneezes] Bless you.

It is a zombie project. It has been rejected by all of the courts and tribunals in this land, including the very Supreme Court—the Supreme Court sent it back. It is dead, buried in the ground, and this Luxon Government resurrects it through the fast-track process. It is shameful. It is so disdainful of the inordinate hours and time that communities have spent to say, “This is not what we want for our country.” Oh, but no, this Government’s first duty is to some Australian speculator, Trans-Tasman Resources, who want to destroy the seabed off Taranaki for 35 years straight.

So we, as Te Pāti Kākāriki, wanted to make it clear to industry that this sort of a process by which consents are achieved will not stand under a Green Government. We set a line in the sand that stretches from Bream Bay to the sandstone cap of the Denniston Plateau, and that line in the sand is a commitment that any consents issued by this Government through the fast-track process for coalmining, hard-rock goldmining, or seabed mining will be revoked. That is because of how inappropriate this process is. It is a significant act to take and to commit, but that is because this is such an egregious piece of legislation that does not respect biodiversity, does not respect democracy.

The message to the mining industry, today, is that you should not take any heart from this Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill. It does not give you security of tenure. It does not give you a certainty in the future, because there is not political support for it across the House, and when there is a change of Government, you can be certain this bill will be either entirely thrown out or substantially amended.

What is more, it is a high priority for the Green Party, if we are in coalition negotiations with any other party, that we will stand on what our commitment is: that we will revoke the consents for the destruction of the spectacular 40-million-year-old ecology of the Denniston Plateau for Aussie goldminers—that ain’t happening. We will stop Trans-Tasman Resources’ seabed mining. We will stop the mining of Bream Bay for sand—

Simon Court: Where are we going to get our sand from, Steve?

STEVE ABEL: You should have a look at the fast-track applications, Simon. There are about seven other sand-mining applications; there are plenty of places to get sand without dredging the seafloor.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Back to speaking to the bill, not across the House in a conversation, please.

STEVE ABEL: Sure. We will revoke the hard-rock goldmining in Otago, Bendigo, in Macraes, and Waihi. Why? Because those forms of mining use cyanide to extract the gold. They leave a toxic legacy of arsenide, arsenic, and cyanide tailings dams that are there intergenerationally. Long after any jobs have dried up and the profits have been repatriated to Australia, that legacy is there. The acid mine drainage that we saw in the Hinewai River down in Coromandel was from a mine that was a hundred years old. Anyone who had worked in that mine was long dead and probably their grandchildren were dead. This is why this form of extractive, destructive industry is not the future for our country.

We need a future based on renewable industries, and we have made a commitment, as the Greens, as an alternative to this—just to be clear—that we can create 40,000-plus jobs through renewable industries and backing central North Island timber processing, among other things, but also by keeping the mills open that this Government is letting close—

Simon Court: They can’t afford the bloody energy, Steve.

STEVE ABEL: They can’t afford the energy because they won’t reform the electricity market and break up the generator retailers. Get on with it—fix the problem.

We will certainly be opposing this bill. This sort of reckless disrespect for people and planet and Te Tiriti has no future. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Well, wasn’t it an eye-opening speech from the Green Party member Steve Abel, who I do have a lot of respect for for his commitment to the environment. I mean, he spent over 240 days in a tree in West Auckland to stop a property development. I’m not sure if those houses have ever been built, so there are probably 240 people who don’t have a warm, dry home. But I do respect his commitment to the environment, even when he starts to mix up Kiwis’ care and appreciation for our natural environment with “Oh, and therefore everything must be collectivised. We must nationalise the energy system.” What did he say? That development requires the consent of the community. Well, of course communities must have an input into development. The fast-track process allows for views to be gathered, but we can’t allow a right of veto to every Tom, Dick, and Harry who turns up at a hearing and gives their reckons and vibes as to why something like a housing development or a mine shouldn’t go ahead.

Now, what does this bill do? It’s quite simple: it provides for grocery businesses—supermarkets—to demonstrate that there’s a national and regional significance test that they pass so they can use the fast-track system. What else does it do? It establishes a more efficient process for fast-track approvals, which means that instead of applicants having to spend tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars stacking up technical reports to demonstrate why every risk is managed down to the nth degree, why things you can’t even see, touch, or feel are managed in a way that the collectivists over there on that side of the House approve of—

Rawiri Waititi: That’s the story of your life.

SIMON COURT: —we are providing a much more efficient pathway. I want to tell that member Rawiri Waititi that the story of New Zealand has been people on the other side of the House objecting to development, threatening to nationalise successful businesses that deliver electricity and food to consumers, and that’s not going to work for New Zealand. Everywhere that collectivisation and collectivism has been tried, it’s led to famine, poverty, destruction of institutions, the collapse of civil society. You think of Cambodia under Pol Pot. You think of Russia under Stalin. That is what you’re advocating, Steve Abel, and that is what you are riding shotgun on, Rawiri Waititi.

Now, why is fast track an important part of the development approvals process? Well, firstly, it recognises that under the Resource Management Act (RMA), the Wildlife Act, the Conservation Act, and the Public Works Act, their approval is needed for many different aspects of a development. What fast track does is simply bring them all into one place so that all the evidence can be considered at one place at one time by one group of planning commissioners. Now, if you think about viewing the world in a holistic way and balancing human needs with nature, you’d say that actually the fast-track approvals process pulls all these things together in a really coherent way, which is why it’s such a struggle to understand, as a civil engineer, the incoherence and, frankly, the lack of rationale behind the arguments that we’ve heard from the left and hard-left Green wing of politics in New Zealand.

