Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill

Members, we come first to the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. Members, we come now to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 4 to 69, “Amendments to principal Act (except schedules)”. The question is that Part 1 stand part. The Hon Dr Rachel Brooking.

Thank you. I’m not a doctor, but—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Oh, the Hon Rachel Brooking.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: And I probably never will be, but thank you. It requires far too much patience.

Now, what I’d like to comment on, first, is that this morning, a very large Amendment Paper went up on the legislation website, and that is Amendment Paper 347. It’s a Government Amendment Paper in the name of the Minister responsible for RMA Reform, and it goes through the whole bill as if the select committee’s version was the clean bill, and then it’s tracked in some changes on to the select committee’s version. I think that’s what’s happening, and it would be good for the Minister to comment on that, as well, for clarification.

Then, of course, there are many amendments. The Green Party, in particular, have got a big stash of amendments that were made on the bill as reported back from the select committee. I’ve got a couple, one on the Government amendment and one on the bill as reported back from the select committee. Because we’ve only got that just today, I’m working off two different documents—one is the bill as reported back, and one is the Minister’s main Amendment Paper—so there might be a bit of paper shuffling as we go through. I note as well that the Minister has, at this stage—when I last checked—one amendment on his amendment, and that relates to clause 15, which amends section 70, and which is a controversial part of the bill.

I also want to note before asking specific questions that the amendments in the Minister’s Amendment Paper that we’ve seen just today are substantial. They are substantive and, whilst some of them have been signalled by policy statements, we of course don’t know what we’re going to see until we see the bill. These changes have not been through any public process, so I take that to mean that the Minister will go through them in a considered way and answer questions so that they are on Hansard. But this is a terrible way to make laws. It’s very frustrating when you have been through a select committee process and have asked about the wording of different phrases and made amendments in the select committee process, to see that all upended on the day of the committee stage of the bill.

Now, I will acknowledge that the Minister has worked on a couple of the issues that are in the Amendment Paper and has been telling people about the work that he’s been doing on that—in particular with regard to the changes to the Auckland intensification provisions; they changed in the select committee report-back and now they’ve been further changed in the Amendment Paper. But other things are certainly not matters that have arisen, and one of those includes now, in his Amendment Paper, thermal electricity—so coal and gas—and the faster ways that you have to get consent through this bill. When the bill that was introduced, and in everything I’ve heard about the bill, the Minister has always focused on how this is going to help renewable generation. We are all for helping renewable generation, but that is not coal.

I’ll start with those comments, and I think—and I haven’t yet talked to my Green colleagues—that we will likely want to work through the bill clause by clause, referring both to the bill as reported back from the select committee, and then the Minister’s amendments where they’re relevant, and it is helpful that they’ve been track-changed in that way.

Also, I would like to confirm that we’re discussing Part 1 of the bill, and so all of the schedules—and that relates to the substantive revisions to the planned changes for Auckland, Christchurch, and also now Wellington—are in Part 2 of the debate. They are linked to Part 1 provisions, but we’ll spend more time on those in Part 2.

Coming then to the definitions section, in clause 4, there is this change in “specified energy activity”. Now, the Minister has included this: “(ca) the establishment, operation, maintenance, or upgrade of thermal electricity generation facilities:”. So a couple of questions—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Your time has expired. Do you want to take another call?

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Thank you—sorry. Just a couple of questions on this point. One is: how does he justify that, given everything that was said about the bill being to promote renewable energy? Then: has he considered amending that so that it just refers to firming and peaking rather than run-of-the-mill electricity generation from burning coal? That is my first question, and, along with if he could confirm how his Amendment Paper works—if I’ve got that right—that would be helpful.

I thank the member for her questions. She is right that the Amendment Paper that the Government has tabled has not gone through select committee process; however, in mitigation, most of the changes in the Amendment Paper have been publicly announced—in some cases, a couple of months, if not earlier, than today, so members have had a good opportunity to kick those issues around. As the member herself adverts to through her remarks, we’ve been engaged in this backwards and forwards between the Government and the Auckland Council in relation to—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Can you speak into the mic more?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, sorry, you can’t hear?

Hon Rachel Brooking: No. Can you put it up a bit higher?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: I’ll speak louder. Sorry, my apologies—as the member may know, I’m somewhat under the weather, but such is the importance of this bill, here I am, ploughing through.

As the member knows, the Government’s been engaged in a bit of a bit of backward and forward with Auckland Council in relation to Plan Change 78, and the way the timing worked, decisions around that were made after the bill was in the process of being reported back. I think we’ve reached a good accommodation around the ability to withdraw Plan Change 78, with a requirement for the council to notify new plan change by October with capacity equivalent to that which was unlocked by Plan Change 78, and there’s ancillary changes around the City Rail Link stations. We can kick that around if members would like.

In relation to the issue that the member raises around clause 4 and around specified energy generation, the Government’s taken the view that it’s an inclusive regime in the sense that we want renewables to be quicker, but we also want all forms of electricity generation to be quicker—and so, ultimately, the market will build what the market builds. So we’re not closing off renewables. In fact, I want to see more renewables. In fact, one of the key purposes of this bill and in the complimentary changes we’re making to national direction around renewable electricity generation—national policy statement—is to see more renewables bought on stream quicker. But it is also an axiomatic truth that we need good firming and peaking capacity and, indeed, thermal generation, because as the old saying goes, when the wind doesn’t blow and the light levels are low and the sun don’t shine, the one thing the New Zealand electricity system absolutely needs is thermal electricity generation. That’s not necessarily something that everyone likes, but I’ll tell you what we also don’t like, and that’s the lights going off. That would be the single surefire way to bring this New Zealand economy to its knees. So the bill as proposed now through this Amendment Paper will include thermal as part of that more streamlined, quicker process. I think that’s a sensible change. You know, members are entitled to disagree, obviously, but we think that’s a sensible change to make.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to share my colleague’s absolute frustration and disappointment about these last-minute amendments, particularly as a member of the Environment Committee. A great many of the changes that are in these amendments were discussed at select committee, and I’d really love to hear from the Minister about what role he sees select committees actually playing—just broadly—in the development of legislation, and particularly quite substantial legislation like this. It’s a genuine question, because what we’re seeing, and what it appears to be, is a real concentration of executive decision-making which is coming through at the last minute and applies in many places throughout these amendments that have been put in place.

We know that this process has been rushed. We know that officials have been under a lot of pressure and that the consultation that went into this is minor—if not completely lacking, in some instances—particularly when it comes to these Amendment Papers. So I’d really like to hear from the Minister, particularly with this bill, where it sits in terms of being an interim, essentially, holding pattern till we get, or the Government gets, to their substantive resource management changes later in the year or the term or whenever that may be. Why has the Minister made these such short-notice changes, and how does he see the role of select committees, particularly when, presumably, we will be going into that more substantive phase with the next bill? I’d really like to hear that.

The other aspect I’d like to touch on initially is just to do with, on page 7, the commencement clause—this is page 7 of the bill, clause 2—and I really agree with my colleagues, as well, that this does warrant a—

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Just to note that the Commencement clause is a separate debate. This is the debate on—

LAN PHAM: Oh, that’s coming at the end—apologies.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): Yeah. This is clauses 4 to 69, except the schedules.

LAN PHAM: Thank you, Mr Chair. I forget that aspect. Thank you.

Thank you to the member Lan Pham for her question. I mean, the obvious point is I’ve got a deep respect for the select committee process, as a person who sat on the select committee for nine years in Opposition and in Government. Select committees play an important role, and I thank the Environment Committee for their consideration of the bill. There are a number of suggested amendments to the bill that have been adopted by the House already, through the second reading process. The bill has been improved by the select committee consideration of it. Submissions were heard through the process, and a series of changes were made through the process.

The member herself sat on the select committee, so she’ll be aware of the changes made there, but—as I’ve indicated in my remarks to the Hon Rachel Brooking—for a variety of reasons, the Government wants to make further changes to the bill. The Gordon Wilson Flats amendment, for example, is an example on the Amendment Paper where the Government has indicated they wish to make further changes. In fact, the member’s colleague in her own party has an amendment in her own name to make further amendments à la the Gordon Wilson amendment to other areas of Wellington or to other heritage buildings in Wellington that she wants to be delisted and to not be subject to the structures of the heritage provisions of the Resource Management Act. The member’s own party colleague is advancing a similar amendment, which also hasn’t been through the select committee process. So what’s good for the goose, as they say, is, of course, good for the gander.

There are important amendments that we wish to make through the committee of the whole House stage which are contained in the Amendment Paper, and we’ve worked hard as we’ve made decisions to announce those decisions as we’ve gone along. In relation to the Auckland Plan Change 78 process, those decisions were decided and then announced some weeks ago. Likewise, the decisions around the planned stop powers that we wish to insert into the bill—those were made and announced weeks ago. Likewise, the power for the Minister to intervene in council plans and modify or delete particular provisions in some circumstances—again, those were announced some weeks ago. We stand by those decisions, and they lie on the floor of the House for debate.

Does the Minister understand that making an announcement as a Minister is different from having people look at the words on a page? That’s my first question.

The second one is going back to this point of his changes on clause 4 and thermal electricity. In the Minister’s response, he spoke of firming and peaking, so why then does this clause not specify firming and peaking rather than just run-of-the-mill burning of coal for electricity? That’s the second question.

Then the third question, going still on clause 4, the definition sections: there is an amendment to delete—and it’s in the name of Scott Willis; he might want to speak to this as well—in “long-lived infrastructure” the “(a) pipelines that distribute or transmit natural or manufactured gas:”; has there been any consideration of that, given, as I was mentioning before, the way that this bill was promulgated was that it was to do better for renewable energy and that is not renewable energy?

Yes, thank you to my colleague Rachel Brooking. I certainly would like to look at clause 4, the new definition of “long-lived infrastructure”, and I also want to reflect on the Minister responsible for RMA Reform’s statement earlier that we will have a National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation. We’ve had that claim made since this Government came into office. In fact, the National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation was to be delivered in June last year; it still hasn’t been delivered. We have had the claim that we will have a national energy strategy delivered—that was to be delivered in December last year; it still hasn’t been delivered.

What we have here is claims that this Government wants to support new renewables but evidence that they’ll do anything but. That’s problematic. It’s problematic because we, effectively, lose trust and faith that this Government will do what it says it’s going to do, because it acts to the contrary of those statements. It hasn’t delivered on any of the things that are going to speed up renewable generation, it has stopped efforts to reduce energy demand, and that has caused price rises for our most vulnerable. It’s caused people in energy hardship to suffer even more.

When we see here, in clause 4, the new definition of “long-lived infrastructure”, the proposal that we’ve put forward is that we delete “natural or”—page 8, line 21. The reason we do this is because we all know—and the Government, again, says it’s going to meet climate targets and yet insists on putting fossil fuels back into our system. You either mean something or you don’t, and that’s the problem here. If you are saying you’re going to meet climate targets, you take the fossil fuels out of the system; you don’t put them back in.

What we’ve got here is the Government saying it wants to ensure that there is natural gas. What this simple amendment proposes is that we take natural gas out—and we all know what natural gas is: it’s fossil gas. The simple thing this Government can do—and I hope the Minister will take this on board; I would like the Minister to respond, please—is delete “natural or” from clause 4, the new definition of “long-lived infrastructure”. It’s a very simple amendment, and the reason why that is so important is that it will show that the Government will actually act on what it says it aims to do—very, very simple.

