Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for this opportunity to talk about the select committee report back on this bill. I want to start by saying this bill touches on many different resource management issues, and we’ve heard a few of them covered by the Minister for Infrastructure. They are set out quite neatly in the legislative statement but also in the select committee report back and the dissenting views.

Why I start with that is because we are going to have the committee of the whole House stage, I presume, at some time in the sitting block or—

Hon Chris Bishop: No, August.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Next month, I’m being told. Thank you for that, Minister. So we’re expecting to come back here and do the committee stage of this. Labour has been supportive of the bill, but not all of the bill, and I’ll go through that in some detail. But we do have some very real questions for the Government Ministers in that committee stage, so I want to foreshadow that now. We’ve heard from the Minister just now that there’s going to be a number of Amendment Papers doing significant heavy lifting around Auckland, and also around Wellington, with the heritage.

I put it to the Minister that if we could see those Amendment Papers before we’re in the committee stage of the bill, that would be a useful thing to do.

Hon Chris Bishop: Yeah, that’s fine.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Thank you. The Minister is nodding—that would be a useful thing to do. So both the people who know about complicated planning issues in Auckland can look at that—maybe even talk to Opposition members before the committee stage—so that we can ask good, meaningful questions on those amendments, because enabling 15-storey buildings around railway stations is significant, and we do need to treat it with the weight that it deserves.

I’m just going to lightly touch on the issues as they’re covered in the legislative statement. I want to particularly focus on natural hazards. But the first thing in the legislative statement is infrastructure and energy key changes. We heard the Minister say that this is part of the electrification of the country. In Labour, we’re certainly supportive of the provisions that enable that electrification. We do have some questions, however, about some of the definitions and some of the technical terms around energy and electricity, where they could be related to fossil fuel sources. So those are some questions that we will be asking in the committee stage.

We also note that there is this new term: “long-lived infrastructure”. Most everybody wants to be long-lived infrastructure now, so there’s been some changes made there. Again, we have some concerns around fossil fuels that we will raise in the committee stage. But the general idea of the amendments around network utility operators and designations—these are things that Labour had done in the Natural and Built Environment Act. We’re very much in support of those provisions that have rolled through to this legislation.

The next thing in the legislative statement is housing growth and key changes. We’ve heard from the Minister that there’s a lot more to come in Auckland, and I’m not sure if there’s any more to come in Christchurch. But as the Minister said, in the last parliamentary term, Labour and National, in a bipartisan way, agreed to this MDRS—the medium-density residential standards. Then National agreed to it, and we made a piece of legislation that went through the House and was passed. Then, as we heard from the Minister, National campaigned against that bipartisan agreement, which does not bode well for future agreements. But we’re still trying to work as constructively as possible, despite that backtrack. Now, as the Minister said, the bill, as it was introduced, had this opt-out of the MDRS for all councils. Two councils that are tier 1 councils that were supposed to incorporate the MDRS—they haven’t done it yet, and that is Auckland and Christchurch. Every other council: the opt-out doesn’t apply any more in the bill as reported back. We’ve heard from the Minister that there’s going to be a lot of intensification in Auckland and then probably not quite as much in Christchurch.

We’ve also heard the Minister talk a lot about down-zoning and some problems with the MDRS around down-zoning. I want to spend a little bit of time on this and note that I will be asking questions in the committee stage as well. So the MDRS provisions required the councils to permit three houses on a section of three storeys high. However, they had to do a plan change to do this and there were qualifying matters which would allow the council to say, “Actually, the MDRS won’t apply to these areas because of a qualifying matter.” And those qualifying matters generally related back to Part 2 of the Resource Management Act and include, therefore, the management of significant risks from natural hazards. So that was already a provision that was already an opportunity for councils to say, “Actually, we will not put the MDRS in this particular area because there is a significant risk of natural hazards.” Maybe that has been more difficult to do than was first thought, but now we’ve heard that Auckland, with its ability to change its plan changes—I understand, as the Minister has said, that he’s had a lot of correspondence with Auckland Council about what could work in Auckland to get the same results with that same amount of density but in good places for that density.

Obviously, a good place for the density is not in a flood plain, but my reading of what I’ve seen of the bill so far—noting that there are Amendment Papers to come—is that it doesn’t enable down-zoning. It enables the council to not put some intensity in some places, but that’s not down-zoning the activity—the housing that is already there. It’s important to be clear about exactly what will be enabled by the changes, just so that we’re all talking about the same things and also to work out if the intensification that’s going to happen in Auckland—whether or not there are any qualifying matters for that. So things like the natural hazards that I was just speaking about, but also where heritage fits and where special character areas fit within that, because I know that it is a political hot potato issue in Auckland, so it will be good to have some clarity from the Minister when we’re in the committee stage about how that works.

I also want to note that there was an opportunity in this bill to be stronger on natural hazards generally and enabling councils to say no to projects that are going to be in the wrong places such as housing on flood plains. There are some changes in here, and it’s good that there are changes, but we haven’t changed Part 2 of the Resource Management Act (RMA). Again, that Part 2 of the RMA talks about the management of significant risks from natural hazards. The Natural and Built Environment Act talked about “risks are reduced” from natural hazards. So we do need to strengthen that language. There is some national planning, but that’s all been delayed at the moment and is waiting for the next round of reforms. It is really important that that work happens and happens at speed, because we know that New Zealand has a whole lot of natural hazard risks before climate change, and with climate change, those natural hazard risks are amplified. We also know that this Government has done the fast track, whereby projects will be enabled on flood plains, which seems to go against all good common sense and is very disappointing.