I can’t understand why someone would bother, like Glen Bennett marching down Queen Street, to protest against a bit of legislation that makes housing development and getting vital minerals out of the ground easier. I mean, if you honestly think, Steve Abel—you mentioned that there are a whole bunch of other places we could mine sand, on land instead of the ocean. Would you turn up and write a positive letter saying the Green Party would love you to do more sand mining on land? Like, would you turn up at the hearing and say, “The Green Party loves land sand-mining”? I don’t think you would. I don’t think that that’s a fair reflection of the Green Party’s views. In fact, I think they’re 100 percent anti-mining anywhere, ever. If you really, really believed in that, you’d hand over your cell phones, you’d hand over your laptops, you’d refuse to fly anywhere, you’d be as sound as Greta Thunberg and you’d only come and go from Parliament by boat.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I just ask the member not to bring the Speaker into your debate.

SIMON COURT: Madam Speaker, I do apologise for bringing you into the debate, but I will reflect that Greta Thunberg, even though she’s completely wrong about everything, at least has the courage of her convictions to travel to and from the places she wishes to protest and speak at by sailing boat. She’s only ever flown on a plane when other people have said, “Greta Thunberg, you must sit next to the toilets at the back of the plane.” I don’t know; maybe that’s the kind of sacrifice even the Greens would be prepared to make, but I doubt it, because they don’t have the courage of their convictions to say, “Actually, there should be some mining somewhere, and we will say where it is because we know it’s important to New Zealand.”

Now, this bill is important. We must have a one-stop shop to consider complex development applications. For far too long, the Resource Management Act has made it almost impossible to consent the things we need in a reasonable time frame and at a reasonable cost. It doesn’t mean that these projects won’t proceed; of course they will. But why would we hold applicants, developers, and even the Crown to an impossibly high standard where every single risk must be managed down to the nth degree until you can’t see it, or even if you can see it, you know it’s there? It’s still a risk. That’s what the RMA does. Fast track cuts through this.

But what’s coming next? What’s coming next is going to be even better. We’re going to replace the Resource Management Act that has caused all these problems with two new bits of legislation—a Planning Act and a Natural Environment Act—based on property rights in the Planning Act; being able to use your land without having every Tom, Dick, and Harry turn up to object to the colour of your front door, and a piece of legislation to establish environmental limits.

Now, the Opposition doesn’t disagree with that. They love environmental limits and they also love living in houses. Some of these problems we’re trying to deal with with the fast track are actually to deal with this legacy—this kind of 1980s, cool kids vibes, sustainable management crap—that we’ve had to accept holding us back for over 30 years. Fast track is going to help, but replacing the resource management system with a new system based on property rights is the new game in town. New Zealand’s going to have the best planning system in the world. Green parties, I predict, from other countries, will come to New Zealand to ask, “How did you do it? How did you protect the environment and build homes that people want to live in and have mines?” Well, New Zealand’s going to show them how. This Government’s going to show them how. ACT is proud to support this amendment to the Fast-track Approvals Act.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to support the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill in its second reading. As I did mention in the first reading of this bill, this is a core part of the National - New Zealand First coalition agreement. Yes, I remember back to that time around those coalition discussions, and this piece of legislation was something New Zealand First had developed and popped on to the table at those coalition agreement talks. It’s a proud moment to actually see this piece of legislation in the House being refined and actually working the way we want it to work.

It’s about letting the investment flow. We need to let the investment flow, and we need to let the activity flow. There is too much stopping activity in New Zealand. This bill will actually get the wheels moving and get the economy moving. As I mentioned, it’s about fine-tuning. It’s about getting the legislation working in the way that we want it to work. Obviously, when the first part of the legislation came through, there has been the need to bring it back to fine-tune it. One of the great things with the fine-tuning here is we’re going to see in the supermarket industry what we’re all shouting out for, which is we want to see more competition. In the supermarket industry, if we don’t get competition and if we don’t get new players into the market, we aren’t going to see prices come down. We want to see the competition. We want to see new players coming into the country.

Rawiri Waititi: You can do that without this legislation.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE: It’s fantastic that the Māori Party’s actually agreeing with me. We want to see some competition. We want to see more dollars in everyone’s pockets so we can see competition in the supermarket industry. We’re talking of a six-week reduction—six weeks of red tape cut out. If we can cut out six weeks of red tape of having to go through processes that aren’t required, it will save costs, it will get shovels into the ground—

Hon Rachel Brooking: And pollution into the waterways!

JAMIE ARBUCKLE: —and we can get projects under way. I can’t believe that the Labour Party spokesperson is disagreeing with me, but we’ll carry on and have a little bit of a discussion about that a little bit later.

The other thing about this piece of legislation is it will create jobs now. In regional New Zealand and across New Zealand, we want to see jobs being created. We want people to be in jobs, and by getting activity in a pipeline of work—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Resources are limited.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE: Again, the Labour people just can’t agree that we actually want to see people in real work and we actually want to see people out actually developing these supermarkets and getting shovels in the ground, and that is it going to create jobs and activity across New Zealand.

A big thing with this piece of legislation is the pipeline. The Government has said that we want to create a pipeline of infrastructure work where when one job finishes, you go to another job. If we can get a pipeline of infrastructure work in the country, across the country, contractors can have confidence to go from one job to another job.

Rawiri Waititi: Shame about the 10 percent unemployment for Māori.

JAMIE ARBUCKLE: Again, we’re hearing from the Opposition about employment. If we can get that pipeline, we can actually get people into work and working across the country. We want to promote a strong infrastructure development pipeline that promotes productivity so that if we, actually, can get these projects up and under way, we will see more work come from it, we can see contractors having the confidence to invest, and then we can have more confidence and businesses to invest more and to actually want to develop more work throughout New Zealand.