If the Minister could respond to that, and we’ll see where we get to in the next stage, but we’ve got plenty more questions, because, unfortunately, from what we’ve seen and what’s been delivered, this isn’t about what we’re told it is about. It is also about enabling more fossil fuel infrastructure, and that is something that we don’t need and that we need to move away from at pace. What we would like to see is the changes needed to make sure that we get the fossils out of our system and we enable our electricity to be generated from renewable sources and to be stored as well so that we can manage both baseload, firming, and peaking—oh, sorry, that’s three things. But if the Minister could respond, I’d appreciate that. Thank you.

Well, as the member Scott Willis himself notes, we have a largely renewable system. On any given year, it’s between 80 percent and 87 percent, and sometimes even close to 90 percent renewable, depending on the time of day and the particular time of the year, and that’s a wonderful thing. It’s something that all New Zealanders should celebrate. But we should also be very conscious of the fact that we have an energy shortage in this country. This is probably not the right time or place to get into the whys and wherefores of the oil and gas ban from 2018, but I will just say that’s one of the most destructive public policy decisions that any Government has made in 50 years in New Zealand history, and we are now bearing the brunt of that today.

We’re all in favour of new renewable electricity generation on this side of the House, and the bill will make a series of changes in order to support that—for example, there’s a maximum one-year time frame to consent applications for specified energy, including renewables. Members on the opposite side have said that they don’t think that should apply to thermal generation. They’re entitled to that view, but my view would be the opposite. It’s an inclusive regime. It’s not exclusive to thermal; it includes all forms of electricity generation, reflecting the fact that we have an energy shortage and we need all types of renewables. There’s a default lapse period for applicants for renewable energy consents that goes from five to 10 years. It means that people have more time to use the consents. There’s a 35-year consent duration for time-limited consents for renewable energy and longer-lived infrastructure, and I think those are all changes that will make it easier to consent renewables.

The member asked about the National Policy Statement for Renewable Electricity Generation. That is under consultation right now. Back in May, I think it was, the Government published a draft strengthened national policy statement (NPS) on renewables, alongside a new National Policy Statement for Infrastructure, which we’ve never had before as part of the national direction suite of instruments sitting under the Resource Management Act (RMA). We’ve never had one. Industry has been calling for one for 10 years, and so this Government is delivering one.

We’re also delivering a much more strengthened NPS on renewables. The current one—as the member knows—I think, dates from 2011. It’s a pretty airy-fairy sort of two and a half or three pages, pie-in-the-sky, “Kumbaya”, and mush document. It has not provided decision makers under the RMA with the clear direction that needs to be sent through the RMA system that renewable electricity generation is a national priority. It needs to be easier to consent a wind farm. It needs to be easier to consent a solar farm. It needs to be easier to consent geothermal electricity generation, and, of course, the great thing about geothermal is it’s baseload power—it goes straight into the grid. It goes like the clappers, and there’s a bit of—

Grant McCallum: Yeah, it doesn’t stop.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, that’s what “goes like the clappers” means—yes, thank you for that.

Grant McCallum: Common language.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Right, OK. It does have fossil fuel emissions, actually. People sometimes forget that about geothermal, but it does. But it’s a great technology, and I’m pretty optimistic, frankly, about the deep geothermal, which we’re also investigating—

Grant McCallum: They’ve developed a carbon-neutral geothermal.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, if you want to take a call, Mr McCallum, feel free. So I’m pretty bullish on the deep geothermal prospects that are coming.

I understand where the member is coming from, but we’re not proposing to adopt his amendments to delete thermal generation from the definition of “long-lived infrastructure”. We are advancing the renewables policy statement. My aim is to have that promulgated into law by the end of the year, alongside the other national direction changes we’re making. By the way, it’s the biggest change to national direction in the RMA’s history, and the intention is that the changes we’re making through that suite of changes will carry through into the new resource management system, which, of course, is subject to a separate process.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just picking up on that same vein in the definition of “long-lived infrastructure”. It was one of the more entertaining parts of the select committee process, where literally every business or company thought they should all be considered long-lived infrastructure and their infrastructure should be long-lived infrastructure. But there is one aspect that I would like to propose that I would really like the Minister to consider that actually has some merit. I’m speaking to this particularly as someone who was sitting on the Finance and Expenditure Committee with the Local Government (Water Services) Bill, through that select committee process—and the, hopefully, complete turnaround we’re going to see in terms of investment in stormwater, waste water, and drinking water, and anything to do with water infrastructure.

My amendment, which is Amendment Paper 296, would be a change to the definition clause about long-lived infrastructure. It would really just be about inserting a new line, a new paragraph (db), about “infrastructure providing water supply, stormwater and wastewater distribution”. This stuff genuinely should be considered long-lived infrastructure, and we would really like to be setting up this framework that actually enables the investment that we so badly need in all of these areas through the newly established water service entities and whatnot—whatever form they’re going to take. We think that this is the one genuine amendment that could actually allow those to have more certainty and actually be taken to account in that way, so I’d really appreciate the Minister’s thoughts on that. Thank you.

The member makes a really good point. I’m advised that it was—the definition of “long-lived infrastructure”, including waste water and stormwater, which I think the member is rightly saying should probably be included, was excluded from the scope of this bill as it potentially conflicts with the Local Government (Water Services) Bill, which has been subject to a separate process as we go through.

However, that said, with the new resource management legislation we’ve got coming towards the back end of this year, we have an opportunity to examine that question again, particularly in the context of the water services bill, which is actually up for committee stage after this. So I hear where the member’s coming from on that one.

Mr Chair, thank you very much. I’m the chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee, and one of the things which we’re doing at the moment is we are conducting an inquiry into the ports and maritime sector. We really welcome the change which has been made through this bill in terms of extending our ports’ expiry date in terms of their coastal occupation permits from 2026 to 2046—in other words, given them an extra 20 years. It just strikes me as completely nuts that we are in the situation where a whole lot of infrastructure which has its feet in the water or relates to water has to get re-consented at astronomical cost and delivers absolutely nothing to our country. If we want to look at a place where we want to reduce regulation, that is a place we could save—it wouldn’t be tens of millions; it wouldn’t be hundreds of millions; it would be billions of dollars for this economy.

What we’ve got in front of us says that the right to occupy the coastal area will be extended by 20 years, but the bit that it doesn’t tackle, which is an essential part of the business of operating a port, is the right to dredge. Essentially, it’s like saying you’ve got a house, but if you can’t build the driveway to get to the house, it’s a bit problematic, or you can’t build the infrastructure, the energy, the plumbing, or whatever it is to get to the house, it’s a bit problematic. I know that in talking to, and I’ve met with virtually every—in fact, I think I have met with every port now in the country over the last number of months, and this is an issue which is raised by—[Interruption] You’re laughing.

Hon Chris Bishop: I’d just say what a fun job.

ANDY FOSTER: It’s great. They’re great people. What’s great is that they are carrying, I think, 97 percent of our exports by volume and something close to 90 percent of our exports in terms of value. If they have a problem, “New Zealand Inc.” has a problem, because we can’t get the products we need in and we can’t get the products we need to sell out. If we want to double our export revenue, we need to make sure the ports are functioning well. The issue there is the ability to be able to dredge, and all ports tell me they’ve got a dredge which basically goes around the country and dredges one port after another port after another port—it’s a busy dredge. If they can’t do the maintenance dredging—and for some of them, they do it several times a year to get rid of the little bits of silt etc. which have moved around. If they can’t do that, they can’t get the ships of sufficient draught in, and they need to be able to do that. They have also what’s called capital dredging, which is basically making sure they’ve got the channel of the depth that they need to get those big ships in.

I understand it’s not in this bill, but I’m really seeking some surety—not just for me but also for the ports, because I know they’re very interested in this—that the Government is on to this and will deal with this in due course, whether through this bill or through upcoming legislation.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Can I just start by saying thank you to the hard-working chair of the Transport and Infrastructure Committee. I mean that genuinely. Too few people in this country pay attention to ports, so I mean that very genuinely. If we’re serious about doubling exports and economic growth in this country, getting our ports operating efficiently and effectively is fundamental. Too few pay attention to our ports, and that’s why it’s so important that the port at Tauranga can get its expansion over the line. For example, 60 percent of our exports, by value, go out of the Port of Tauranga. That’s why it’s so important that the fast track of the Port of Auckland is going through its process. It’s so critical that we optimise the supply chain, because we are a maritime nation, and 97 percent of our exports go out through ports. They are fundamental, so I’m really looking forward to the work of the committee in relation to that inquiry. It’s a very important piece of work.

The member, in his question, I think, raises kind of a fundamental issue that the Government’s had to grapple with as we do this. The origin of this bill is that it’s deliberately meant to be a bit of a half-way house on the pathway to wider resource management (RM) reform. It would be tempting to try to do everything, all in this bill, but then it would have quickly become bigger than Ben-Hur, and, frankly, we wouldn’t be debating it now; we’d be debating it in March of next year, or even later. As the member knows, or members know, we’ve been on a bit of a pathway, and we’ve divided up resource management reform into manageable chunks. This is the second amendment bill to the existing Resource Management Act. Variously, the amendments have been described as quick wins, targeted amendments, in order to unclog the system a bit. We did look at the issue that the member raises, so the bill makes some amendments to coastal permits—it extends their duration, as the member knows. The issue of dredging is more complicated—technically, and environmentally as well—and so the decision was made to leave that until RM3, as we’ve been calling it, which is phase 3 of resource management reform, which is the new legislation which is coming before the House later in the year.

Right the way through, we did have to make these kind of line-ball calls, where it was tempting to chuck everything in, as much as possible—chuck it into the hopper and get it into the House and get it into law—but we’ve tried to do it in a sophisticated way, where stuff that’s relatively easy, straightforward, targeted, and able to be digested can go into the system quite quickly and have immediate legal effect—that’s in this bill and the bill that’s previously been passed into law. Then things that are more complicated or interact with other parts of the system—waste water and stormwater is actually an example raised by Lan Pham previously. Some of those issues, we just had to deal with them in a separate policy process. We are aware of the issue, and we will deal with that through resource management phase 3.

I suppose my overall point to the House would be you can’t do everything all at the same time. Successive Governments have tried to do that, and they’ve failed, so we’re just trying to do things in manageable chunks, and everything is building towards the Big Kahuna, which is resource management phase 3. We’re working our way through that as well, and we’ll have more to say in due course.

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. Thanks very much to the Minister for all of his input so far. I want to speak to an Amendment Paper (AP) that I’ve put forward. This is still related to the issue of long-lived infrastructure, but it’s specifically about clause 69, where there’s a new regulation power being given to the Minister to be able to prescribe infrastructure as “long-lived infrastructure”.

CHAIRPERSON (Teanau Tuiono): What number? Have you got the number of the Amendment Paper?

Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: That’s clause 69, on page 47, so it’s in Part 1.

I guess our concern—and this was raised by some submitters—is, what is the purpose for giving this broad-sweeping regulation-making power to the Minister, given that the definition of “long-lived infrastructure” is in the bill? It’s like we’ve got the definition in the bill, but now we’re also giving a power to the Minister, after the bill’s gone through the House, to define other things as “long-lived infrastructure”. They have to meet certain criteria, in subclause (2FA)—so that’s clause 69(2FA). You know, it “(a) has an expected lifespan of 50 years; and (b) is suitable for a consent duration of 35 years; and (c) benefits the public.” But I think “benefits the public” is very, very broad, and, as much as we’d like to have absolute confidence in the Government of the day, the reality is in New Zealand’s system, power is very concentrated in the executive. When we give these broad regulation-making powers to Ministers, there’s less opportunity for public input to these things. We have a select committee process, we have input from across the House, we have input from submitters, but when we give a regulation-making power to the Minister, then it’s just up to one Minister, who gets it through Cabinet and then that defines “long-lived infrastructure”.