Another disappointment, moving on to farming and primary sector changes, is around farm plans in section 70. The certification of freshwater farm plans—these have been talked about in legislation for a long time and keep getting paused and changed. But the idea was, in the legislation before this bill, that regional councils would have a role in deciding who could certify freshwater farm plans. That’s now been taken to the Minister, and also, it appears, the auditing role of those farm plans. So we’re particularly concerned for farmers, that they will have to rely on an industry certifier and then an industry auditor. So where is the role for an independent regulator in that process so that farmers can say to the world: “Look, this is how we can prove that we do good environmental things on farms in New Zealand.”? That’s changed. So has section 70, which enables regional councils to permit—so something doesn’t need a resource consent—even if it’s going to have an adverse effect to the water body. That just makes no sense. I’ve got lots of questions I’ll be asking in the committee stage.

Thank you, Mr Chair. There’s something that really continues to astound me with this Government—and sure, there’s a lot of things in this bill and there is a lot to talk about, but what is really disappointing, and what is quite telling, is what they actually leave out. Sure, there’s lots in here about housing, about natural hazards, and the like, but I didn’t hear from the Minister, for example, about the unprecedented changes to freshwater protections, about weakening of marine protection, or about the fact that this Government seems to continue to stick their head in the sand when it comes to the task of actually delivering when it comes to Kiwis and their need to actually adapt to this very disruptive, changing, and dangerous climate.

We’re seeing that right now, aren’t we, when it comes to Whakatū—Nelson. This changing, disruptive climate is wreaking havoc right now. It’s not a one-off; it’s consistent, it’s more regular. I really want to take this time just to acknowledge those communities of Nelson-Tasman, and the fact that they are dealing with all of this right now. It’s something that is, unfortunately, less and less uncommon, and it’s something that we’re seeing consistently across the country. What’s really frustrating about these times is that when they happen, we—particularly here in Parliament—praise and we glorify how the community pulls together; we talk about how awesome it is that we provide everyone housing and shelter, how everyone needs to pitch in to help each other out, to make sure that we’re fed, that we have access to clean drinking water. Yet when it’s proposed that we actually design our nation in the exact same way, in a way that actually cares for each other and cares for te taiao—our environment—it’s suggested that it’s ideological, that that’s utopia; when, actually, this is the pragmatic way that we need to be moving if we’re serious about a relatively stable future for our kids and our grandkids.

So, with that, the Green Party does not support this bill. I, firstly, want to thank the hundreds of submitters who actually took the time, in the tsunami of legislative change, to sift through this and have their say, because we did have some really valuable submitters who took the time to actually come talk to us. Essentially, it’s a whole bunch of ad hoc amendments based on the Government’s coalition agreements, and I appreciate that this does make it really hard for the multitudes of Kiwis who care about our resource management system and its impact on the environment; it’s been really challenging to navigate this. But for most of the changes, unfortunately, they constitute this continued dismantling of environmental protections under this Government. As with pretty much all the other legislation promoted by this Government, the pace of the reform and the pace of these bills—and the lack of evidence to support these changes—are one of the fundamental flaws that means that we couldn’t support it.

So, sure, there are some good things, particularly when it comes to natural hazards. We do support these changes, and particularly to the emergency provisions. What was really disappointing—and the Minister mentioned it in his opening comments—was about this greater power given to councils to actually prevent, for example, development in flood plains. However, then we have this ridiculous exemption which has now been introduced, which still allows the granting of land-use consents for infrastructure and primary production in areas that we know have significant risks from natural areas. Again, that is playing out in Whakatū—Nelson right now. Why would we continue to perpetuate this for our communities?

We do really support, when it comes to the system improvements, changes like those that particularly relate to compliance history being considered in consenting decisions; we think that’s really sensible. We think it’s great that financial penalties have been increased, and removing people’s ability to insure themselves against those penalties, and particularly the ability for the Environment Court to suspend or revoke consents, which are all really sensible and overdue changes.

When it comes to energy and infrastructure, there is a lot in there, but we don’t support, for example, the proposal to include gas infrastructure as long-lived infrastructure. We know, for example, in 2021, the Climate Change Commission actually recommended that there be no new gas connections from 2025, and the International Energy Agency has noted that all fossil gas generation should be phased out by 2040. So there is just simply no justifiable need, in this climate crisis, to be giving 35-year consents to fossil fuel infrastructure that will likely not be in use in 25 years. We think that’s really short-sighted.

But the changes that we are absolutely most concerned about as Te Pāti Kākāriki are these proposed changes to section 70 of the Resource Management Act. They’re really just this knee-jerk reaction to what was a successful legal challenge by the Environmental Law Initiative. Again, we didn’t hear any of this from the Minister: these changes are absolutely unprecedented, in that, for the first time in the Resource Management Act’s history, they actually permit councils to allow significant adverse pollution in waterways and water bodies where they are already significantly adversely impacted. So we interpret these changes as, essentially, giving up on some of our most polluted and degraded waterways, taking us further away from Te Mana o te Wai, where the health of our fresh water would actually be prioritised.

I’ve just had the pleasure of being in Te Wai Pounamu, starting in Whakatū—Nelson, right in between those huge rainfall events and flooding; down in Manapōuri; Te Ānau; down in Riverton/Aparima; and also Invercargill. It was really stark seeing the contrast between, for example, the national park areas of Te Ānau and Manapōuri, and then going down to Riverton/Aparima and Invercargill and seeing the changes, particularly in the estuaries, in those areas. It was flagged to me some reports—that literally go back 20 years—where scientists were trying to get the attention of, at the time, the district councillors and the regional council to say that these high nutrients were having massive impacts on these estuaries, and there needed to be massive reductions as a result. There’s largely been complete inaction over those two decades, and now we’ve got the New River Estuary in Invercargill, we’ve got the Jacobs River Estuary in Riverton/Aparima, and even Waituna Lagoon near Bluff, all now suffering from those decades of inaction, where the impacts are actually impacting the health of the ecosystem and the health of our communities. We absolutely do not want to see the backwards approach that this Government is taking.

Hon Penny Simmonds: Over 90 percent of the land in Southland is covered by catchment groups doing good work on fresh water.