What I can’t understand—and we’re hearing it through the Opposition as I’m speaking today—is the “no” to everything. I got up earlier on today and was talking about consenting, and it is anti - people that actually want to do things in this country. On this side of the House, we actually want to see people invest, we want to see people have confidence, and we are actually backing the people that will get New Zealand moving. We don’t want to hear a “no” attitude to everything. I’ve just heard from Mr Abel. He’s saying no to housing developments; saying no to mining; they’re saying no to supermarkets; they’re saying no to energy projects; they said no to fast-track. They can’t say no to everything. We actually need to have productivity, we actually need to have businesses working, and we need to actually have the ability to actually employ people. If we’re going to keep having a “no” attitude and be so negative, the economy is not going to turn around. This side of the House, this Government, will turn the economy around. We’ll have a pipeline of work that will lead into the future, and people will have the ability to invest, and they will have confidence. On that, it is with great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

Five-minute split call—Rawiri Waititi.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I find it difficult to listen to some of the speakers in this House today. We saw with the last speaker, he banged his mic, he thought this was going to be his mic drop moment of a speech in this House. The only anti in this House is a Government that is anti - Te Tiriti o Waitangi, that is anti-environment, that is anti - workers’ rights. All I have to say to Jamie Arbuckle, through this speech, is “Ah, buckle up.”

What we have in this Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill is—the public have spoken: 95 percent of submissions opposed this amendment bill. Every opposing submitter raised the same alarm, that the bill sidelines Te Tiriti o Waitangi and hands unprecedented power to Ministers Tom, Dick, and Harry. The Government are not fast tracking progress; they are fast tracking cronyism. The core issue—and what this Government is obsessed with removing, Te Tiriti o Waitangi—is the red flag. The bill replaces Te Tiriti partnerships with ministerial discretion. It is vehemently opposed to Te Tiriti, and we have seen that across many bills that have passed through this House. Now, under urgency, you are urgently moving bills in this House that remove the fundamental constitutional agreement that protects Aotearoa—that protects Aotearoa—from corporate exploitation.

This is what this bill does: it reduces Māori to optional consultees, deepening Crown dominance, meaning Ministers can approve or decline projects without recognising iwi, hapū, or honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This reverses decades of legal precedents, including the Marine and Coastal Area (Takutai Moana) Act, the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf (Environmental Effects) Act, the Resource Management Act, and the 2021 Supreme Court decision on seabed mining in Trans-Tasman Resources Ltd.

Iwi feedback and all iwi submitters oppose the fast-track amendment bill: Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāruahine, Ngāti Toa, Waikato-Tainui, Muaūpoko, Ngāti Kuku, Ngāti Whakaue ki Maketu, Te Rūnanga o Ōtākou, Ngāi Te Rangi, Ngāti Hauā hapū, Patuharakeke Te Iwi Trust, Ngaa Rauru, Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Tahu, Taranaki iwi, Te Atiawa, Te Nehenehenui, Ngāti Manawa, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Kuia, Te Tōpuni Ngārahu Trust. The Government cannot erase Māori from the law just because we are inconvenient to your investors.

This is what this bill does: it sidelines Māori from decisions about whenua and moana; reopens extractive industries already rejected by courts and by iwi; it ignores tikanga, customary rights, and Treaty settlements; loss of Māori voice and participation. The bill restricts who can submit, it limits hearings rights, it compresses time frames, it reduces opportunities for appeal. Hapū and whānau are directly affected are locked out of decisions; where Māori once exercised kaitiakitanga, this bill silences them. The process now privileges corporate applicants over communities defending taiao and heritage. Māori ward council wards are warned: Manawatū has 10 hapū still unsettled and lacking Treaty settlement protections. Te Whānau a Apanui are the same. Te Tai Tokerau are the same. The bill leaves them exposed to decisions made without consent or involvement.

What we have is a constitutional overreach that concentrates power in Ministers, removes Māori from decision making, dismantles Te Tiriti protections, sacrifices whenua and moana for short-term corporate gain. We stand firmly with iwi, hapū, whānau, communities across Aotearoa opposing this bill, and we’ll repeal this bill and entrench Te Tiriti. This is not fast track; it is a fast trick—a trick that hands power to Ministers and corporations while stripping power from Māori communities. The Government can silence us in this legislation, but they cannot silence us in this House or across Aotearoa. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I wonder what kind of new misery this is, because we have been in this situation in Aotearoa New Zealand for decades of governance where some duty of care was owed to the environment. Again and again, we are reaching new levels of dismissal.

I want to make it really clear that the original Fast-track Approvals Bill was already completely unacceptable in its overreach. It was already completely undermining communities’ democratic participation. It was overriding the Crown’s very clear obligations to iwi and hapū under Te Tiriti. It’s weakening environmental laws and protections. That’s already unacceptable. But now, if that wasn’t enough for this Government that wants to push things out so far, these processes that we’ve been accustomed to in this country—that have some form of legitimacy and legal standing—no longer apply with this. This has pushed it out so far. It gives more weight and more strength to our very clear position as Te Pāti Kākāriki that we will revoke consents when it comes to coalmining, seabed mining, and goldmining in particular, because of how egregious it is that they sidestep these environmental protections.

I want to also touch on some comments that we heard earlier from the ACT member about a lack of an argument from the hard-left for being against this bill. I want to start with a submitter that we heard—

Hon Paul Goldsmith: Hard-left.