I guess my question is, is this really necessary? Haven’t we considered what the definition of “long-lived infrastructure” is in the bill? What does the Minister see as the need for this new regulation and this new power? Would the Minister consider my AP 297, which simply removes that broad power? We want to be sure that whatever is being proposed to be long-lived infrastructure is open to scrutiny and input from iwi, mana whenua, environmental groups, the Law Society, and others.

You know, during the submissions we did hear from the New Zealand Law Society, from the Public Health Association of New Zealand. Even though the New Zealand Planning Institute was generally supportive of a 35-year-duration policy, they also were concerned about the implications for Māori rights and interests, and the ability to redress significant environmental effects—and that’s particularly with respect to hydroelectricity and geothermal consent renewals. Of course we want to have renewable electricity, but also there are types of renewable electricity that are low cost and low environmental impact, and then there’s others which are even lower cost, like hydro, but have significant environmental impacts.

Overall, the Greens have expressed our concern already with fossil-fuel infrastructure being prescribed as long-lived—or that thermal generation and other fossil-fuel infrastructure could be prescribed as long-lived, at a later date, under this regulation-making power. I hope the Minister will consider our AP and whether this is really necessary.

Kia ora, Mr Chair. I have a question that is in regards to clause 6, section 25A amended, which, basically, removes general references to national policy statement—oh, sorry. That section gives far more power to the Minister in terms of giving him the ability to intervene across multiple national policy statements. When the bill first came to the House in its first reading, we understood that the power to intervene was specifically in relation to the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPSUD), particularly the housing and business development capacity assessments required under the NPSUD.

We have got an Amendment Paper—it’s actually under Julie Anne’s name—which is number 298, which, basically, asks for more specificity within the bill to say that the Minister can use his powers to intervene in national compliance with the urban development national policy statement, as opposed to the power to intervene in any policy statement—for example, the National Policy Statement for Freshwater, or National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity, or any of the other national planning instruments that exist.

The question to that is: what is the policy justification for extending those ministerial powers to apply across national direction? I know that you are the “Minister for Everything”, but in the case that you might not be, what is the justification for allowing such widespread powers of intervention across the various directions? The reason we ask that is because, firstly, there might be examples where local authorities might want to be more ambitious than the Government. How does that align with those interventions? But we are mostly just trying to understand how those powers, especially in areas like freshwater management or indigenous biodiversity, are relevant to what the Minister hopes to achieve through these resource management reforms.

I guess the other question we have in terms of the general strategic direction behind these amendments to the Act is: how has the Minister considered his intervention with local authorities? Like, obviously, sometimes it’s good to have that independence. In Wellington City Council, obviously, we tried to go above and beyond the medium density residential standards rules and above and beyond national direction as it was being set when the NPSUD came into effect in 2020, and that was there as well. So sometimes the national intervention might not achieve meeting national objectives when local authorities are exceeding those expectations.

But also, yeah, we just want to understand where and how that decision was made to broaden those powers. Obviously, with the Minister’s general approach to planning, we are supportive of some aspects of that in terms of we want more housing—we want it to be allowed, we want a permissive consenting and planning environment, because we need more houses. But we just wonder why that aspect of the law was changed to make that widespread, and maybe how the Minister will consider local objectives as well when it comes to the freshwater and biodiversity space in terms of coming over the top there and bringing territorial authorities into line with national direction. What is the rationale for that, and can he break that down a little bit further as to why that change took place?

I’ll deal with Julie Anne Genter’s points around clause 69. It’s really a catch-all power, which is there in case the Government decides to classify something as long-lived infrastructure, which is not there now. It really just gives a greater flexibility into the system, and so I don’t think anything much turns on that.

In relation to Ms Paul’s point, I think she was talking about clause 6 on Amendment Paper 347 in the Government’s name, which amends section 25A. One of the things that I think people sometimes misunderstand about the Resource Management Act (RMA) is that it actually gives the Government quite extensive intervention powers in local authorities already. This amended section strengthens that up and makes it clear that if a national policy statement requires a local authority to prepare a document and the authority hasn’t done that, the Minister can direct the authority to do that or amend the document to meet the requirements of a national policy statement.

The member talked about the National Policy Statement on Urban Development, which is an important piece of national direction, which some councils have been good at complying with. Others have been somewhat more recalcitrant, shall we say. But we’re getting there. I think those intervention powers are important, but there are fetters built into the section itself, so the Minister can’t do that unless there’s been an investigation under section 24A(c) of the RMA and the Minister has made recommendations to the local authority. It’s not a free-for-all power for the Minister. There’s a process that the Minister has to go through, and there are existing powers in the RMA for the Ministers to step in in relation to the local authority powers right now, both for Minister Simmonds as Minister for the Environment or me, where it relates to my delegations as Minister responsible for RMA Reform.

Reasonable people can disagree about the appropriate level of power. For one, I take the view that if central government is going to lay out a series of national direction and national policy statements that we expect local authorities to comply with, then there has to be an appropriate level of step-in powers to make sure that those laws are complied with. The member herself raises the example of where the Government has been prepared to step in in relation to housing, which I think the member would view in a positive way, and I welcome that.

At the end of the day, planning is always a balance between local and central, and, respectfully, people who say that planning should be this entirely localised thing don’t really understand the impact that local planning decisions have on the regional and national economy that we all have to live in. For example, successive council planning decisions over many years have given us the housing crisis that is now a national crisis that has fiscal implications of enormous significance for the Government. It’s $5 billion a year in housing subsidies—$5 billion. That’s the equivalent of four Transmission Gully motorways per year on housing subsidies. It’s an extraordinarily staggering sum of money that’s built up, not entirely because of local councils, but, for the most part, by a sclerotic and labyrinthine planning system that has made it too hard to build houses in this country.

The system has allowed this spaghetti junction of planning rules at a local level that has just made it way too hard to build, and we all bear the consequence of that in central government, so I reject the idea that central government shouldn’t have a legitimate interest in what local councils do. What they do matters fiscally, economically, morally, socially, and intergenerationally. There are any number of justifications you can point to for why central government should have an interest in local plans. Now, you’ve got to get the balance right, and reasonable people can disagree about what the balance should be, but the system should always allow for central government to have intervention powers into local plans.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’m still on clause 4, and, noting that the Minister has spoken at some length about the importance of renewable energy and planning for infrastructure and getting rid of planning red tape so we can do better with our housing, I of course want to note that that is why Labour did its legislation to repeal the Resource Management Act and do the Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act, and work on an infrastructure chapter as part of that. So when the Minister says nothing has happened, it was happening. But that is also why we’ve been supporting this bill in the first reading and second reading. It is because we do agree with that general direction.

Also noting the importance of ports, I agree with the Minister on that point. I’m also thankful that he noted that dredging has significant environmental effects that are difficult to manage, unlike an existing piece of infrastructure that’s already there.

But my question now is on the new definition of “specified energy activity” in the amendment to section 2(1) in clause 4. It’s defined as meaning “(a) the establishment, operation, maintenance, or upgrade of an activity that produces energy from solar, wind, geothermal, hydro, or biomass sources:”. It’s just a very specific question on this—and it doesn’t include any form of gas, unless it’s one from biomass. But my question is: does it include waste to energy? Is he expecting that waste to energy would be included in paragraph (a) or not?

Just a quick contribution in regards to, again, clause 6, “Section 25A amended”. I understand all the answers that the Minister responsible for RMA Reform gave in relation to national direction and pulling local authorities into line, and I just kind of wanted to make my question a bit more clear. In the first reading of this bill, the national policy statement (NPS) references in the bill only referred to the urban development NPS. What has happened since then is that that has been amended to include all the national policy directions, including freshwater management, indigenous biodiversity, etc. My question is: why are we expanding into those areas as well?

So, yeah, I take your arguments and your statements on housing—that makes complete sense. But why, then, are we expanding into the other areas, and what support does that give you in achieving the Government’s national objectives around resource management?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just in relation to Rachel Brooking’s point, I’m advised that waste to energy is included as a specified energy activity only if it’s biomass to waste, if that makes sense—so “maybe” is the short answer.

In relation to Ms Paul’s point around why we’ve expanded it, well, it’s because the Government came to the view that if it was good enough for the National Policy Statement on Urban Development (NPSUD), it should be good enough for the other suite of national directions that there are—for example, the national policy statement on renewables, which may require councils to do particular things, or it may not. It will depend. There’s no point, probably, in going through the gamut of the NPSs that are out there, but I think it provides the power for Governments to have step-in powers in relation to all of the various NPSs that there are. Fresh water is one of them; National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity. There is a range of NPSs that the member will be aware of, not just the NPSUD.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I’ve got a quick question, just covering off going clause by clause through the bill, as reported back from the committee, but also the Minister’s Amendment Paper that he has tabled in the House. I just want to focus specifically on clause 5, which is the definition of rules that control fishing. I note that in the committee’s report back and the Amendment Paper, the new clause 2B that’s being inserted appears to be identical, so I did just want a point of clarification that, for those of us who are new to reading through this Amendment Paper that’s only just recently been tabled, there isn’t anything different between what is in the report back from the committee and what the Minister has tabled today—just if there are any differences, it would be helpful to know what those were. That’s just a practical consideration.

My question is specifically around the amendment to clause 5 to exclude aquaculture activities. The rationale given for that in the select committee report is that aquaculture is already clearly regulated under the Resource Management Act (RMA). I did just want to ask the Minister whether the regulations under the RMA in relation to aquaculture are comparable to those that will be inserted in this new rule around wild-capture fisheries, and just to get some assurance that there is comparability between the two parts of the fishery sector—aquaculture and wild-capture fisheries.

So just two short questions for the Minister: one specifically around policy, but earlier, just a practical consideration around the Minister also including the changes in the select committee report in his Amendment Paper and just for us to be able to note when we should be looking for any changes in the Minister’s Amendment Paper, when compared to what was in the report from the select committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I want to continue on my colleague’s topic of fisheries, particularly when it comes to clause 8 of the bill. This is page 11 around “Section 32 amended (Requirements for preparing and publishing evaluation reports)”. Now, as part of the select committee process, we had, as you can imagine, a lot of submissions around the fisheries aspects. I know that the officials’ view—and I’m sure the Government’s view—is that the bill actually clarifies the relationship between the Resource Management Act (RMA) and the Fisheries Act. But there were many differing views, particularly a lot of concern from environmental groups, from individuals and local communities. Iwi Māori in particular were, as a majority, opposed to this proposal in its full. One of the strongest concerns that we heard from local government was around this power that the director-general might have in that it would risk weakening local democracy. But my amendment, which I’ve got here, really proposes to delete clause 8 as a part of this package, because clause 8 relates to these new requirements that councils would have to conduct in terms of actually doing these fishing impact assessments if they’re actually proposing a new rule in a planning document that controls fishing in the coastal marine area.

Now, we see this as, essentially, a really pointless change. Councils already have this very clear responsibility to protect indigenous biodiversity. They are empowered, actually, as long as the Government doesn’t take away those powers, which they are in terms of ministerial overreach later in the bill. But with the status quo, they not only have this responsibility but they can put rules in place when it comes to sustainable management of these fisheries when it comes to marine biodiversity as per the purpose of the RMA.