LAN PHAM: I really appreciate the comment that I’m hearing across the House about catchment groups; there is amazing work going on from the catchment groups, which we actually heard about on these trips down there. But what I really want to stress, and what I’m absolutely sick and tired of with this Government, is this constant conflation with any form of environmental protection being “anti-farming”. That is absolutely not the case, and, actually, it’s the farmers down there who feel abandoned by this Government who are selling them down the river for their ideological ideas that this is ending farming. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This change to the Resource Management Act is necessary panel beating of this lemon of a law that this Government has committed to replace with a new system based on property rights and a new piece of legislation designed to specifically protect the environment. This is necessary now. It’s because the Resource Management Act that we’ve got now has, essentially, slowed down the economy, stopped necessary and vital development, and failed to protect the environment, as Lan Pham rightly pointed out. It has taken a totally unrealistic approach to rules, to needing consent from farmers to ports, to councils needing to consent new waste-water treatment plants or upgrade existing. It’s made it far too expensive and take far too long to build the infrastructure we need so that communities can just get on with being their best selves.

There are lots of positive changes in this legislation. I’m going to run through some of them. Firstly, the changes indicate and reinforce the certainty of the direction this Government has committed to in terms of resource management reform. We are replacing the current broken system with a new system based on property rights and protecting the environment in a realistic way. This backs up this Government’s commitment to economic growth and restoring a focus on creating wealth. With that wealth, we can therefore protect the special places that we all agree need protection, and make the necessary investments in infrastructure so that we can create more communities, create more affordable housing, increase density, and so on, so that we can live better lives in the cities and, obviously, provide far more certainty for those growing things, raising livestock, and living on the land that the things they need to do in order to turn a profit, they will be allowed to continue doing, and the environmental issues that we know need to be solved can be solved in a realistic time frame.

What did we hear from submitters? We heard that infrastructure—like dams, like ports, like our electricity network—is long-lived. It can survive, once its built, for decades, for 50, 100 years. We only need to look at Italy to see Roman aqueducts which have stood for 2,000 years. We are currently designing bridges in New Zealand like up at RiverLink and the Melling Interchange with a 2,000-year design life, yet the Resource Management Act would limit consenting some of these things to just a few decades. So we have taken on board submitters’ suggestions, and we are going to be increasing the number and types of assets that can befit from definition as “long-lived infrastructure”, so you don’t have to keep justifying why these things are there. Guess what! We’re not taking them away, are we? We’re going to continue needing the bridges and the ports and the power lines. Who knew the Resource Management Act didn’t understand that!

We’re also going to be including the definition of “long-lived infrastructure” and extending those designation powers not just to ports but also to inland ports, because it turns out that when you have a port next to the ocean where you unload containers from a ship, sometimes you need more than the room dockside to store the boxes. That’s what we call an inland port. Anyone who lives near Hamilton knows about the fantastic inland port that Tainui have built next to State Highway 1 and the railway line there. You look at Ōtāhuhu in Auckland, Onehunga—huge inland ports. But until these changes go through, inland ports won’t be recognised as part of the port system. This Government has said that’s a positive, practical change we can make to the Resource Management Act: we’re going to extend coastal permits to include inland ports.

What else are we doing? Well, when it comes to housing growth, the previous Government and, for some reason, the National Party agreed with Labour to create a medium-density residential standard (MDRS) of three-storeys of three units everywhere. Well, the ACT Party stood up in this House and said, “That won’t work. You can’t have blanket density across entire cities; you actually need to know where to make the investment in pipes and infrastructure so you can grow up around those infrastructure nodes.” Now, we had a change of Government, and, in the ACT-National coalition agreement, it was agreed that the MDRS—this unusual blanket standard—would be repealed and replaced with much smarter legislation planning rules, which actually allow for densification around transport nodes, around rail corridors, and, as the Minister pointed out, around the City Rail Link. So it turns out that when more people vote for ACT, you have more ACT MPs in Parliament, more ACT Ministers sitting around the Cabinet table, sometimes the lights come on and good policy gets made. So ACT will take credit for reversing the MDRS and replacing it with smarter policy, and there’s more of that coming when we replace the Resource Management Act entirely.

Then we get to some of the matters that the committee canvassed. We all know that heritage is important to New Zealanders. We’re a young country. We don’t necessarily have a whole lot of buildings that we would say, “We’re proud of this building. We’re proud of this structure.” I mean, some people really might fall in love with a bridge. As a civil engineer, there are a bunch of bridges around the country that I used to love stopping at and forcing my kids out of the car to go and read the plaque about the engineer who built this bridge, but other people might say, “Maybe we need to get that bridge out of the way and build a new bridge.” But we should not have heritage rules stopping the sensible development of our cities, stopping people developing their residential and commercial buildings in towns all over New Zealand.

What we’re doing here is we’re actually taking more things into account when it comes to assessing a building’s or structure’s heritage significance; its physical condition, including its seismic risk—can it really be maintained as a heritage building if it’s likely to fall down? If people can’t afford to upgrade these buildings, there’s no incentive for them to maintain them, and then the heritage we thought we were protecting becomes nothing more than a pile of bricks. That is what the system was incentivising. We’re changing that so that we can protect the heritage we value but allow people to get on with developing and using the buildings.

Now, Lan Pham raised a good point: many people in New Zealand are concerned about the cumulative effects on water quality that have resulted from many, many years of the Resource Management Act continuing to allow for activities that discharge to the natural environment, failing to distinguish between special places we really need to protect, because New Zealanders agree that those special, unique places should be protected, and the places where we carry out all kinds of business and activities—like cities, where we have industrial zones, for example; or the rural areas, where we grow food, and that involves soil-disturbing activities and putting fertiliser on the farms so that we can grow food. That’s why New Zealand’s able to grow food for 40 million people, not just the 5 million people who live here.