LAN PHAM: —in the select committee process that is not from the hard-left. They’re an independent fast-track panel convener, who is independent of the Environmental Protection Authority, who actually appoints experts to these panels. What they said was they warned the Environment Committee to “be alert for unintended policy outcomes and to proceed with caution here.” “Impractical, unworkable changes will simply concentrate pressure on panels. Were this to happen, the quality of some decisions will be very vulnerable to appeal and judicial review.”

Now, why that is so critical that this Government actually listened to those conveners is because they hold up the integrity of the very process that these decisions are made under. What they said this bill does is it threatens the reputation of these independent panel members that sit on these panels to make these decisions. This is how extreme this bill is. Unfortunately, from the little we’ve been able to make of the short time we’ve had to look at this Amendment Paper, it doesn’t look like the Government’s listened. What that means is this process is going to be somewhat, if not completely, illegitimate when it comes to these decisions having to stand up to appeals, having to stand up in the courts. I think that should be of serious concern to this Government, and yet they’re not listening. So be it; let’s push this through today, like they’re going to.

Any Government that pushes through a bill that departs so significantly and irresponsibly from these long-held democratic legal safeguards, and threatens political influence in independent decision-making under urgency needs to be challenged; it needs to be called out. Ninety-five percent of New Zealanders who submitted on this bill called it out. They said we do not want this bill, and surprise, surprise, it’s going through, because the applicants, past and present, have gotten in the Minister’s ear. It’s completely unacceptable, and we oppose it.

Look, it is really sad to hear, on that side of the House, the culture of no, no, no, slow, slow, slow, when on this side of the House we are wanting development, we’re wanting the housing developments, the renewable energy that we so desperately need, powering up our growers and our farmers so that we can strengthen this economy and create jobs and opportunities. When it comes to supermarkets, we need to create more supermarket competition so that we can reduce the cost of living for hard-working New Zealanders out there. This is what this bill is all about.

I would just like to take this opportunity as chair of the Environment Committee to thank our members for the fast process that we took with this bill to obviously get it through to its second reading here today, because it is about getting more competition into our supermarket sector. We know that we need to get things built faster in this country; we need to get the consenting regime and our planning regime a lot more streamlined and effective. This is what this bill is about, as well as, obviously, making some technical changes to the fast-track process, just to make it more effective and more streamlined.

It was actually very good to hear from the fast-track panel during the select committee process, whereby they said it was running very smoothly, it was going well, and they did actually mention some of those great projects that have already been passed, which of course is the Port of Auckland, Bledisloe North Wharf, and the Fergusson berth extension, as well as the Maitahi Village developments in Nelson, and of course the Milldale development. These are all positive, and we want to see more of these fast-track projects being approved.

Of course, during the process we heard from the Port of Tauranga, and this bill, of course, will ensure that we can get that stellar passage and that wharf at Tauranga built and constructed. Why is this important? Well, this is important because, at the moment, the Port of Tauranga is turning away ships, turning away our New Zealand exports, our kiwifruit, our apples, and our red meat, when actually we can be welcoming those ships and getting that produce off to market, getting the value for the New Zealand economy and strengthening our economy. It was good to hear the reality of the situation that we’re in with the Port of Tauranga. I visited them recently, actually, and I could see the potential from our largest port, which obviously needs to get a wharf built, expand that wharf, and welcome the ships in so that we can get more exports and grow our economy.

We also heard from the Tukituki water storage scheme, which, of course, is very, very important for my own region of Hawke’s Bay, where we’re actually seeing 37 degree days at the moment in Hawke’s Bay; it is so hot. We’ve got drought on the back door, we’ve got drier summers, and we don’t have water storage yet. We are one of the most productive regions in the country. The Tukituki water storage scheme is very, very important to growing our economy in Hawke’s Bay, but actually growing what we already have there and, of course, supporting many jobs and opportunities in the region. Of course, that project is on the fast track at the moment, so this will be very important for Hawke’s Bay, because it’s going to unleash economic potential in our region. It’s going to diversify the land use that we have at the moment across the Heretaunga Plains, across the Ruataniwha Plains; this is a very, very important project. With climate change on our door, with droughts on our door and drier summers, we need water storage, so that is very important.

Of course, during the process we also heard from the energy companies, and it was very interesting to hear from the energy companies, because they said one of the most restrictive barriers to bringing renewable energy online at the moment is the consenting process, because they cannot get it online fast enough. I’ll give an example. Recently, I was up at Tepahui with my wonderful colleague, Napier MP Katie Nimon—welcome back to the House, Katie; it’s great to have you back—and we were up there opening this wind farm. It took 20 years to get this wind farm constructed; it was two years to build it. This balance is absolutely out of whack. We need to bring renewable energy on a lot faster and more efficiently, and this is what fast track is all about. It’s about getting renewable energy projects built faster and more efficiently.

The last element that I just want to talk about was the retirement villages, who we heard about through the select committee process, because we’ve got an ageing population and we are wanting to encourage more development in our retirement village sector. They said that one of the biggest barriers to getting retirement villages built in New Zealand was the consenting process. When you see large investment like this, you need certainty when we’re going to get that capital investment into the country, and we’re going to get these retirement villages built, which, of course, is very important to addressing our ageing population. Having fast track provides the fast lane to getting these projects built, and they are so important for strengthening our economy, creating jobs and opportunities across New Zealand. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It is so incredibly frustrating to sit here and listen to speeches from members on the Government benches who wax lyrical about how their Government wants to strengthen the economy, create more jobs, and build a whole bunch of things. The reality is that they’ve built absolutely nothing, and, because of their decisions, 20,000 jobs in the construction sector alone have been lost in New Zealand.