This proposed amendment, which seeks to change the section 32 assessment, we think really strays into the purpose of the Fisheries Act and, actually, creates this imbalance and a really skewed focus on fishing rather than explicitly regional council’s responsibilities for indigenous biodiversity when it comes to the marine environment. I’d love to hear the Minister’s thoughts about the justification for this particular clause, because my reading of it—particularly, some submitters brought this up—is that it simply duplicates existing work and creates more complexity in an area where this bill purports to actually be simplifying things. I’d love to hear from the Minister how this change or proposed change to the section 32 reports and assessments that councils need to carry out if they’re putting a rule in place to actually protect indigenous biodiversity—what is the justification for this change and how is it that it is actually, genuinely clarifying things rather than making them more complex? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair. My query, really, is in relation to Amendment Paper 300, clause 11, “Section 37 amended”, and thinking about wood energy and wood processing. But one question first off the bat is: it mentions here that the bill proposes that wood processing and specified energy activities—I think I’ve heard that this relates to biomass, biomass burning. I’m not exactly sure if that’s the only thing that that refers to, so I’d appreciate confirmation that that is what “specified energy activities” refers to, if the Minister would like to respond to that. If that is the case, then I’m interested in why it says “specified energy activities” and not “biomass”? That would be a helpful start.

Further to the Minister’s insistence earlier that the reason why we are lagging in energy security and renewables—the Minister mentioned the oil and gas ban, and was quick to blame previous Governments, when this Government has failed to deliver a national policy statement for renewable electricity generation; it has failed to deliver a national energy strategy; it did throw out the Spatial Planning Act; it did throw out the Natural and Built Environment Act; and, clearly, this Government carries the blame for high electricity prices, and for the failure—the failure—to build the renewable electricity generation we need.

Coming back to this bill for wood processing, in particular, and those “specified energy activities” that we hope to get an answer on, this says that the consent authorities must not extend the time period when processing and deciding on an application for when resource consent can happen. The problem with this, or the risk here, is that it will allow consent authorities to—well, essentially, what we’re looking at are processes and activities that may have significant adverse effects on the environment. This is particularly true for wood processing. Wood processing can use chemicals, and that’s discharged into waterways, and we need very careful consideration of the impact on those waterways from such industrial processes. I’m sure the Minister from Southland has noticed the degraded state of the waterways. I’m sure the Minister is aware of what happens to polluted waterways, where we see die-off. So, as a consequence, we must have the time to evaluate the environmental impacts of any release into the environment from processes. What we’ve got here is, unfortunately, a shortening of that process.

My amendment is to ensure it says, “In clause 11, replace new section 37(1B)”—that’s on page 13, lines 26 to 28—“with: (1B) Except as provided for in subsection (1C), a consent authority must not extend, under subsection (1)(a), the time period for processing and deciding an application for a resource consent for a wood processing activity or specified energy activity (see section 88BA). (1C) A consent authority may extend the time period for processing and deciding an application for a resource consent for a wood processing activity or specified energy activity where the authority has reasonable grounds to believe the activity may have a significant adverse effect on the environment.”

To recap: I would like confirmation, firstly, about what “specified energy activities” means—very, very clearly, clarity on that, please. If it does mean “biomass”, as we’ve been told, why is it not specified as “biomass”? Secondly, why we can’t accept an extension, or perhaps we can, and whether the Minister will consider and accept an extension to the time period?

Thank you, Mr Chair. Just answering some of the questions in the order they’ve come in from the member Rachel Boyack. Just confirming that the rules that control fishing—your question was is there any difference in clause 5, new section 2B versions tabled today? No, there is no difference.

With regard to Lan Pham’s wanting to delete clause 8, no, we do not support that. The purpose of this clause is, as we have stated, to clarify and to support balanced section 32 assessments that cover both benefits and risks. This clause doesn’t enable councils to make fisheries management decisions. That is done under the Fisheries Act and therefore it doesn’t stray into the Fisheries Act purposes.

With regard to the member Scott Willis’ assertion that the high electricity prices are entirely the fault of this Government, I reject that comment, and particularly reject it given the work that we have done already around fast track and the numbers of renewable applications that are going through the fast-track process. In making that assertion, then the member is wanting to lengthen the process of consideration of energy supply in terms of the wood processing. So does he want it both ways is my concern.

Kia orana, Mr Chair. Look, this is my first contribution at this committee stage, and I want to have a look at clause 14A. This is in the Minister’s own Amendment Paper. It is a new clause that seeks to insert a new section after section 58J—that being 58JA.

Sir, this is a very significant change to this bill—a very significant change. Whilst I acknowledge that the Minister has previously noted that—and, actually, it was very interesting listening to his very early comment that these changes have been publicly announced. He talked about them being “kicked around”—however, the member may wish to choose that. But the sad reality for the Minister and the Government is that usually when those issues are being kicked around, such as this one, the public have an opportunity to be able to feed into that process and have an opportunity to share what their views on this change is. It’s very disappointing that this is the approach that the Minister has chosen to take, particularly at a time where a select committee has actually spent a lot of time looking at this. If the Minister was upfront and serious about this change and what it would mean for communities, why did the Minister not actually put this through the select committee process?

Noting that significant change, the essence of it is that this basically puts a permanent pause—well, actually it’s a stop—to particular courses of actions that councils may be undertaking in terms of plan changes that might be on the go. So my question to the Minister in the chair is: despite the fact that the Minister has chosen not to put this through the select committee process, what specific engagement has the Minister or indeed the Government had with local councils anywhere in the country around what this particular change would mean for them, whether it’s being promoted by a range of councils or not? I do hope the Minister in the chair does take this question on board, because we are talking about a fundamental change, Minister, to the way in which councils would go about the plan-change process. I use the word plan change in a very broad and wide sense.

I’ve got some other questions in that particular frame, but I’m happy to pause for a response.

Thank you, and I thank the member Tangi Utikere for his question around this. Look, a number of councils obviously are very concerned that they do not want to be making changes and undertaking consultation and spending money on changes that may well not be aligned with where the Government is going with the resource management (RM) process. This is just a very pragmatic step to ensure that councils do not waste time, money, and resources when everyone is very focused on councils and their rate increases, and ensuring that they don’t make changes that may mean they are not aligned with the work that the Government is continuing with in the RM space. So it’s very much just a pragmatic, practical solution. Of course, the member will note that there is an ability for exemptions and that there are a number of automatic exemptions, so important work that does align with Government policies can continue, but wanting to ensure that the councils are not moving in a direction that is not aligned with the Government.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and I thank the Minister in the chair, Penny Simmonds. She has mentioned rates increases, and of course her Government and Christopher Luxon promised to make things better when it came to rates increases, and they have simply done nothing but make it worse. On the issue of councils being concerned—well, the Government being concerned as well—that they shouldn’t be making changes, I think the Minister said, around consultation, my question to the Minister is—basically, that is removing that element of choice from councils, who will be attuned to the current Resource Management Act framework, whatever that might look like, and in terms of signalling what the Government’s intentions might be, but they can hit pause if they choose to. So my follow-up question to the Minister around that is why she believes a fairly heavy-handed approach to this is what is required.

I’m pleased that the Minister has talked about exemptions, because I do want to come to that, but before I do, I want to look at the new inserted section as proposed by the Minister’s Amendment Paper, which is 58JA, in particular subparagraph (a), inserted by new clause 14A. This is about the certain obligations or the specific requirements that, basically, councils would be forced to cease or stop until 31 December 2027. Because this has only landed specifically on the committee’s Table today, which is rather unfortunate, I’ve had to go and have a look around what those specific obligations are that are outlined in the Minister’s Amendment Paper.

It does relate to those that are described specifically and only in section 58I(2), which by my read is the requirement for a local authority to actually amend a document as a result of a particular decision that’s been taken, then subsection (4), which is around the use of a process and, I guess, the notification process that would follow as a result of that. Then we have the penultimate, which is subsection (7), which relates to a notification period of around one year, and then the final one, which is (8), and that’s any other actions that are, basically, directed by a national planning standard.

When one looks at what else is contained in 58I as a section—the reason I’m asking this, Minister, is because the Minister’s amendment is very specific in that it only relates to four subsections within this, but why is it that some of the other obligations that exist within 58I have not been incorporated or included into this? Is it that, actually, they are superficial in that sense and they don’t actually have any kind of justified sort of reason to include them?

I do look at, for example, 58I(9), which talks about obligations under any other Acts as they relate to statements or plans. So why is that not being removed? Is it because they’re actually tangential to each other or they can’t stand in isolation? I’d be interested in that particular response.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7.30.

Sitting suspended from 5.56 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Good evening, members. When we rose for the dinner break, we were considering Part 1 of the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. Tamatha Paul.

Close, Madam Chair.

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): Oh, sorry. Lan Pham.

LAN PHAM: Thank you. You honour me. Thank you.

I would like to pick up on clause 8, “Section 32 amended (Requirements for preparing and publishing evaluation reports)”. We heard from the Minister, different to this Minister—but connected, I’m sure—that these changes were very well considered to put a clear line between the difference between council responsibilities to protect marine biodiversity and indigenous biodiversity under the Resource Management Act and those under the Fisheries Act.

Now, what I’d really like some clarity on from the Minister is that there’s a number of requirements that the councils must actually do as part of this assessment. There’s a new subsection in here—and this is, sorry, on page 12—subsection (2B), in clause 8, and this is the subsection which talks about the requirement for these assessments to examine the matters above in (2A)(a) and (b), and it says that it “applies to the extent that information relating to those matters is reasonably available.”

My concern with this is that the assessment criteria that it’s setting out is quite detailed. There are some basic things around “(i) the location of rules within the region;”—so where do they actually apply—“(ii) the extent to which the rules will exclude fishing; and (iii) the extent to which fishing could be carried out in other areas; … (iv) the extent to which the rules will increase the cost of fishing;”, and any other impacts or controls on fishing in the region, and then the overall impact that those proposed controls would have on fishing.

Now, having had a bit to do with councils and local government generally, it’s not typical that councils actually hold much of this information at all. So what I’m really interested in hearing from the Minister is: what does this actually look like in practice? What if councils don’t have that information? Are they working really clearly with, for example, the Ministry for Primary Industries, with fisheries officers, and with someone or some agency who may actually hold that data and information? If they don’t have it, are they basically forced to be making these decisions in an absence of evidence and, actually, documented impact when this proposed amendment is directly saying that they need to go to that detail to be able to assess the actual impact on communities and the economic impact of fishers in the region? I’m really keen to hear from the Minister specifically about those criteria and how councils would put it in place in practice, because it’s really unclear to me. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just a very quick call from me, related to that last call. It would be useful for the Minister to comment on the Mōtītī decision and that relationship, generally, between the Fisheries Act and the Resource Management Act, where those boundaries are, and why he thinks this is landing in the right spot. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m on page 13, and clause 12, “Section 38 amended (Authorisation and responsibilities of enforcement officers)”. The effect of that clause is to allow the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to be responsible for enforcement under the Resource Management Act (RMA). The original wording was “of the new Ministry”, meaning the Ministry for the Environment (MFE). My question for the Minister is, firstly: why only the Ministry for Primary Industries? My colleague Lan Pham has an amendment which amends clause 12 so that it provides for the Ministry for the Environment MFE to also be authorised as an enforcement officer. Given that it’s the Resource Management Act, and normally it is enforced by the Ministry for the Environment, I wonder whether it wouldn’t be preferable to have the capability of both the MPI and MFE officials to be authorised to enforce under the RMA. It seems to make sense, and I wonder if the Minister could respond to that.