Now, of course, making environmental rules that match up with our expectations for where we need to protect the environment and where we can have a bit more of a realistic expectation around what kind of environment we should expect, say, I don’t know, where there’s a bunch of farms or where there’s a city or a town—we need the system to be realistic. The changes we’ve made have said, “Look, we do agree that we should aim to restore places in the natural environment to a healthy state, but we need to give ourselves time to do that.” New Zealand’s been developed for over 160, 180 years in some places. We’ve cleared the forests. We’ve created farms. We’ve created cities. We’re not restoring it to some pre-human state in the space of five or 10 years. These things will take decades; they could take generations. We should be patient and we should allow nature and people to work together.

I’m really proud of the changes we’ve made to the certification of freshwater farm plans, because it turns out that actually allowing those professional organisations that support farmers to work with them and confirm that their farm plans are fit for purpose is a practical improvement.

There are a couple of other changes we made to the bill in the select committee around natural hazards and making sure that councils could take action to avert emergencies like flooding by putting diggers into a river to clear some gravel out before people’s homes and businesses are flooded. There’s lots more to come. I commend this bill to the House.

We need our economy performing really, really strongly, because that’s the only way in which we can have good lifestyles and also good standards of living and also be able to afford the public services that we want, so we should all be supporting this piece of legislation. The Government is pursuing this aspiration to grow our economy, grow our welfare, grow our standard of living relentlessly.

One of the things that gets in the way of that is regulation and red tape; and, look, we all know that. We all travel around the country and we can hear story after story after story of where red tape is bogging organisations down—bogging companies down, bogging councils down, bogging all kinds of people down.

Right at the top of that tree, often, is the Resource Management Act (RMA). It has been the whipping boy for so many, many years. In fact, it’s probably one of the most amended Acts around because everybody keeps on trying to fix the thing, and, indeed, I suppose we’re trying to do that again today, trying to fix the piece of legislation to do what we think it should do. I spent something like 30—well, it’s over 30—years working with the RMA, and I saw some great results out of it and I saw some really poor results out of it. The one thing I would say is that agility is not something the RMA is particularly good at, and I’ll come back to that fairly shortly.

It’s interesting: we had the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, in opening the debate, talking about the Gordon Wilson building down the other side of The Terrace and saying it’s been so hard to get rid of it. I chaired the hearing when Victoria University came to the council and said, “Look, we want to delist this building. We also want to change the zoning, turning it to university precinct from residential.” We got that one through, but what happened is that the advice we got was that there is no way that anybody can use this particular building for any purpose in a way which is economically viable. It was a significant cost to fixing it in any way you wanted to do it, and it was not going to be worth that money when you’d done that work, so it had to go.

What happened is our decision got appealed. It went to the Environment Court, and the Environment Court, unusually, had a split decision. The judge said, “We agree—can’t use it for anything. It’s completely unviable.”, and it got overruled by the commissioners, who said, guess what!—they didn’t say that it shouldn’t be demolished; what they did say is that it should have to go through a resource consent process. That was 11 years ago. That is how long, sometimes, it takes to get to a point of doing something, and in this case it has taken the Government to intervene. While it’s unusual for the Government to intervene on one particular building, this one has taken 11 years. Most people recognise that it is unsavable, and yet it takes 11 years to get it off the heritage list and to do something about it.

I might also say, in terms of heritage, what we do not want to see is to see it become a free-for-all. Heritage is really valuable to us—whether it is Māori heritage, whether it is non-Māori heritage, it is important in telling our stories, and those are buildings that are valuable to many people. It should not just be a free-for-all where people can go along and say, “Look, it gets in the way of whatever I want to do and therefore I should be able to knock it down easily.” There’s still got to be a robust process to go through.

I talked about the RMA being one of the most changed Acts out. Of course, it was killed off by Labour and then it’s done a Lazarus and it’s back again for a little while but, again, with a limited lifespan and likely to disappear by the end of this term, I suspect.

But I want to pick up a few key issues in the bill as we’ve got it. The first one of those I want to pick up on was the medium-density residential standards (MDRS). It makes the opportunity to be able to opt out of the MDRS, and I think that is a very sensible proposition, because it should be down—we say to councils, “You’ve got to make sure that you provide for population growth in the next 30 years.”, but the councils and their communities should be able to work out how to do that, not have central government say, “Let’s impose it on you.” Now, it makes absolute sense to say, “Well, we want to densify around public transport and around services.” That makes complete sense to me, but we’ve got to do that in a way which actually works for communities and gives people some certainty about what to do.

If I might go back, in terms of experience, we were, as Wellington City Council, just about to do a plan change. In fact, we were going to notify the entire plan. Two hours before we went to our debate, I got a call from the then Minister for the Environment, the Hon David Parker, saying, “We’re just going to change the rules.” That was not particularly helpful. This was the MDRS deal that was done between National and Labour. So we, of course, had to take a big step back and go, “Oh, heck, they’ve just changed our entire planning arrangement, and, oh, by the way, they’ve probably killed any chance of getting densification along a line which would’ve supported a light rail proposition in Wellington City.” Basically, it said that everywhere in the city—and that was true of all those Tier 1 councils—was all the same. They’re not the same. So we should be allowing councils and communities to make those decisions for themselves and supporting them in making those decisions. That is really, really important.

The other point I’d make is that in terms of saying to councils and communities, “You need to provide for the next 30 years’ growth.”, it would be really, really useful one day if a Government actually said, “We actually have a plan around how many people we expect to be providing for.” We have not had—and I’ve only been saying this for about 40 years—a migration strategy, which is the key driver now. That is the key driver for growth. It’s not natural increase; it’s migration, and Governments do not have a strategy around migration for 30 minutes, let alone 30 years. So that’s something which I think—it’s a hobby horse—we need to do. Even the Infrastructure Commission is now saying that would be a good idea, because then we can plan infrastructure around the number of people we actually expect to have as opposed to putting a finger in the air and saying, “How many people—we’ve got no idea, so let’s just go and build stuff that we may need or may not need.” That is hopeless.