It is incredibly frustrating to listen to members who talk about wanting to build things and wanting to support the construction industry, when everything that they’ve done goes against even that. They also talk about the need for a faster consenting process; no one’s denying that. No one’s denying that we need to build things better and faster, and that we need a strong economy. What is frustrating is the idea presented by members on the Government benches that the economy and the environment are in opposition, because that is a false dichotomy. We absolutely need a healthy environment if we’re going to build a sustainable and strong economy, and that is the point that members opposite fail to understand. The chair of the Environment Committee stands up and talks about development, not once mentioning how this bill will absolutely ruin and put in decline the environmental protections that we need in this country.

The original Fast-track Approvals Bill was described as an assault on the environment and on environmental protections: that was absolutely correct, and 20,000 people marched down Queen Street in opposition to that bill because they felt it was ministerial overreach; it was a Government that would dictate what happens when it comes to development, to the detriment of the environment. Then this Government made a couple of changes—OK, so three Ministers would no longer be able to veto the decisions of the panel that they themselves put in place, but, instead, the panel would have the ultimate decision. Now what happens? They have a piece of legislation that they claim is all about increasing supermarket competition—but it’s not. There are about 100 other changes in this piece of legislation that they describe as technical, small changes—“rats and mice”, nothing to see here, because it’s all about supermarket competition. If that were the case, we would be supporting this bill, but it’s not the case, is it? This bill is a Trojan horse. It pretends to be about supermarket competition. The word “supermarket” is mentioned once, maybe twice. “Groceries” is mentioned once, maybe twice, in this bill.

What does this bill actually do? I’m going to quote the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton, because I think he puts it very clearly when he says that “the effect [of the bill] will almost certainly undermine the legitimacy of the Fast-track process and the robustness of its decisions because it seeks to make the approval of applications almost inevitable, by providing the Minister with a mechanism to insert tailor-made Government policy statements to which weight must be given by panels.” I want to touch on that. We have laid it out very clearly in the Labour Party differing view in the select committee report. It is a shame that the chair of the Environment Committee didn’t bother to mention this point that was raised by so many submitters in the very short period of time, given the unilateral decision by the chair to shorten the submissions process. Parliament did not have the opportunity to debate that as we usually would. Labour members on the select committee put up quite the fight over the process, because it is so undemocratic, and yet, unfortunately, the Environment Committee chose to go with the chair’s unilateral decision.

Despite that, there were a number of submissions on this very point. The bill introduces a new type of document that is relevant for decision makers, and it is the undefined “Government policy statement”, or the “GPS”. Now, this GPS is discretionary. There are absolutely no criteria laid out for what the Government policy statement should entail. There is no specified process for the development of the GPS. There is just the requirement for the Minister to come up with this GPS; it can be whatever the Minister decides to put in it and as wide as the Minister wants to go, and the only requirement is to consult with other Ministers and then to publish it. This means that the GPS could be anything, and if that had been confined to supermarket competition, as this Government claims the bill is about, then we would have had no problems with supporting that, because on this side of the House, we do want to see progress. We do want to see development. We want to see a strong economy as well—but not at the expense of a healthy environment—and we struck that balance with our fast-track bill.

Unfortunately, we’ve got a Government that doesn’t care about the environment, that runs roughshod over it and brings in a bill that was egregious and that tens of thousands of people marched in the streets against. They changed it in response, and now they want to change it back by stealth. That’s what this bill does. It moves towards concentrating power in the hands of the Minister through the GPS; it severely limits the participation of third parties. We’ve heard that through a number of submissions from environmental NGOs and conservation groups who submitted to the Environment Committee. Many of them also pointed out what the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment said: it “speeds up the process that already makes heroic claims on the ability of parties to assemble material to the point that proper scrutiny cannot be reliably undertaken.”

I want to point, at this juncture, to a couple of projects that have initially applied through the fast-track approvals process; things like the open-cast mine on Denniston Plateau. The Denniston Plateau is a unique ecosystem in New Zealand; it’s a hotbed of plant biodiversity and birdlife as well. There is a project for open-cast mining on Denniston Plateau. The Te Kuha coalmine out on Westport—rejected by the Environment Court in 2020, brought back, taken to the Supreme Court, and rejected by the Supreme Court in 2023—reapplied under the fast-track approvals process, and it was returned by the panel because it raised serious concerns there. The fast-track panel and its ability to be able to invite commentary by the likes of conservation groups like Forest & Bird adds rigour to the process, and that is the process that this Government seeks to undermine through this bill, which is ostensibly about supermarket competition—and it’s not. It restricts the discretion to invite comment; it brings in a whole number of steps. For a Government that seems to hate regulation, when it’s convenient to them, and they want to bring in red tape to slow down the processes of the fast-track panel and the rigour with which the panel can operate, it does that. No problem, we’ll bring in a whole bunch of extra steps there, and we’ll reduce their ability to make robust decisions.

The panel convenor submitted on this very point. We heard that the time frame is too short. It was interesting: even the applicants of fast-track projects—many of them who submitted to the select committee—made this point: that the required time frames, that are now reduced within this piece of legislation, are too short. It’s egregious from the point of view of environmental protections; it’s not good enough even from the point of view of applicants. It’s a pretty bad piece of lawmaking that this Government is bringing in.

The final point that I want to make is that Shane Jones has waxed lyrical and has been very public in his criticism of the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA). He’s called the fresh limitations on appeal rights and the ability of the Government to give a general direction to the EPA as of particular importance in this piece of legislation—and that’s what this bill does. It inserts a new section that allows the Minister to give general direction to the EPA in relation to its performance and its exercise of its functions, duties, and powers under the Act. We are concerned that the administrative role of the EPA is not being respected and that the Minister could very well interfere in the decision-making process.