I’ve got a second question regarding the same clause. In subclause (2), it repeals section 38(3) and (4). This clause allows the Minister of Conservation to authorise officers of the Department of Conservation or of local authorities to exercise and carry out the functions and powers of an enforcement officer under this Act in relation to compliance. Now, we have, also from the very excellent and capable Lan Pham, another amendment which would give the Minister of Conservation the ability to authorise officers of the Department of Conservation or of a local authority to carry out the functions of an enforcement officer—that’s Amendment Paper 302, and the preceding one I spoke of was Amendment Paper 301. So, also, again, Minister, I wonder if you can respond to whether you don’t agree that it would be advantageous for the Minister to have the power to give those enforcement rights to officers of the Department of Conservation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to raise some of the issues around clause 15—so the Minister’s Amendment Paper that replaces clause 15, “Section 70 amended (Rules about discharges)”. This was something that the select committee, of course, considered. The Labour Party had a differing view as a result of the consideration of the select committee when it came to this bit. That was because the bill as introduced would amend section 70 to allow regional councils to have permitted activity rules for a discharge that could ultimately result in—it says here—“significant adverse effects to aquatic life”, but, basically, what it does is make polluted rivers worse. Our position was very clear at the time that we did not think that that should be the case, that should be allowed; that, basically, even the status quo would not be good enough, and that we had a duty to improve fresh water.

So we opposed that particular bit of the bill, and now I see that the amendment to the amendment—and I have to also at this point just echo some of the points made by Rachel Brooking right at the start of this around the process here. I mean, the fact that we have an explanatory note that says, “This Amendment Paper amends Amendment Paper No 347, which amends the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill [which] amends the Resource Management Act” is, in itself, quite the mouthful, and the fact that this has come to us so late and is significant—so not only did we disagree with the initial position that the bill took but this amendment makes it even worse.

I don’t understand the rationale here, and I would really appreciate the Minister clarifying his position on, firstly, I guess, the initial bit that the select committee considered, which was bad enough, because we do believe that our polluted rivers should be improved to the point that they are swimmable. This takes us even further backwards, and here it says—and I initially wasn’t sure if I was actually reading this correctly. But it says, “This Amendment Paper replaces new section 70(3) with a new provision. The main difference is that the replacement provision also enables the inclusion of a rule that allows as a permitted activity a discharge of contaminants that may allow the following effects in the receiving waters: any conspicuous change in the colour or visual clarity; the rendering of fresh water unsuitable for consumption by farm animals.”, and, somehow, this amendment is allowing that to be permitted activity.

I would really like the Minister to clarify—

Mark Cameron: And live in the real world.

Hon Priyanca Radhakrishnan: —what the rationale or what the thinking—

Hon Rachel Brooking: Oh, in the real world, apparently.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: In the real world, it’s OK for Governments not to take action to make rivers swimmable but to take us backwards to the point that the water can’t even be drunk by farm animals. That’s not the real world that I want to be living in. It’s not the real world that a number of environmental NGOs or people across Aotearoa New Zealand want to be living in.

If this Government thinks that they can take us so—I don’t even know how to phrase it. It is so backwards that we go well against the trajectory of travel that so many of us want to be taking—

Mark Cameron: Improving over time.

Hon PRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN: —in this House, then that, I have to say, is a very sad day for that member across the House, who is yelling that some of them live in the real world.

So that’s really the point that I wanted to make. I want some clarity around how this is feasible.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A variety of issues raised by members. Lan Pham asked about clause 8 in the bill. I think the key point is that the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) already works with councils in relation to the Fisheries Act. Issues that are being canvassed in relation to Rachel Brooking’s question around the overlap between the Resource Management Act and the Fisheries Act, that is partly what this bill is attempting to deal with, particularly the Mōtītī decision. It constrains and clarifies the effect of that decision—it doesn’t abolish it; it just clarifies exactly what the role of councils are in relation to the Fisheries Act. Steve Abel asked about why the Ministry for the Environment is not involved, and the reason for that is that MPI is the relevant administrating authority for the Fisheries Act.

Priyanca Radhakrishnan asked about section 70 discharge rules, in clause 15. The short point is this: Waikato Regional Council advised us a few days ago that if the Government did not propose their changes in the Amendment Paper to the Amendment Paper—and she seems to think there was something particularly exciting about an Amendment Paper to an Amendment Paper; welcome to Parliament—Waikato Regional Council would be in the position of having to consent over 2,500 farms that currently do not need a consent. They would then have to go through a process of consenting farms for doing things that are currently permitted activities. The Government is not going to put itself in a position where 2,500 farms require resource consent for something that they do not require resource consent for right now. That is the short point. We are not prepared to do that.

Members opposite are entitled to do that, and they can campaign at the next election on that. We are not prepared to do that. We’re a party, and a Government, of rural New Zealand, and we will always support our farmers.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to pick up the same on clause 15, and thank you to the Minister for that explanation about—was it Waikato Regional Council, did you say? I’m really interested to see or get more information about that. I’m sure they have, you know, said that that’s very urgent.

During the select committee process, we had a number of submissions—particularly from the likes of Federated Farmers; we had Beef + Lamb saying the same thing; we had DairyNZ saying the same thing—about not only wanting significant adverse pollution going into our waterways to be enabled as a permitted activity, but they wanted it to go further when it came to basically pollution to the extent that the water is discoloured and also to the effect that stock water would no longer be fit for stock to drink. Now, that was a really low point personally for me in hearing these submissions, particularly when a lot of these agricultural lobby groups are actually some of farmers’ only voices, and yet they’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to actually asking for freshwater protection removals of this magnitude.

But we did consider that, and we had advice on that from officials. I want to point it out, because I was genuinely surprised to see this Amendment Paper today. Officials talked about how they simply do not—and this is quoting from the departmental report, page 54, when it summarised how those groups were wanting further changes to section 70. It’s addressing that the proposal should be expanded beyond adverse effects on aquatic life. Essentially, it’s saying, and this is a quote, from point 313, “We do not have the evidence to determine the level of consent burden from those section 70 matters beyond aquatic life. There may be an issue with the wider section 70 matters, but without evidence we do not recommend this change at this time. If there is a substantive issue, we recommend this be considered in the wider RMA reform programme.”

What I’m really interested to hear from the Minister is why, given that advice, even if there is an issue for which there was no current evidence, was it not simply put into the mix of the consideration of the whole package in the next resource management bill that’s coming? It’s just being put in place in this shotgun way where no one’s had an ability to actually have their say on it, and it’s actually dismantling some very longstanding, significant freshwater protections that have been in place since the Resource Management Act’s inception. So I’m very keen to hear that.

Happy to address that. The short point is that it was true, during the select committee process, that there was a paucity of evidence around this. That was probably true during the process. In the last couple of weeks, it has become clear, through correspondence from the Waikato Regional Council but also other councils that have raised similar concerns, that if a change was not made, over 2,500 farms would require consent that do not currently require a consent. The Government is not willing to put itself in a situation where our hard-working farmers, who have worked hard enough over the last few years, particularly in the Waikato, are required to go and get a consent for things that they currently do not need a consent for. We just are not prepared to put ourselves in that situation. That was the clear advice and evidence from the Waikato Regional Council, who, by the way, are the relevant authority when it comes to these matters. So that is the evidence.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just on this point that the Minister has raised about having a request from Waikato Regional Council where he tells us that he’s following their advice on this change, has he looked at, or asked them about, whether or not the environment and the quality of that water has been changing and if the use, say, from the aquifers in that area has changed, and if there is in fact a reason for the water body to now be in a degraded state whereby without his amendment a resource consent would be required?

Further to that, is there ever a situation in his mind, with his rationale, where people should be required to apply for a resource consent where they are using a common resource and polluting it? Where is that threshold in his mind, and what advice has he sought on the environmental status of those waterways?

Moving on, and I’m jumping ahead quite a bit here. Other people might have things to say as well. But also in this area of Part 1, we have been talking about fisheries. We have rules at clause 26, “New section 86H, “Rules that control fishing do not apply to Māori customary non-commercial fishing rights in specified legislation”. I won’t read out what this new section is about, but my question here—I thank the Minister for half answering my question about Mōtītī—is: what is the relationship of councils being involved and protecting their marine environment and that localism aspect of it?

He’s mentioned before that he’s listening to what regional councils can and cannot do, so where does he see the role for a regional council who knows their coastal environment making fishing rules as opposed to the Ministry for Primary Industries making fishing rules? If he could comment on that localism aspect, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Aroha mai, Minister, I just wanted to take us back further, to talk further around clause 15, which amends section 70. We’re talking about fresh water and, in particular, the amendment proposed by my colleague Lan Pham, which is set out on Amendment Paper 304. I’m drawing the attention of the Minister—we’re talking about Waikato and wanting to remind the Whare about Te Ture Whaimana. Te Ture Whaimana o Te Awa o Waikato is that agreement between the Crown and Waikato iwi in terms of the protection and the restoration of Waikato Awa, which is really clear in terms of that restoration and protection of river health and the wellbeing of Waikato Awa, but further, that Waikato River should not be degraded any further or be expected to absorb any further degradation as a result of human activities, and that the water quality of the Waikato River is at the forefront of our thinking in terms of swimmability and the ability for whānau to take food across the entire length of Waikato River.

I’m just wanting to understand from the Minister, if he could explain, how clause 15, which amends section 70—and thinking about Te Ture Whaimana, in particular—has that restoration and protection focus in the legislation and how this applies.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have not been on the Environment Committee, but I’ve just come down into the Chamber and picked up the Amendment Paper that, I understand, the Minister has tabled today. I’m reading through this and I actually can’t believe what I’m reading, and the so-called representatives of farmers, over the other side there, saying they’re upholding the rights of farmers.

I just want to read this out, because I want the farmers around the country to know what is being changed here, and the Minister can perhaps explain why, because the vast majority of farmers over many—over decades, in fact, have been working really hard with effluent management systems from their farming operations to virtually eliminate contamination of waterways, and most of them have done an extraordinary job.

Amendment Paper 348, as tabled, states in its explanatory note “This Amendment Paper replaces new section 70(3) with a new provision. The main difference is that the replacement provision also enables the inclusion of a rule that allows as a permitted activity a discharge of contaminants that may allow the following effects in the receiving waters:”. It will allow for “any conspicuous change in the colour or visual clarity:”. So it’s going to discolour the water. The second is: “the rendering of fresh water unsuitable for consumption by farm animals.”

Ryan Hamilton: Your colleague just read that out—the same thing; asked and answered.

Hon DAMIEN O’CONNOR: Well, that’s right, and I’m doing this as a farmer because I think most farmers around the country would be horrified to think that legislation is being changed to allow, I would suggest, a small minority of farmers to do this, when, in fact, they have been proud of actually spending millions and millions of dollars to not allow this to happen.

So maybe the Minister can explain. I’m just astounded that this late amendment would be tabled to allow that to happen.

Just for clarity: the change does not allow councils to use permitted activities that would render fresh water unsuitable for stock drinking water or a change in visual colour or clarity if these effects are not already present. Councils cannot permit activities that would render water unfit for stock drinking if the water is currently drinkable, for example. What the changes allow is that where water is currently unfit for consumption by farm animals, councils can use permitted activity rules instead of requiring resource consents. They can only do so if they are confident that in no more than 10 years there will be an improvement in the water towards the water being fit for consumption by farm animals. The improvement-over-time approach allows farming and land use to continue, rather than forcing agricultural activity to stop. Our view is that this is a more sustainable approach for the rural economy and the environment.

Can I just, before I take the next call, note that we’re looking for new material. I think this one has been explained quite in depth.