As I said, densification makes absolute sense, and there is a clear link to infrastructure and to services, but please don’t leave uncertainty, as was done to Wellington City but is also done elsewhere.

Second thing I wanted to touch on was hazards. Look, it makes absolute sense to allow down-zoning of areas that are prone to hazard. How many times around this country have we seen communities inundated? In fact, even in the last week we’ve seen communities inundated. We are building sometimes in really dumb places. The insurers are saying, “Stop building in those places.” Our newly renamed Natural Hazards Commission, I went to talk with them and they said, “We said, ‘Please don’t build there because it’ll fall off a cliff.’ ” What happens a year later? It falls off a cliff. “Please don’t build there; it’ll flood.” What happens a year later? It floods. And who picks up the tab? Well, in the first instance it’s the insurers, but in the second instance it’s all of us, because we all pay for those insurance costs, and so we don’t want to do that. So it makes absolute sense to try and avoid hazard.

I’m on the Governance and Administration Committee, and it’s one of the questions I’ve actually asked regularly when we have the National Emergency Management Agency in front of us: it’s all good and well to try and fix problems after they’ve happened; can we have the Government agencies which are relevant try and fix them before they happen, try and stop us putting people in harm’s way?

The third thing I wanted to talk about there is ports and the idea of, well, first of all, increasing coastal permits from 2026. Every single port, at least to some degree, was going to have to reconsent itself next year. For what? Are we going to say to them, “No, we’re going to strip out those ports; we’re going to remove them.”? That is absolutely bonkers. What would it have cost them to reconsent them? Probably hundreds of millions of dollars. What does it cost Meridian, for example, to reconsent the dams? Were we going to take the dams out of the Waitaki? I don’t think we were. Why are we doing that to ourselves, forcing genuinely long-life infrastructure and having to reconsent something that’s there. If it was on land, you wouldn’t do it, but because it happens to have its feet in the water, you start doing that. That is madness, and we have to change that. Whether it’s waste water, whether it’s ports, whether it is dams, we have to stop doing that. That would save us literally billions and billions of dollars which we could spend on something far, far more useful.

The idea of ports being requiring authorities makes absolute sense. I was down with PrimePort Timaru the other day, and one of the things they said—

Hon James Meager: Oh, great place.

ANDY FOSTER: Great place, yeah—I did drop in on the Minister’s office, but he wasn’t there; he was doing some great work elsewhere. But what they said is that they are allowed to replace all the piles on their main wharves—that was absolutely fine; they could do that as of right. They wanted to put in two piles, literally, to put in a little—they can replace hundreds, but to put in two piles to put in a place that the kids could operate their sailing boats from, that is a nightmarish resource consent costing them tens of thousands of dollars. That is nuts. If they were a requiring authority which says, “This is your area to operate within; you can do port-related activities that look like this—away you go.”, wouldn’t that make so much more sense to be able to do those things so much more efficiently? So those changes make 100 percent sense to me.

The final one I wanted to touch on in the minute I’ve got left is just around farming and aquaculture. Again, we’ve just got to take the pressure off, take the red tape off—the red and green tape off—and allow these businesses to get on and do their business and create the wealth that our country needs, because that is good for every single New Zealander, both now and in the future. I commend this bill to the House.

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. We are on the second reading of the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill and we are up to call number six, which is a split call.

Thank you. Tēnā koe e te Pīka. First of all, I do want to mihi to the Minister responsible for RMA Reform. In this particular situation, he reached out to meet with ourselves and to explain some of the thinking on this bill, and that often helps. It doesn’t mean that it changes our opinion, but it does help for questions and for those of the communities that put us here in this place.

What I have understood in those early engagements with the Minister is the five themes and some of the certainty. One of the things we did agree on is that there needed to be certainty and, to be honest, speed on renewable energy and renewable infrastructure. I think that’s something in Taranaki that we’ve been asking for a long time, and it’s more than overdue.

In saying that, though, there were numerous concerns from our community and rather than share what our views were, I would like to take my time to share what the views of the community are—Māori within Te Tai Hauāuru and the community of Māori around the motu. So there were, again, concerns about how this bill would impact on our rights, on tino rangatiratanga, our ability to be kaitiaki.

It’s just concerning that every time this Government talks about making things effective and efficient, it always seems to have an impact on us as tangata whenua. I’m not quite sure why the Tiriti or our role as kaitiaki is seen as being in the way. There were concerns about the marginalisation of tangata whenua, specifically a lot of our iwi who are settled. We’re concerned about the undermining of their settlements and the co-governance frameworks that their settlements have given rise to.

There was concern about some of the legal definitions and, I guess, the loss of opportunity that this Government continuously misses by leaving iwi and Māori out of their considerations. So some of the submissions that we saw: Ngā Iwi o Taranaki opposed this bill. They felt that it would limit tangata whenua consultation and participation. Ngāti Toa Rangatira also opposed this because it was a piecemeal change to the Resource Management Act (RMA). I want to emphasise that everyone thought there needed to be changes to the RMA; it didn’t need to be at the cost of tangata whenua. That was the concern.

Ngā Waihua o Paerangi Trust recognised the resource management bill as part of a suite of harmful environmental legislative changes and were continuously concerned about that, as were Raukawa Settlement Trust, who support improvements but in principle, not at the cost, again, of their rights, their cultural and environmental values.

Te Korowai o Ngāruahine also urged the Government to continue a kaitiaki-centred, inclusive approach. Māori are not the problem in this bureaucracy. So, once again, a resounding voice of concerns for breach of Te Tiriti, a resounding lack of Māori input or consultation, and a resounding profit over taiao. This has become the slogan, sadly, for every speech I’ve been doing lately.