So I end where I began: 20,000 people marched on Queen Street because of the ministerial overreach in the original bill. That was changed, and it is now being brought back by stealth through this very bill that the Government claims is about supermarket competition. It is absolutely not, and, for that reason, we don’t commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Earlier this year, our Prime Minister, in his state of the nation address, talked about the culture of “no” that was encompassing this country. It’s what we have become known for. In fact, I’ll give you an example of how that culture of “no” has made it international. Recently, the CEO of Port of Auckland, Roger Gray, was overseas on a cruise ship at a cruise industry conference, and he said, “Why will you not come to New Zealand?” He was asking the cruise lines people—the owners and so forth—and they said, “Well, actually, we don’t call you ‘New Zealand’. We call you ‘No Zealand’ ”. That was the quote and that is an absolute disgrace. It’s a sad reflection of where we have got to as a country. [Interruption] Clearly, the Opposition aren’t interested in tourism. They don’t want tourism. They don’t want tourists. They don’t want things happening. Listen to them—they are quite happy to live in a bubble that exists in a special place where no one else wants to live. What a lot of nonsense coming from the other side, as normal. That was a really sad story.

Now, about supermarkets, it’s interesting. They say, “We support the supermarkets bit.” Well, really? It’s interesting that when we were in the select committee, I asked the Mayor of the Far North, Moko Tepania, this question: “Is it important for the Far North, the reduction of restrictions for opening a supermarket?” He said, “Absolutely.” You know why? It was about grocery prices and it was about the town of Kaitāia. It was about the town of Kaitāia, where, as he highlighted, there is one supermarket and the Far North District Council is very, very keen to see some competition, so that people of the Far North get the opportunity to choose and have better grocery prices. It’s a really, really important thing.

Now, there is something I’d really like to address in my call, and that is the disgraceful stand of the Greens in terms of wanting to cancel consents. It’s an absolute disgrace. They are saying to people who come and invest in this country and build and create jobs: “We’re just going to take that consent away and stop it.” That is a disgrace. It’s a sad reflection on the Green Party. The Green Party of Rod Donald would never have done that. The Green Party of the past would never have done that.

It is a disgrace. We as a country need to be responsible players in the global sector if we are to be taken seriously and attract the investment to create jobs. The Greens are a disgrace and a sad reflection for Green parties that have come before. I commend this bill.

This is a five-minute split call. I call Cushla Tangaere-Manuel.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. My, how the mood has changed since the Emergency Management Bill. Heoi anō rā, tēnei te mihi atu ki a koe, Katie, nau mai, hoki mai.

[However, I hereby acknowledge you, Katie: welcome, welcome back.]

We received 2,518 written submissions on this in the small window of 10 days, and 95 percent of you oppose this bill and this Government doesn’t care. They don’t care about your voice, and they are taking us backwards. If they’re going to give you 10 days to consult on this, imagine what they’re going to do when the bulldozers come into your town. Will you be there? Will you know about it? Perhaps—perhaps, because you will be notified.

This is one of the bills that sends shivers down the spines of constituents throughout Ikaroa-Rāwhiti, and especially the East Coast. When considering this, my mind went back to the early 2000s when the East Cape rose and activated against seabed mining—drilling. That’s going to happen again, but it shouldn’t have to if in fact this Government takes heed and actually takes the collaborative approach they are espousing to take.

One of the main issues here is kaitiakitanga; one of the members opposite has said, “Oh, they’re talking about things we can’t see, touch, and feel.” Ko Hikurangi te maunga, ko Waiapu te awa, o Ngāti Porou te iwi, nō Rangitukia awau.

[Hikurangi is my ancestral mountain, Waiapu is my river, Ngāti Porou are my people, I am from Rangitukia.]

Those are all things we can see, touch, and feel. But what you can’t see, touch, and feel is the connection as kaitiaki; that, in fact, is invisible, and that’s why this is so important, because we get one go at this. Our whenua, our awa, and our moana have to endure for ever, for ngā uri whakaheke [our descendants].

There’s been a lot of talk about property rights, and I’m sure everyone here understands that most general land can be bought, sold, developed at will, but whenua Māori and ture whenua Māori is often multiply-owned, has all sorts of different interests, according to whakapapa. Now, these are going to be voluntarily considered under this bill. Don’t just take my word for it. I took the opportunity to read some of the submissions from Ikaroa-Rāwhiti and the submission of Te Hunga Roia Māori o Aotearoa, who absolutely support the whakaaro of my colleagues on this side of the House. Te Hunga Roia Māori warn that this bill materially reduces the practical ability of Māori to exercise rangatiratanga. Well, we know that doesn’t matter to this Government—the exercising of rangatiratanga—that’s why they’re trying to delete it from every legislation in this country. It diminishes the Te Tiriti partnership, it curtails natural justice, and it permits executive overreach. I’m having a bit of an internal giggle ‘cause there’s someone on that side trying to say my speech.

But furthermore, local and regional councils have concerns about this. Greater Wellington Regional Council stated in their submission that this will erode the ability of iwi and hapū like Te Awa Kairangi, Te Whanganui a Tara—which, for those of you who don’t know, is where we are—Te Awarua o Porirua, Wairarapa Moana, and Kāpiti Coast wetlands. The Upper Hutt City Council is deeply troubled by the removal of meaningful consultation. They state that meaningful consultation is replaced with “ ‘notice in writing’ and only 20 working days notification.” That’s despicable.