Hon Damien O’Connor: Just in response to the Minister, because I appreciate the discussion—

CHAIRPERSON (Maureen Pugh): I’ll call the Hon Damien O’Connor.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Look, I appreciate the Minister’s explanation. That is, so a consent would merely put in place—I’m guessing—some provisions that ensure that if that is the status quo, actually, it will get better. Now, just an assumption that within 10 years it’s going to happen is not. If there was a consent required, which is my understanding, that would be a normal process, given that this situation should be illegal and in most places it is. If it is the status quo, then the requirement to get a consent would then clearly specify what has to be done by the farmer to improve that situation.

Just letting it drift for 10 years—it possibly might see nine years of inactivity, or no further action or improvement, and then a rush at the finish. That’s simply not the way that we should approach the environment, and it’s not the brand image that we sell offshore. I think anyone looking to sell quality, high-value products from New Zealand to the rest of the world would be quite horrified at what is happening here. It’s not saying that it should shut down. It’s simply saying a consent should be required, and the consent may specify actions that should be taken—not to shut it down but to ensure that that contamination reduces fairly quickly, because most farmers around the country have had to do this already.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

If we’re going to keep repeating ourselves, then I will take a closure motion.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a very specific question on the same clause, but it is a specifically different question, because how does this amendment apply to water bodies that are drinking-water sources? We know that the obligation of our water management systems is to protect sources of drinking water—which are rivers, lakes, and aquifers—from pollution and contamination. It’s a very pertinent question, obviously, because people are right now threatened in terms of their drinking-water supplies from contaminated drinking water—the obvious one, increasing significantly, being nitrate across those areas of high dairy intensity.

So my question, Minister, is how does this amendment at clause 15 apply to water bodies that are known drinking-water sources—source water?

I’m advised, in relation to that question from Mr Abel, that human drinking water is protected by the drinking-water standards for New Zealand regulations under the Water Services Act, which will remain in force and, in fact, will be improved thorough the Local Water Done Well programme.

Steve Abel: So it won’t apply to them?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: No, it won’t apply. It’s separate.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I’m going to jump ahead quite a bit, but I note that my colleagues in the Greens have got a number of amendments in between. But if we go to clause 23A, we see new subpart 5B—and I’m looking here at the Minister’s Amendment Paper 347. This inserts new subpart 5B, which is “Planning processes stopped until 31 December 2027”. This is, well, I might call it Draconian, but it’s a major step, and I know the Minister will say that this is to do with the fact that he repealed the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act and intends to bring some new resource management laws into Parliament at some stage—I’m looking at page 18 of Amendment Paper 347—so that is why we have to wait until 31 December 2027.

But this has got very real effects for a lot of councils, so I think it’s important that we spend some time on it. I know I won’t be the only person who wants to spend some time asking questions around this new subpart 5B, noting, of course, that we only received this major amendment this morning, so this has not been through select committee.

What it seems to be about is that this Act, when it’s an Act, will stop councils from doing any new or progressing with any plan changes. It specifies when things have to be withdrawn and how that happens. However, there are some discretions that the Minister has in deciding whether or not there should be an exemption. I think this is an important point to note. There are automatic exemptions, and there’s also an ability for councils to apply for an exemption. Then, if they do apply for an exemption, there are criteria for the Minister’s consideration. That’s on pages 20, 21, and 22.

A couple of questions here. One is back on page 19 of the bill, where clause 23A inserts new section 80Q, “When proposed planning instruments must be withdrawn”. This is the wording—and I’d like the Minister to comment on this, please, because it is quite confusing. It says, “(1) A local authority must withdraw a proposed planning instrument as soon as possible after this subpart commences, but not later than 90 working days after the commencement of this subpart, unless—” and then there are a number of exemptions. So if the Minister could clarify what he thinks that clause means, that would be useful.

Also, what I’m more interested in is what analysis has been undertaken of the number of councils and the number of plans that this clause will apply to. Does the Minister know how many plans will be affected? Has there been an analysis of the amount of work that councils have undertaken to get the plans to that stage? What is the nuisance that he’s trying to remedy by stopping the plans until the end of December 2027? The Minister has already said, “Well, there’s always different balances to be had in planning legislation and the relationship between the local and the national.” But has there been some analysis that has determined that all these plans that are going to be stopped or potential plans that are going to be stopped will somehow be inconsistent with his future legislation, yet consistent with this legislation? What are the types of differences, then, that have led to that analysis?

The member makes not an unreasonable point. In answer to her questions—how many and what analysis has been done—officials have undertaken some analysis. We don’t have perfect visibility, as the member will remember from her own time as Minister for the Environment, or Associate Minister. We don’t have perfect visibility in central government land about everything that happens in local government land. We have some visibility over it. There are some plan changes that are yet to start that won’t be able to. There are some at a starting point or that at least have progressed to some extent, but we don’t have perfect visibility over it.

I think it would be a mistake to get worked up about that, to be honest, because at a certain level, with Parliament about to replace the Resource Management Act, at some point you have to say, “Well, the old stops and the new starts”, and, you know, reasonable people can debate where and when that is. But there has to be a turning off at some point and a turning on at a new point.

Hon Rachel Brooking: But people see the legislation and pass it. It’s a mystery at the moment.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, yeah, that’s true, except this is a vehicle in order to do that now, to provide legal clarity. Actually, I’ve been getting messages and a bit of a call from councils for legal clarity, and so we’re trying to provide that.

I think it’s all sort of all relatively laid out through sections 80P, 80Q, 80QA, 80R, 80S, 80T, etc., inserted by clause 23A. The general rule is planning instruments have to stop unless there’s an exemption, which can be automatic or there’s an exemption through me as the Minister. We’ve worked pretty hard to get that right. So, for example, if there’s planning processes required to give effect to Treaty of Waitangi settlements, that’s all good. There’s a variety of other applications for exemption through section 80U where, you know, the applicant has to provide sufficient information, provide a copy of what the plan is. They have to identify the parts of the instrument for which the exemption is applied for. I can request further information. There’s a criteria that the Minister has to consider.

I think it’s all pretty clear and laid out. Now, look, reasonable people can disagree about whether or not the balance is right, but the Government’s view is that, frankly, we don’t want councils undertaking long and expensive plan changes over the next two years in advance of the new resource management system coming on stream, because those plan changes will have to change. I mean, to give a sort of obvious notable example, we’ve signalled pretty clearly that the new planning system will require the use of standardised zones. Now, actually, there’s quite a lot of support in the Parliament for greater standardisation at a planning and a zoning level. I think both Labour and the Greens have indicated some support for that concept of the new planning system. Well, we’ve currently got 1,175 different bespoke zones in the country. You know, Christchurch has got 240-something different zones.

Dr Vanessa Weenink: 325.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: How many?

Dr Vanessa Weenink: It’s in the 300s.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Oh, it’s in the 300s—OK. Well, you’d know more than I would, as the member for Banks Peninsula.

But anyway, the short point is not about Christchurch. The point is we’ve got too many different zones for a country of our size. It’s way too complicated. The new planning system is going to result in fewer zones and it’s going to be easier for councils to use them. But the last thing we want is councils creating even more of a complicated planning environment between now and the new system, so we’re just going to say no.

Now, there’ll be some things that have to continue. There’s some things which it makes sense to continue, and the law provides a pathway through for that. But the general starting point is “No, you’ve got to stop; get ready for the new system. Stop focusing on the old system.” Now, you know, reasonable people could disagree about at what point that should be, but I think we’ve worked pretty hard to try and get the balance about right.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I thank the Minister for his responses there. This section that relates to clause 23A is of interest to me, as Labour’s local government spokesperson. The Minister does talk about sections 80T and 80U and the like, but I want to ask a question about section 80V, inserted by clause 23A, and that’s about the criteria that the Minister would, basically, have to consider for determining whether an exemption should be granted or not, and that’s a particular section that hasn’t been touched on yet.

Before I do that, I’m still a little bit perplexed as to how the Minister arrived at the automatic nature of exemptions—what is the driving force around that? Is it around economic growth and no further consideration as to anything else? Perhaps that’s something that might slightly exercise his mind.

However, on section 80V, this is where the Minister would be required to turn their mind to whether or not an exemption would be granted under section 80U, which—OK—outlines the process that a local authority would need to go through to, effectively, lodge one. My question, Minister, is that the nature of the criteria there does seem to be somewhat broad—I mean the final one, section 80V(2)(h), is effectively a catch-all. Basically, it’s anything that the Minister considers appropriate.

The other that I want to touch on is section 80V(2)(d), which relates to an exemption that would, effectively, better enable climate change to be managed. Now, what would that look like in terms of a qualitative approach to that, because there’s nothing here that actually guides the Minister’s approach around this? Yes, it’s set criteria, but the wording is very, very vague for something that’s being landed late in the piece.

The other one is, for example, in paragraph (g), where this relates to a recommendation from the Environment Court and whether a response to a recommendation would be enabled. Well, a response could be anything from something minor to something a little bit more fulsome.

My question to the Minister, really, is: what is going to guide the exercise of the consideration of those criteria, or is it simply that it’s actually fully in the ambit of the Minister to determine what they’d consider as appropriate for each of those? There’s no sort of suggestion that there’d be any underlying—not that there could possibly be; well, I don’t think there could be some secondary legislation around that. This is a primary legislation aspect, but what would, effectively, be driving the Minister’s consideration in a range of those various options?

Madam Chair, thank you. Good questions. In relation to the automatic exemptions, we thought pretty carefully about the automatic ones, and subsection (2) in section 80T lays them out, and I think this is difficult for people who disagree with them, to be honest. The streamlined planning processes are largely an effect of the housing plan changes. The other ones relate to natural hazards—planning instruments, for example, which I think everyone’s in favour that we do a better job on. Section 80T(2)(h) relates to Treaty of Waitangi settlements. So I think those all make pretty straightforward sense.

In relation to section 80V, the member’s points, he asks what will guide the Minister in terms of decisions. Well, the law will be the primary, and, in fact, the only starting point, because we’re a Government that believes in the rule of law. So, ultimately, the Minister will have to be guided by the law that’s laid out in section 80V.

He asks about climate change to be managed. Well, one example of that is plan changes that give effect to areas that have been identified as flood risk, for example, as a result of climate change, where you may wish to put in place prohibitions against building. I’m just thinking out loud, but that’s an example of where you would want a plan change to potentially go ahead, not at all fettering my discretion if I am indeed the Minister who ends up applying that section.

You’re right, paragraph (h) in section 80V(2) is a catch-all, which is that there will always be a range of circumstances that the law can’t envisage, so paragraph (h) is there as a bit of a catch-all just in case it’s required. It’s a relatively exhaustive list at 80V(2)(a) through (g). Again, I think reasonable people can disagree, but I think we’ve got the balance about right. But, yeah, fair question.

Thank you, Madam Chair. There are some more questions on this subpart from me. When a local authority or council might apply for an exemption—they can do that—I’m wondering whether he is expecting it to be just in a letter form. What is the expectation there? I note that they must provide with its application—rather than applying in writing; application sounds more formal—a copy of the proposed planning document. My question here is: what if a council is considering doing a plan change that they haven’t yet drafted up—and they won’t draft up if the Minister’s going to say no; they’ll wait till 31 December 2027, over a year after whenever our next election is. So how much work do they put into it?

I was talking with some people from Otago, unsurprisingly, the other day, and the air plan is, I’m told, very out of date. At the moment, it’s a permitted activity to burn the plastic wrap that hay bales come in. That is something that probably should not be a permitted activity. There are other aspects of that air plan that are quite out of date. Can they write to the Minister and say, “Our air plan is quite out of date, and we’d like to change it to address these issues, A, B, and C.”. or do they have to actually draft the entire instrument before they can apply to the Minister? The consequence of this could be that a lot of matters that need small changes could be delayed unnecessarily for some time. That’s one question.