Hoi anō, Muaūpoko Tribal Authority opposed the changes, specifically to section 70 and 100, because of the polluted waters, their rights, and marine and coastal areas.

Then we also had pou taiao leaders of the Iwi Chairs Forum, who mostly opposed because they thought that the bill undermines te mana o te wai and the Treaty settlements and favours infrastructure over taiao. So there were warnings also of irreparable harm to freshwater and taonga species.

Te Kaahui o Rauru were extremely concerned about the impact, again, on tangata whenua, on conservation land for mining, limiting consultation—a host of kaupapa that are absolutely, I’m sure, of no surprise to the Government.

Te Runanga o Ngāti Ruanui oppose the removal of hearing rights and permitted status of polluting activities. Again, what we saw was community Māori, iwi Māori, Māori businesses, Māori tangata as individuals concerned that this Government continues to attack their ability to live and be who they are in the environment. We do not support this bill, nor do a large proportion of our community. We do ask for change, but we ask that the change be one that enhances the relationship that tangata whenua have with our environment. Kia ora rā.

I was reflecting, when my colleague Andy Foster spoke earlier, about what high hopes we had for the Resource Management Act (RMA) once upon a time. It was introduced as something that was meant to really look at the effects, not the minutiae. I mean, having been involved through my previous role, it became so difficult to protect some concepts like sunlight and views and so on, especially in a hilly city.

So what was going to happen with the RMA? It was going to be replaced—despite its intentions for the public good, its intentions for a balance between a healthy environment and the right to develop your property, whether you’re a corporate or an individual. It became calcified. Every time something went to court, there was another little change. At every opportunity, there was—from different parties; I’m not sure that anyone is immune from this—another little tweak here to tell councils what to do, to require them to do something, to require them to not do something. That has been very frustrating. There are definitely some things, as you will see in our differing view. There are definitely some things we agree on. The longer consents for renewable energy—absolutely, no-brainer. But when the International Energy Agency has noted that all fossil gas generation should be phased out by 2040, what is the point of having long-lived infrastructure to include fossil gas?

We also have concerns about fresh water, and I was interested to hear earlier Rachel Brooking talking about farm plans. Yes, some of us are involved in our local catchment communities—the Wairarapa Catchment Collective is quite all-encompassing. It’s got everything from big beef and dairy farms through to quite small weekend blocks, and people have worked together, and we have found, in particular, that the children of farmers have got absolutely fascinated by what animals they might find, whether they’re lizards on the land or whether they’re the different native fish in the river, or all sorts. With eDNA testing, the amount that they have been teaching their parents—whether their parents are weekenders or they have been there for generations—has been fantastic. But let us not mistake inspiration and collective work for a good reason to remove regulations on fresh water altogether. Not everywhere has got catchment collectives, and sometimes it’s quite difficult if you’ve got one recalcitrant person on less than 50 hectares—because this is removing the need for farm environment plans for under 50 hectares—it’s very difficult for neighbours to call somebody out, because it creates a big social tension, and that’s where you do need to keep having those environmental regulations.

There’s another area. Minister Bishop, when he introduced this, he sounded like a grand urbanist. All of this building housing, increased density along with transport—I thought that he was channelling my colleague the Hon Julie Anne Genter, and he genuinely believes this. But then he completely undermines it by talking about the necessity for greenfields growth. And greenfields growth is like a sort of short-term—the land’s a little bit cheaper, but it’s really expensive, because you’re always going to have to have two cars; it’s really expensive for councils even if you’ve got development levies, because you’re taking the infrastructure out and you are spreading it across a much wider area. It’s expensive for emissions and it’s expensive for management of water infrastructure. So it’s a pity that we didn’t do, collectively, a thorough job of getting rid of the RMA and replacing it.

I rise to support the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. This is a much-needed piece of legislation which makes targeted amendments to the Resource Management Act (RMA). I would just like to acknowledge our amazing Minister responsible for RMA Reform, Chris Bishop, who, as has already been pointed out by a member of the House, in terms of the consultation, has taken to get some really good progress on this very complex area—being the RMA.

I’d also like to just acknowledge the committee members of the Environment Committee, as we did have quite a collegial approach as we moved through the select committee process. There were many areas of the bill we did agree on, and that was very progressive, because we did acknowledge that it would be better for infrastructure, energy, housing growth, farming—of course—and the primary sector, being an area that this bill addresses to reduce the red tape, but also the natural hazards and the emergency response that this bill will help as well. Obviously, coming from the area where we had Cyclone Gabrielle, this had been very welcomed by a lot of councils. During the submission process, we heard over 300 submissions, of which many supported a lot of this bill. We heard from the councils, to some of the NGOs, individuals, industry, and businesses. It was a great process that we went through on the select committee. It’s a very much-needed piece of legislation, and I’ll look forward to the third reading of this legislation. I commend this to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It does give me some pleasure to rise and take a call on this bill, the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. While I am a member of the Environment Committee, the previous speaker, Catherine Wedd, the chairperson—happy birthday, by the way—is right, in the sense that we do work in a rather collegial manner. I did join the select committee towards the tail end of the deliberation on this bill.

However, I did want to point to three specific areas of the bill in my contribution, the first being clause 15, amending section 70, discharge aspect of this bill. Section 70(1) sets out, basically, the requirements on a council before it includes in a regional plan the permitted activity rule that would allow the discharge of contaminants into the waterway, basically. Largely, what this does is—and I thought I would reference at least one submission to this part of the bill—basically, amend the scope of that section to clarify that regional councils can include permitted activity discharge rules in their plans when an activity may have significant adverse effects on aquatic life. That’s the bit that members on this side of the House didn’t agree with. It didn’t sit right with us that waterways that are already polluted could be further polluted just on the basis that—you know, the requirement was just to show that change could be made over a certain period of time, but, ultimately, what this amendment allows for is the further pollution of waterways. For that reason, we don’t agree with this part of the change.