I know that one of the claimed intentions is that this will bring all the voices together: iwi, councils, hapū, landowners, but, in fact, as my colleague Priyanca Radhakrishnan said, this is actually a Trojan horse. This is trickery in disguise. The genuine intention will not be honoured.

We can move forward in a collaborative way if every voice is counted as genuine and people are not treated as Tom, Dick, and Harry. When 95 percent of submitters make a statement, surely that is valid to be listened to. We do not commend this bill to the House.

Oh, it’s good to be back. Look, I appreciate all the acknowledgment, especially from my East Coast colleagues, who are all lined up here in good order.

Look, I just want to talk about supermarkets. We’ve talked about them a little bit. I think that it’s actually really important to make this point. We love a good pun, right? While in this particular bill supermarkets can’t take themselves through self-checkout, they can go through the express lane.

I just need to take you back to Hawke’s Bay and the farcical situation that we’ve had in Hawke’s Bay that does not help one single person get a more affordable grocery basket. Now, you want to build a new supermarket in Hawke’s Bay, do you think that you could do it in the middle of Napier? No, because Countdown has two Countdowns across the road from each other; in fact, right by my office. It’s actually a real tourist attraction. You can’t build a new supermarket anywhere else in the area, because, of course, all the plans disallow it.

There’s another little story, in Catherine’s electorate no less, where my family used to have a bus company; got sold to a supermarket. They couldn’t get consent to build a supermarket. So, of course, because they couldn’t, they didn’t want to sell the land to another supermarket because, heaven forbid they could get the consent, there might be some competition. They divided it up into four different titles so that nobody could ever build a supermarket. They had to do some different trades around and potentially trade the land with someone else so that they could build a supermarket where there was consent to be able to operate a supermarket. Oh my goodness! The lengths we go to to build a supermarket to bring in competition.

Now, I don’t think that it’s going to work if the same people just expand and build a bigger supermarket. We need new people. We need to be able to build something new where we don’t already have it. Do you think that we could do that any faster than we build wind farms, as my colleague Catherine Wedd mentioned earlier? No. We can’t expect the existing operators to decide between themselves that they’re going to make groceries more affordable. We need new people to come in. Yes, we’re getting a second, bigger Costco. Do you know how long that took them? It’s absolutely unreasonable. This bill is a very, very necessary amendment.

We need to add things to the fast-track bill. We see it working. When it’s working, we need to expand it to make sure that every single competitor that needs to be in this market is able to operate. If we can make sure that the consent is available, we can fast-track it, by up to six weeks in some cases, to get the very necessary building to happen. We’ve just opened IKEA. You can go and get meatballs in Auckland, furniture that was far less affordable. We’re talking about the grocery prices, but this goes far beyond that, and my colleagues have talked about it as well. It’s a very, very important amendment to make.

I think members opposite are far dramatising some of the very, very practical decisions that are being made here. Bring on the Resource Management Act reform that has been introduced. It is going to make a massive, big difference to our economic recovery, to our economic growth, growing the pie in New Zealand, because that is what this is all about. We are absolutely supportive of economic growth, and that is what we are here to do, make no mistake. I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s interesting to listen to what has been said across the House this morning, and the previous speaker, Katie Nimon, talking about her two Woolworths in Napier. Lovely. Wonderful. But the thing is: where are supermarkets mentioned in this bill? If I look through, not once do I see supermarkets actually mentioned in the bill—not once.

Katie Nimon: What about groceries?

GLEN BENNETT: Yes, groceries. Oh, yes. They were mentioned one time. Once. Just once. That was the only time groceries were mentioned in this bill.

As we look at some of the rhetoric that’s come out this morning, we’ve actually got to look at what it actually is. I think this is a fast track to, yet again, undermining our environment; it’s a fast track to, yet again, undermining democracy. We look at the process we went through, and it was a challenging process. Therefore, we cannot support this bill. In fact, we need to stand up and we need to oppose it. We do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s great to speak to this bill, the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill. There was some resistance to the Fast-track Approvals Amendment Bill when we brought it in and we actually got to hear from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during the select committee process. I think it was the CEO who said that she had some reservations, she had some concerns.

Hon Rachel Brooking: The CEO of the EPA is not a she.

RYAN HAMILTON: In fact, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment—do you remember that, Rachel Brooking? You were there. The Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Simon Upton: he said he also had some concerns, but he was actually pleasantly surprised by the way the process has been going. I think we’ve had five approvals so far, but quite a few more in the pipeline are yet to come, which is really a good indication that it’s actually working quite well.

I guess the intention of this bill was to enhance those aspects where, well, it wasn’t working so well; to streamline some of that process. That’s really the intent of this bill, but also, of course, the supermarket aspect of it as well was really important. There’s been a little bit of talk from the Opposition that we haven’t talked much about the supermarkets, but it’s actually a really integral part of it. A previous speaker, Katie Nimon, actually just mentioned Costco and IKEA, which we’ve been talking about in New Zealand for a long, long time. Those things are really important not only for the economic benefit of New Zealand in terms of the employment they bring but, of course, also the wider impact they bring to the competition sector in offering a cheaper deal for New Zealanders. We’re really excited about that.

In fact, recently, I had the privilege of going on a parliamentary trip to Canada. I got to go with some of my colleagues: David MacLeod and, in fact, Dr Tracey McLellan from Labour as well, and a Green Party member, Hūhana Lyndon. The reason why I tell that story related to this particular amendment bill is we sat down in Manitoba and talked to some of the First Nations chiefs because, as you’d appreciate, they have challenges similar to us or parallel to us with their First Nations people and for us, obviously Māori iwi. They were very interested in our Treaty settlements, particularly with this fast-track bill and how the implications play out legally and, of course, the intricacies of Treaty settlements and Te Tiriti, which the Green Party members spoke about earlier, as did Rawiri Waititi.