Then going over to proposed new section 80V, set out on the Minister’s Amendment Paper 347, and the criteria that the Minister’s just discussed—I note that he said that paragraph (h) was a catch-all. Does he think, then, that (h) will be able to be applied to housing and infrastructure? Some of the lawyers that I’ve been talking today are worried that this criteria will slow down housing and infrastructure plan changes, because they’re not included there. Then a further question to that is: has he considered the impacts on improving human health that could relate back to my air plan issue or, in fact, benefiting the environment in any way? I appreciate the climate change issues being included in that criteria, but was there consideration of those other issues?

Then going back to this catch-all in (h), how does it relate to Part 2 of the Act? Does the Minister assume that if he’s considering for any other reason that it will have to be consistent with the purpose of the Act in sustainable management, or does he think it doesn’t have to be? Would it be useful to refer specifically to Part 2 in that catch-all, and is that something that he has considered or would consider, or would like me to write an amendment on?

Well, in relation to the member’s questions—there’s quite a range there. Councils can apply via letter if they would like, or there will be a variety of ways. The normal way of correspondence in this country is still letters—albeit PDFs—but letters work; that’s all good.

The member asks, essentially, a series of hypotheticals about what councils may or may not be doing at a time. I’m not going to entertain hypotheticals. If the amendment meets with the approval of the committee, then people will be able to follow the law and take legal advice as well. Given I may end up being a decision maker on that, I don’t necessarily want to get in the way of hypotheticals relating to it.

The member asked about housing and infrastructure. There are actually automatic exemptions for some of the housing stuff already. For example, intensified streamline planning processes, which are essentially housing processes, are automatically exempt, and likewise draft planning instruments that implement the requirements of a national policy statement—for example, the National Policy Statement for Urban Development, etc. There are potentially also catch-alls, but the catch-all that the member talks about, which is paragraph (h), could potentially cover that off. It’s not the intention to stymie housing and infrastructure plan changes that are sensible between now and the new system starting.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to come to some parts of the bill that have not been discussed, I believe, tonight, and I will probably have some follow-up questions for the Minister responsible for RMA Reform on what I believe might be one of his favourite topics, and that is the Gordon Wilson apartments. So let’s dig in, team.

I just want to start by looking at clause 20, which amends section 80C of the Resource Management Act (RMA), and I’m just looking at the Minister’s Amendment Paper 347 and looking on page—I’ll help with the page number, if helpful—23. My question is, because this is obviously the first time we’ve seen this particular part of the legislation, and just to put on record, I don’t think there’s anyone in this House that wants to see these apartments live another day, so, you know, I am appreciative—a “speak up now or forever hold your peace” kind of moment.

The question I’ve got is: why is it that we actually need a specific section in the Act rather than actually amending the RMA so that that can then be applied for this particular circumstance? The reason I ask that is there will probably be other examples around the country that would fit this description. Why is it that we need a separate provision specifically for the Gordon Wilson Flats rather than actually amending the legislation so that that can be applied for the Gordon Wilson Flats and other heritage-listed buildings that meet the same set of criteria?

I do have some more questions that will probably need to come under Part 2 because they’re around the schedule and amend other instruments related to Wellington City Council. I wouldn’t mind some clarification from the Chair that I can raise those under later parts rather than now, so some advice on that would be helpful.

But my first question to the Minister is: why do we need an entire new section put in here rather than actually amending the RMA to a point where we will be able to achieve that and then also apply it to other scenarios that are very, very similar, because they will happen again?

Just to clarify for the member, you’re very welcome to ask questions about Part 2 in Part 2.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I am on a clause that has not yet been discussed, and I want to use this as an example, because it’s a little clause on page 13. It is clause 13, “Section 43A amended (Contents of national environmental standards)”. It appears, at face value, to not have any significant implications, but if you actually read the Resource Management Act (RMA) and the implications for it, you can understand that it’s very significant, because this is a clause in the bill that makes a change to the national environmental standards in relation to aquaculture. The clause “may … state that an application by a consent holder to change or cancel [consent] conditions must be treated as … a controlled or restricted discretionary activity”, it sets out that the councils would need to “state the matters over which control is reserved or discretion is restricted.”

Now, our amendment is actually just to delete this clause. That’s because the implications of this clause are that these controlled activities can then not be declined, meaning that even if there was an application to change or cancel those consent conditions, they must be granted. This would be the case even if the condition was actually important to control these things that we and our communities all care about—things like adverse effects on the environment, and things like adverse effects on our communities, on people, or even other consent holders who have rights under their own existing consents.

We don’t believe that this clause will ensure that the effects of aquaculture are actually managed in an effective way, and we would like the consideration that it’s deleted. This is particularly in the context of this further dismantling of environmental protections that we’ve seen from this Government, particularly when it comes to this blanket extension that all marine consent holders were given out to 2050. This is another aspect of that where, again, any protections or standards that are in place are being weakened. I would really like to hear the Minister’s comments as to why he thinks changes of this magnitude are, again, justified in this way when he’s looking at the RMA system? This has not only significant impacts but could actually cause confusion and complexity in the interim towards this new bill. Why is it in here? We’re proposing that it’s deleted. I’d love to hear if the Minister would consider that.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

I have to say we are getting close, and we’re starting to go backwards in the bill. So, please, keep the material new in areas that we haven’t yet covered.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Noting that I’ve jumped ahead again, so people might want to jump back to areas that have not been touched at all, and noting there are a lot of Amendment Papers on this bill, as well.

I want to talk about new section 106A and the changes to that—and these are changes that were made at the select committee. That is in clause 37, but actually, before I get to clause 37, I just note in the Minister’s Amendment Paper, it goes from clause 33 to clause 36; there is no 34 or 35, and that is because those bits were deleted by the select committee. I’m wondering if that’s meaningful in any way in terms of the Minister’s amendment, and if the numbers need to change, but that is not my substantive point. My substantive point is about new section 106A. This is when a council—a territorial authority—can refuse land-use consent in certain circumstances. It’s a really important section in the Resource Management Act, because it’s about hazards and where there are hazards as a reason for saying no to somebody wanting to put something in a place that’s not suitable. The intent of the changes, as the bill was introduced—as I understood it—was to strengthen those natural hazard provisions, and that is something that I commend, and we need more of that.

However, after the discussion and submissions on this point, there’s been an addition at new section 106A, subsection (4), that this provision to stop people putting things in hazard areas doesn’t apply if it’s the “(a) construction, upgrade, maintenance, or operation of infrastructure; or (b) primary production activities, as described in the national planning standards.” I would like the Minister to explain why he thinks this exception is needed, particularly for infrastructure. I can understand if you have a couple of sheep in an area that might be a hazard-prone area, that might be an exemption—but then you wouldn’t be needing a land-use consent in the first place; land-use consents are needed for when you’re building stuff, generally. In that circumstance, you might not even need a land-use consent—although sometimes you might, so I might be answering on behalf of the Minister on primary production. If primary production includes things like sheds, why would we have sheds in hazard areas?

More importantly, I can see there’s some arguments for primary production. I can’t see the arguments for building new infrastructure. Maybe maintaining old infrastructure—but then, again, you probably wouldn’t need the trigger of a land-use consent. Why would you exempt the construction of infrastructure from this provision that is trying to stop us from building things in hazard zones? It does seem that this addition that was added at the select committee seems to go against the whole point of the other amendments, to section 106A—which, I think, were good amendments—to try and make it easier for councils to be able to say no to activities that are going to be in hazard areas where there’s a significant risk from natural hazards.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s nice to be able to take a call after the dinner break, when everyone’s feeling all cheery, having had a good meal and something to drink, as I’m sure members opposite have, with the Movember visit.

My question relates to clause 29, inserting new section 88BA. I particularly want to relate it to Amendment Paper 307. There are several questions—well, a couple of questions, actually. One of them is—and I’ve asked this question previously, without an answer. I think where it says, “specified energy activity”, it actually relates to the burning of biomass. To make it really clear, section 88BA says: “Certain consents must be processed and decided no later than 1 year after lodgement (1) The time period in which a consent authority must process and decide an application for a resource consent for a specified energy activity or wood processing activity (the time period) is 1 year after the date the application is lodged.” The first question is: could the Minister clarify exactly what is meant by “specified energy activity”? That’s the first question. The second question—

Ryan Hamilton: Read the glossary.

SCOTT WILLIS: I realise that there’s helpful input coming from other members, but the Minister might just like to clarify that shortly.

The other question I’ve got, really, is around this concern that we have that when we have wood processing activities, there may be issues with chemical residues or toxic discharge into waterways that will require greater consideration. We hear from this Government that evidence-based policy is really important—we don’t see it, but we hear it. In this case, it would be helpful if we understood that the Government wanted to take care before allowing activities that put our environment at further risk, further polluting our environment. In that case, we suggest that we need greater flexibility prior to consenting, prior to ensuring that there is a simple one-year cut-off date.

We believe that the time-period extensions should be granted if further information is required to support that decision making, particularly when it relates to the environmental effects such as chemical discharge, toxic discharge—that’s not always clear or obvious in the applications. If the Minister would like to consider the amendment that we’ve put forward, set out on Amendment Paper 307—which is: “After clause 29, new section 88BA(2) (page 22 after line 31), insert (2A) Despite subsection (1), a consent authority may extend the time period if it has requested further information from the applicant under section 92(1) or commissioned a report under section 92(2). (2B) An extension under subsection (2A) must not be for longer than is necessary for the information requested or commissioned to be available.”, and: “In clause 29, new section 88BA(5), after ‘If the time period is extended’ (page 23, line 25), insert ‘(other than an extension under subsection (2A))’.”—that would be helpful. Thank you.

I feel like it’s Back to the Future. We’ve dealt with this issue three hours ago, which is the definition of “specified energy infrastructure”. We’ve dealt with this. In answer to the member’s question about what the definition of it is, it’s in the bill. Read it. It’s in the bill. We’re not proposing to adopt the member’s amendment.

To deal with the other issues that have been raised just in the last few minutes, in relation to Rachel Boyack’s amendment around Gordon Wilson Flats, I acknowledge it’s an unusual use of Parliament’s power to delist and make permitted activity the demolition or something. It’s an extreme circumstance.

Grant McCallum: Overdue.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Overdue. That’s a good point. Some people feel quite strongly about this eyesore on the Wellington vista. It is an unusual use of Parliament’s time and energy, but I think it’s worth doing. It’s been widely welcomed by Wellingtonians. We’re not proposing to use the same process for other heritage-based or alleged heritage entities.

Rachel Boyack: Not the one out the back of Parliament?

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, it’s tempting, but no. But help is on the way, because the member also asked why we don’t just make it easier to delist things, and the good news is the bill does that. It sets up a streamlined planning process in order to delist heritage buildings. The bill does that, and I fully anticipate that there is a variety of heritage buildings that will potentially apply for that. In fact, the Wellington City Council, as I understand it, is already creating a list, including the gas tank—the alleged gas tank—that’s protected out in Island Bay. You never know—you may well see an application from the Parliamentary Service for the press gallery annex, which is also, allegedly, heritage listed. You never know—Mr Speaker may well write me a letter. Let’s wait and see.