I did, however, want to draw the House’s attention to the submission by the Environmental Defence Society. In their submission to the select committee, they had, basically, opposed a particular change that the bill would have made, and that was a concern that they had around the proposed wording of section 70(1)—specifically, clause 15(1) of the bill—which would replace the term “Before” with the phrase “Except as provided in subsection (3), before”. They found this particular amendment problematic because it removed the requirement that a regional council has to assess whether the mandatory performance standards that are required in the bill can be met before including a permitting discharge rule in the plan. They made a very good point about why that was problematic, drawing on a High Court observation as well. They will be pleased to know that the select committee worked together to recommend that that be removed from the bill, so the bill, as it’s presented to the House, does not include that particular part they objected to. That, for me, actually is the best part of select committees: working together to finesse a piece of legislation and taking into account, in the process of doing that, various submitters and the points that they bring to select committee. I think that was a good change that was made.

The other aspect of the bill that I would like to just refer to is the bit around freshwater farm plans. Now, farming groups have been advocating for the use of farm plans as a way to coordinate a response to environmental rules. Currently, the regional council is the certifier of freshwater farm plans. This bill removes regional councils from being the approved certifiers and auditors, and that’s problematic because, as the primary regulator of the waterway, they should have a role and they should retain that role in terms of certification and the auditing side of the freshwater component of farm plans. We also objected to the fact that changes that the select committee made will limit the number of farmers that require a freshwater farm plan to most farms larger than 50 hectares. I think, from memory, that excludes about a third of farms. While we accept that there needs to be a balance struck there—that very small lifestyle blocks should be excluded—we felt that the 50-hectare size did not strike that balance because it was, firstly, too big, and, secondly, there wasn’t a risk-based analysis of that. So I just wanted to share those two changes to the bill.

The final point that I want to make is around the housing component of this bill. Now, that’s not an aspect that we objected to, because, ultimately, the aim of this legislation is to increase housing, and, on this side of the House, we do agree that that’s a good thing. I do, however, want to point to the fact that the National Party supported the medium-density residential standards (MDRS), which were also aimed at increasing housing intensification, back in 2021. Then, in 2023, they said they made a mistake and withdrew from the bipartisan agreement around the MDRS. Now they want to go further than the MDRS went. The MDRS would have allowed, in Auckland, for example, or in general, housing developments of up to three storeys. This has now moved to at least six storeys. The Minister, in his contribution in the House today, said that they intend to move to 15 storeys—so, much more housing intensification than the MDRS would have allowed for at the time. Again, while we don’t necessarily oppose that on this side of the House, in the area that I live in, the electorate that I live in, Maungakiekie, there has been a lot of feedback around that intensification. So I will just put on the table the need to do that well.

The legislation does talk about intensification around transport nodes, particularly around the City Rail Link stations, and, again, that’s a good thing in principle, but I will note that that needs to be done in a way that is sensitive.

In closing, though, what I will say is, while this legislation looks at liberalising the regulations around infrastructure and development, including housing, it aims to strike a balance with environmental requirements as well. I don’t believe it actually achieves that, necessarily. I do think that some of the aspects of this bill will weaken our environmental protections. I will leave it at that. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise with great pleasure to support this bill. If there’s one thing that seems to really divide the House, it’s the whole freshwater discussion and debate. There seems to be a lack of acknowledgment from the other side that, actually, the rural community really has come a long way in the last 20 years about where it sits and how it accepts that it’s got responsibilities to improve water quality. Consequently, despite the objections from the other side, farmers are working hard to reduce their impact, and what we’re finding is that in a lot of catchments that is starting to happen, right? The changes to section 70 take a pragmatic position so farmers don’t, effectively, get shut down in some parts of the country.

Then, with respect to farm plans, it’s really important now that, actually, the Minister can approve the industry organisations that can approve farm plans, not each individual council, so, therefore, it makes it more efficient. With that, I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call.

Thank you for the opportunity to make a relatively brief contribution to the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. I want to address the provisions relating to the Christchurch City Council or the Christchurch Intensification Planning Instrument (IPI).

I also want to start my contribution by acknowledging the work that the Environment Committee did, particularly to make those changes and to shape this bill into something that is a pragmatic balance between national direction and also acknowledges and recognises those local realities. In Christchurch’s case, the inclusion of a bespoke withdrawal pathway is a recognition of the fact that the city is in a different position to some other centres, like Auckland, and much of that intensification planning work in Christchurch has already been done—and well done. The Independent Hearings Panel has progressed the bulk of Plan Change 14, and many of those provisions are now actually operative. So the council, I think—and the community, it should be acknowledged—have also engaged in that process with considerable commitment and lots of robust feedback and a certain amount of passion, because it is something that people feel really passionate about, and we need to respect that.

The pathway provided in this bill therefore allows the council—with ministerial approval, obviously—to withdraw only the remaining parts of that IPI that haven’t yet become operational, provided—obviously—that they can demonstrate, or that Christchurch can demonstrate, that they have capacity for the next 30 years of demand and housing, plus a little bit of contingency. So it’s not a free pass to walk away from intensification, nor should it be, but it is a conditional mechanism that reflects Christchurch’s distinct planning context—as it should, also.

Ultimately, we do support this bill, as has been said by colleagues, principally because Labour agrees that the focus should be on ensuring everybody has a warm, dry, safe place to live. I acknowledge the history behind the medium-density residential standards. It was certainly touted at the time as something that could garner that bipartisan support, and I know that there was quite a lot of collaboration in 2021 to ensure that that was the case. So we still remain a little bit bemused, and I think there’s certainly some damage to credibility in terms of the Government, at the time—well, the Government now—but whilst in Opposition, walking away from that agreement. So whilst there are aspects of this bill that we also support—the streamlining consents, the enabling, obviously, of renewable energy, and ensuring that the intensification targets can be met in an appropriate way—it’s not a blanket endorsement; we have significant concerns about the broader direction that the Government is taking in regard to Resource Management Act reform, particularly the weakening of the environmental protections. Even within this modest bill—this more modest bill—the freshwater management and the erosion of safeguards under Section 70 has been mentioned, and I think that that is worth repeating.