David McLeod asked them how long it takes them to consent a project in Canada. Of course, the First Nations chief said, “Well, it depends on the project. Obviously there’s different complexity and nuance with every project that we come across.” But David said, “As an example, just a general big project to consent?” and the First Nations chief said, “About two years.” That was quite an eye opener for us because, with our fast track, we will be doing well if we approve things within two years.

Ingrid Leary: What? They’ve got a completely different system. You can’t even compare them. They’ve got indigenous safeguards in their legislation.

RYAN HAMILTON: But that was an example of just how slow we are to do things. We have got safeguards too, Ingrid Leary.

Catherine Wedd: Read the bill.

RYAN HAMILTON: That’s right. Our chair, Catherine Wedd, was referring earlier to a wind farm in Hawke’s Bay, which took about two or three years to build but 20 years to consent. It’s just not sustainable any more for us to do that. That’s why we’re making some big changes. Of course, the macro changes around the Resource Management Act are key to that and key to this in terms of streamlining the process, but this amendment bill specifically is around improving that fast-track process.

We have looked at truncating some of the turnaround time for the submitters when they approach to make a consent. We tried to maybe fast track the fast track and there was a bit of push-back from the EPA, from the Parliamentary Commissioner, and from some submitters. I believe that the Minister is considering an amendment in the committee of the whole House where we will actually adjust that. We had some comments from the Opposition that we weren’t listening, but the Minister is listening. That select committee process, although it was quite quick, still enabled a good—

Grant McCallum: Efficient.

RYAN HAMILTON: Yeah, efficient. We had submitters present to us here in Wellington, and of course, during the recess week, we also held Zoom meetings and heard from some other submitters as well, which is really important.

Just on the supermarkets, one of the, I guess, precedents we’ve seen is—for example, many of you will know about Halswell in Christchurch. Did I say that right, Vanessa?

Dr Vanessa Weenink: No, it’s “Halls-wall”.

RYAN HAMILTON: Halswell, where Woolworths took four years to get a resource consent. They, effectively, said that it’s a multi-year, multimillion-dollar barrier. Of course, those costs—when we’re talking about the price of butter and the price of cheese—to set up the infrastructure to house the very thing that we’re trying to increase competition with has to be passed on. For that $4 million of resource consenting, you can imagine how many percentile increments on 500 grams of butter are going to be passed out. Again, that’s a really good example.

Another example is the Wairau Rd Pak ‘N Save that some commentators say took nearly two decades to consent because the resource consent actually got declined twice, such was the process. That was a really quite a drawn out example, but what this tells us is that New Zealand is just not attractive for these big supermarket players. In fact, there was another one in Rolleston on Levi Rd, the Selwyn Pak ‘N Save, where the re-zoning and the resource consent just took too long. Consent was eventually granted, but the project needed to proceed to construction, but only after a very lengthy consenting plan change interaction with the council. In fact, there was another one: Pioneer Highway Countdown in Palmerston North. Time line, again: it was a proposed $16 million new supermarket, but the application was refused by independent commissioners for failing to meet urban design integration rules. That’s right, a supermarket in Palmerston North—Palmerston North—not necessarily known for its urban design, potentially; I don’t want to speak out of turn.

Grant McCallum: Certainly not the MP for Palmerston North.

RYAN HAMILTON: Yeah, I don’t think there are any MPs from Palmerston North here. Failing to meet urban design and integration rules, the consent was refused. What about Central Otago and Otago? Anyone here from Alexandra? A proposed Countdown in 2020: the planner recommended a decline of a new Countdown because of adverse effects on urban traffic and amenity. Again, “amenity”. This is a supermarket. They’re not designed to look particularly sexy; they’re designed to sell baked beans, butter, milk, and bread, and it was declined. The outcome recommendation was against consent.

Catherine Wedd: What about Hamilton?

RYAN HAMILTON: Hamilton’s got some new supermarkets, but actually—thank you for mentioning Hamilton—if you will indulge me, it is the city of the future. It is the fastest-growing city. We have got international flights. We have got a Pak ‘N Save being built, but the council made them do significant traffic management, which Pak ‘N Save had to pay for, which is fair enough from the ratepayer perspective—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Should they not have paid for it?

RYAN HAMILTON: —but at so much cost that the Pak ‘N Save has to incur, and that cost is going to be passed on. So Rachel Brooking, when you come through on the 110kph expressway from Auckland listening to cruise control, if you want to stop in to that Pak ‘N Save, unfortunately, the price of butter just went up because they need to pass on that cost. This is really the intent—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Should they not? Is that what the bill does? Is that what you’re telling us: the bill is going to change the costs?

RYAN HAMILTON: Yes, that’s what I’m saying, Rachel Brooking. Because if the capital cost is reduced because the resource consent is more streamlined and easier—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, so supermarkets don’t have to pay for traffic controls any more? That’s what the bill says, does it?

RYAN HAMILTON: It’s going to be much more—

Dr Vanessa Weenink: You can sit down.

RYAN HAMILTON: OK—it’s going to be much more streamlined and therefore that cost saving and cost efficiency will be able to be passed on. I commend the bill to the House.

This bill is set down for committee stage immediately. I declare the House in committee at the conclusion of question time, so the House will now break for lunch and we will be in committee at the end of question time.

Sitting suspended from 12.59 p.m. to 2 p.m.