In relation to Lan Pham’s question about the national environmental standards, I’m advised that the policy makes it easy to change or cancel conditions on marine farm consents, helping marine farmers innovate while consents are active. The bill enables the national environmental standards to contain rules that specify where an application for a change or cancellation of consent conditions for agricultural activities must be considered as a controlled or restricted discretionary activity. These provisions cannot be used to fundamentally alter or expand the original consent activity and cannot result in materially different adverse effects compared to the original activity. For example, the provisions could not be used to increase the number of salmon that could be farmed under a consent.

In relation to Rachel Brooking’s question about amended section 106, it’s a legitimate point about why there’s an exemption for land-use consents in relation to construction, upgrade, maintenance, and operation of infrastructure. It’s about the balance. Infrastructure is of critical importance as well, and there will be circumstances in which that is appropriate.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

We are getting very close, and I do note that the record that I have in front of me shows that there is now quite a bit of repetition appearing. So if we’re not going to get any new material, I will take a closure motion.

All new material, I can assure you. There’s quite a lot more in this Amendment Paper to go, let alone the bill as reported back from the Environment Committee.

My first question is, looking at Amendment Paper 347, about a change to clause 41, “Section 123 amended (Duration of consent)”. Now it includes different replacing and inserting, and now it includes a reference to section 125 of the Resource Management Act (RMA). I’m just wondering why it is that section 125 has been included in there, what the rationale is for that change between the Amendment Paper and the bill as reported back.

Now I’m going on to clause 44A, “New sections 127A to 127C inserted”, and this is all about that great region—the best place in the country of course is Otago. Members might recall that about a year or so ago, in the committee stage of a bill, without notice, the Government did an amendment and stopped the Otago Regional Council from notifying their land and water plan. Now I guess they don’t need to feel left out, because everyone else is going to be stopped as well until the end of December 2027, but now there’s all these specific provisions regarding the issuing of new water permits in Otago. My first question on this point is: if that Otago land and water plan that was going to be notified had been notified, would these changes in this legislation now have been needed?

A more specific question is that there are limits on how long the water permits can be for. There’s a six-year limit, but there is an exception for that, and that includes hydro power. I’m wondering if there also needs to be an exception for drinking water, or if the other provisions in the RMA are already sufficient for drinking water. Then, again, another question about the sort of advice that this Government may have sought or not sought on the implications of having the six-year limit on these water plans and what sort of water takes will be affected by it.

If he could also comment on new section 127C, “Extension of certain existing water permits under Regional Plan: Water for Otago”, and it has to do with an expiry date. It says, “5 years”, but then, if the permit was granted on or after 18 March 2020 and for a duration of no more than six years and the permit is valid on the commencement date, why do we have this new section 127C when we already have 127B? If the Minister could explain the relationship between those two provisions and what existing permits might be picked up by one and not the other, and is it just that some are existing and some are new, and, again, what the analysis has been of the water permits that might be in the pipeline, so to speak, to be new ones, with the six-year limit, and what is the extension of them.

If he could explain that and, also, my earlier point of, if he hadn’t stopped the notification of the land and water plan, would these provisions have been needed. What is the problem here that is trying to be fixed?

Thank you, Madam Chair, I very much appreciate the call. I’m going to zero in on a very specific thing, to be clear that this is not repetition. It is about clause 37. My colleague Rachel Brooking asked a question on this that has not been answered. The question specifically related to the definition of natural hazards in that clause. Just to clarify, it’s a clause that gives the right of councils to put conditions where there are significant risks from natural hazards, but it gives a carve-out which means that councils are not allowed to put conditions on activities defined as primary production activities in the national planning standards, and those are—because this is the question that my colleague asked. Primary production activities could include any aquaculture, mining, agriculture, pastural, quarrying of forestry, any processing or ancillary activities of those activities, and any land, buildings, or infrastructure used for the production of commodities from those activities.

So an explicit definition: my uncle, who is an orchardist and had a processing barn for dealing with his citrus fruit and his feijoas, might have wanted to put that in a flood plain. This carve-out would prohibit the council from refusing a consent for that. So ancillary buildings to do with the processing of primary production—that’s but one example. I just would love if the Minister could clarify why it would be beneficial, given that we know farmers are on the front line of the impacts of extreme weather events, and putting buildings in high-hazard areas seems senseless. If a council has an ability to dissuade a farmer from doing that through not giving consent, that surely is a better outcome.

There’s a specific amendment that relates to this, Madam Chair—I’ll be done before two minutes is up. It is Amendment Paper 317, and it would amend clause 37 by replacing subsection (4) of section 106A—that carve-out which gives a special exemption to primary production. It’s not that the councils can’t consent those activities; it’s just that they should have the option of not consenting them if they’re going to cause a natural hazard.

Thank you, Madam Chair. A number of new questions, and I’m going to go through both the Amendment Paper and the bill as reported back from the select committee.

The first questions relate to Amendment Paper 347 and new “Amendments to Part 7A of principal Act”. Clause 46A includes new Subpart 1AB, “Restrictions on section 128 reviews of conditions of extended coastal permits”, and I think this is related to the provisions directly above it as well, at clause 45, which inserts new section 128(4). It would be useful if the Minister could comment on how these changes, which relate to “Restrictions on section 128 reviews of conditions of extended coastal permits”, relate to the legislation that went through the House last year regarding marine farms and their 20-year extensions. If this is following that logic, or if it’s to be for different types of coastal activities, that would be useful to know—and how reviews are being undertaken, remembering, of course, that in that marine farm legislation, if a regional council chose to undertake a review, and they only had a two-year period to do it, the council had to pay for the review itself and not the applicant. Is this in any way similar to that, remembering, of course, that we’ve only seen this amendment today? That’s one of my questions.

Then, if we move back to the bill as it was reported back from the select committee, I had a question—that’s now moved. I’m interested that the Government members opposite keep jumping up and trying to close this debate when we’ve only seen this Amendment Paper today, and it’s 80 pages. They want to just close the debate rather than ask the Minister very reasonable questions about what this review is going to mean. I have, in fact, lost my place on the bill as reported back from the select committee, so I will go to the next issue on Amendment Paper 347. This is an amendment to clause 50.

I’m jumping around, noting that my colleagues, I’m sure, will have questions on the bits in between. Clause 50 amends section 168A, and that’s the “Notice of requirement by territorial authority”. Part of this bill is to make it simpler for designations to occur—to put it very simply. That is an issue that we’ve been supporting. However, the Amendment Paper is removing, at clause 50(1), new section 168A(3)(c): “if the requiring authority has an interest in the land sufficient for undertaking the work, and the work is likely to result in any significant adverse effect on the environment, any possible alternative locations or methods for undertaking the activity;”. That has been struck out, as has the further consideration at what was subclause 50(2).

The question is: why has that change been made to this designation process, where it’s the requirement—you know, requiring authorities. The need to look at alternative locations was only when there was going to be a significant adverse effect, not when there was just an adverse effect; you didn’t need to look at alternatives. Now, even if there is a significant adverse effect, the requiring authority no longer appears to need to look for any alternative locations.

This is something that often happens with road building, and I’m presuming that this could mean that there would be a relationship, then, with the taking of land for the designation. If you can explain where it is that those changes come from, and what it is that it’s supposed to do, and if it relates to the other legislation that is going through select committees at the moment about the Public Works Act.

I’ll deal with a few of these questions, which I think are relatively easily dealt with. The member Rachel Brooking asked about whether something would be required if something hadn’t happened. Well, I don’t know. The point is it did happen. It’s sort of difficult to answer that in a way that makes logical sense. Something did happen, so we are now dealing with what is before the House right now.

Hon Rachel Brooking: This is a regional council. The Otago water plan.

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Correct. The answer is I don’t know, because it did happen. It’s sort of irrelevant.

Hon Rachel Brooking: It’s totally relevant, because we’re taking—

Hon CHRIS BISHOP: Well, it’s sort of irrelevant what may or may not have happened, because it did happen. It’s an interesting thought experiment, but Parliament doesn’t usually indulge itself in those things.

Steve Abel asks about the exemption for primary production. The short point is that there’s a whole variety of stuff that happens in primary production which isn’t affected by natural hazards. It’s not a threat to life. It just goes on, and so I don’t think that we should be particularly concerned about that.

Rachel Brooking asks about the two different types of things in the proposed new section at 127B and 127C. The short answer there is that one is for new takes and one is for existing takes. She also asks around coastal permits, which is in section 128. Yes, it is a follow-on from the changes made last year, but it’s a relatively discrete set of changes, and I think it makes logical sense.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Amendment Paper 347 relating to Part 1, set out on Amendment Paper 348, be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s tabled amendments to Amendment Paper 347, amending clause 23B be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to Amendment Paper 347, deleting paragraph (ca) in the definition of “specified energy activity” in new section 2(1) be agreed to.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to Part 1, set out on Amendment Paper 347, as amended, be agreed to.

The question is that Scott Willis’ amendment set out on Amendment Paper 295 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 296 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 297 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Julie Anne Genter’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 298 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 299 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 300 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 301 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 302 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 303 be agreed to.

Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 304 is ruled out of order as being inconsistent with a previous decision of the committee.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 305 be agreed to.

The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 334 be agreed to.

The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 335 be agreed to.

The question is that Tamatha Paul’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 336 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 306 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 307 be agreed to. The Noes have it.

Amendments not agreed to.

Scott Willis: The Ayes have it—party vote.

Hon Chris Bishop: No, you can’t do that. You didn’t even say “Yea” or “Nay”.

Scott Willis: I did, but it was a bit quiet.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): No, I didn’t actually hear anyone vote before this side said “No”. I’m going to make a call on that one and say the Noes have it. [Interruption] And I’ll run the committee, Mr Minister. Thank you.

Point of order, Madam Chair. I mean, we can only go by what we hear, but I heard a “No”, and I heard two calls for a party vote. I’m sitting pretty much parallel to you.

I didn’t hear the vote. I heard the party vote called afterwards, but I did not hear. It was very silent over here in that initial stage. I can only go by what I hear, as well, Mr McAnulty, so I’m going to leave that call where it is, because the vote didn’t come forth from the beginning on that side. A party vote was called for, but the vote wasn’t originally cast.

The question is that Hūhana Lyndon’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 308 be agreed to. All those in favour say Aye.

Hon Members: Aye!

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): To the contrary, No.

Hon Members: No!

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): The Noes have it.

Scott Willis: The Ayes have it—party vote.

CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): A party vote has been called for, please, Clerk. Now, that was very clear. Thank you.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 309 be agreed to.

The question is that Scott Willis’ amendment set out on Amendment Paper 310 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 311 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 312 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 313 be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 314 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 315 be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 316 be agreed to.

The question is that the Hon Rachel Brooking’s tabled amendment to clause 37, deleting new section 106A(4) be agreed to.

The question is that Steve Abel’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 317 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 318 be agreed to.

The question is that Scott Willis’ amendment set out on Amendment Paper 319 be agreed to.

The question is that Hūhana Lyndon’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 320 be agreed to.

The question is that Scott Willis’ amendment to Part 1 set out on Amendment Paper 321 be agreed to.

The question is that Scott Willis’ amendment set out on Amendment Paper 322 be agreed to.

The question is that Hūhana Lyndon’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 323 be agreed to.

The question is that Hūhana Lyndon’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 324 be agreed to.

The question is that Steve Abel’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 325 be agreed to.

The question is that Steve Abel’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 326 be agreed to.

The question is that Steve Abel’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 327 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendments set out on Amendment Paper 328 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 329 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 330 be agreed to.

The question is that Lan Pham’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 331 be agreed to.

The question is that Francisco Hernandez’s amendment set out on Amendment Paper 332 be agreed to.