We’re also mindful of how the resource management settings interact with major regional infrastructure, such as Lyttelton Port. The bill’s recognition of the port as a regionally significant infrastructure—and, therefore, its eligibility for fast-track consenting—underscores, I suppose, the importance of ensuring that critical trade and freight infrastructure is not held back unnecessarily. But we should also be really mindful of the fact that Lyttelton Port is not just an economic asset; it is a coastal environment, it’s a workplace, it’s a key point of community connection. The consenting process must, therefore, also allow for proper environmental assessment and, actually, meaningful community input as well. So we will be watching the implementation closely to ensure that the balance between efficiency, that is often touted, and public accountability in relation to both that infrastructure and that housing intensification is maintained.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I rise in support of the Resource Management (Consenting and Other System Changes) Amendment Bill. This is part of a suite of a phased change for the Resource Management Act. First, repealing the previous one and reinstating the old one, and then a series of bills that will come through. So for those who are watching at home and wondering what we’re doing, this is only one of a series of things that will be done. This is making sure that councils won’t be doing things and plan changes unnecessarily and has made some very pragmatic allowances, just as the previous speaker, Dr Tracey McLellan, was saying, especially for Christchurch, where I’m based. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m pleased to rise and take a call on this piece of legislation. This part of the bill, in theory, we are comfortable with the majority of aspects within this piece of legislation, but there are some that we aren’t comfortable with, but, however, we do support. As my colleague Rachel Brooking mentioned in her contribution earlier this evening, we will be bringing quite a few questions to the committee during the committee of the whole House stage, just to help clarify our understanding and thinking and perhaps, hopefully, maybe make some much-needed changes.

As I mentioned, we aren’t 100 percent comfortable with some of the environmental changes made within this bill. Before I do delve into that a little bit, I do want to pick up on the comment that Grant McCallum made. I do want to acknowledge the work and the changes that farmers have made over the years. If I think about when we were farming, the practices that we were undertaking 30 years ago, there’s been some massive improvements in that space. So I do think and recognise it is really important to acknowledge the good work and the changes that have been made.

One of the concerns I do want to talk about is the section 70 discharges. I’m a little bit perplexed as to why there is a belief or thinking that it is actually OK to allow clause 15, the new section 70(3), that enables the council to include a rule in a regional plan that allows as a permitted activity a discharge into water that could result in adverse effects to aquatic life—it may not necessarily, but it could. I just am perplexed as to why the committee or the Minister thinks that that is something that is actually OK, because what kind of message does that send to our future generations that it’s OK if we pollute just for a little while or make this body of water worse for a little while, when, actually, I think the aim and goal should be that, at the very least, our rivers should be swimmable? I do feel that that moves away somewhat from that.

I am pleased to see a change that was made where submitters expressed concern and talked about, eventually over time, reducing the adverse effects. I am pleased to see that a time frame has been put in there where initially I don’t think there was. So the committee has decided on that time frame of 10 years to work on reducing the adverse effects of whatever that pollutant may be in that particular body.

One of the things that farmers often discuss with me when I meet with them—and I’m quite sure members across the House have similar conversations where farmers say, “You know, we’re doing a lot of good work, we’re doing the right things. How do we tell our story better? How do we continue to have that social licence? How do we get the broader public to actually understand that we’re not all bad or we’re not doing bad things? We don’t intentionally want to pollute.”, and all these things. And they often say, “How do we it better? How do we get our message across and show the public that what we’re doing is actually really good and really positive?”

I do, in that vein, have a little bit of a concern around the certification and auditing aspects where the Minister is going to be able to—well, currently the regional council is the freshwater farm plans. Under this piece of legislation, it looks like there’ll be changes made to that and it could be, perhaps, an industry body that might be able to do that. So I am a little weary of that. Not to say that they wouldn’t do it accurately, correctly, and do everything right, but I am a little bit worried about the perception that that could put out there that they may not—the wider public perception might be that they are not truly independent and perhaps necessarily have some qualifications that would otherwise be required to make some of those decisions. So I am just a little bit weary in that aspect of things.

With regard to the size, where farms larger than 50 hectares are the ones that would require a farm plan, I have a bit of concern around that, because it doesn’t take into account any risk factors, and I think that kind of lends to being a blanket approach, without taking those risk factors into consideration. So I am aware that there are people out there and members opposite who don’t like, in the past, legislation that has been referred to as taking a blanket approach to things. I do have some concerns around that thinking, and I’ll probably look to ask the Minister questions about that when it comes to the committee of the whole House.

The stuff around housing, we absolutely support. As my colleague Tracey McLellan said, we’re really focused on making sure that people have safe, affordable, warm housing to live in. Things around the changes to the ports and their consents being just automatically increased, I think that makes absolute sense. So it is with some reservations, but I do commend this bill to the House.

It’s great to hear such consensus across the House. I’ll be very brief—three things, really. Firstly, to our select committee chair, Catherine Wedd, happy birthday. I just acknowledge her on this special day. The definition of “long-lived infrastructure”, I think, has been a great addition to this amendment bill: something that’s 35 years consentable, 50 years durable—fantastic. One thing which probably hasn’t got much attention but I want to read out: section 88 amended, new subsection (2AA), inserted by clause 28, “An applicant must ensure that information required by subsection (2)(b) is provided at a level of detail that is proportionate to the scale and significance of the effects that the activity may have on the environment.” That proportionality is the key. It will help cut through some of that red tape in consenting. I commend this bill to the House.

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

Amendments agreed to.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.