Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) Link to this

In accordance with a decision of the House, there will be a 5-hour debate, with members having an unlimited number of speeches of 5 minutes each. At the end of 5 hours all the provisions of the bill will be put as one question. The amendments will be put before the question on the provisions.

Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) Link to this

Tēnā koe, Mr Chairperson. I say before we start that it was very enjoyable having you in Te Tai Tokerau to show you the Marsden Point oil refinery and to learn what your party really thinks about climate change. However, that is for another time.

I want to focus on three elements before my colleagues contribute. The first is notification, the second is the coast, and the third is the decimation of the trees. No more tōtara, no more rimu, no more pōhutukawa; all we will find in a National-dominated Tāmaki-makau-rau is puha and wīwī. I want to know why Government members are spending all this time on developing a super-city but are unwilling to give the authority to the super-city to generate rules, plans, and safeguards for the resources of that particular area. They are insistent on carrying on with this. It looks like a “ninny State”—a nanny State development out of the National caucus, much to the detriment of our people in Auckland.

However, let me come back to notification. Notification is referred to in one or two of the Supplementary Order Papers, and the reason why we are very, very reluctant to allow this to go unchallenged—and why we will not be agreeing with this particular provision in the context of the Committee debate—is that this is the first opportunity New Zealand neighbours and residents have to know about a proposed activity. We are entrusting far too much to the bureaucracy of the local government as to whether a matter is of a minor character. Once people lose that opportunity, they lose goodwill, and people feel that they are being denied a key part of what resource management married to social democracy means: a chance to have an influence through a guided process—not a gilded process but a statutory process. That chance has been removed. There has been a presumption that this bill is neutral. We would have preferred to see that citizens could rely on the fact that where an activity is proposed they will receive notice of it. It is highly likely that that activity will not have a deleterious effect on them anyway—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this

The environment spokesperson for Labour, Mr Shane Jones, identified a number of issues that Labour wants to debate in the Committee stage. I think he has done a pretty fair measure of identifying the controversial issues: the issues in respect of trees, the issues in respect of notification, and the issues in respect of the ministerial veto that we are removing in respect of coastal consents. I am looking forward to the debate over the next 5 hours as we canvass some of those issues.

I want to go straight to the issue of trees. When the environment spokesperson for Labour, Mr Shane Jones, gave his second reading speech his very first comments were that 50,000 resource consents for New Zealand were too many and we need to have fewer. I agree with him. If we ask officials where there are a whole lot of meaningless resource consents that cost a whole lot of money and achieve absolutely nothing, the answer has to be tree trimming. Let me give members the numbers. We have 5,000 resource consents per year for people who trim trees. Do members know what the most remarkable fact is? That number is for only eight of our 86 councils. There are 5,000 resource consents per year so that people can trim a tree. Does this Parliament really distrust ordinary New Zealanders so much that if they want to trim a tree over 3 metres in height they need to get an arborist’s report and lodge the resource consent with their council? The council official has to consider the consent, visit the tree, and check that it is a proper resource consent. And 97.6 percent of them are approved. Members opposite say that this legislation will result in a chainsaw massacre and that the beautiful landscapes of Auckland will be lost. Well, I have just had lunch with the Mayor of Christchurch. Do they have such rules in the Garden City? No, they do not. Are there fewer trees in Christchurch as a consequence of not having these nanny State rules? Of course there are not.

Then there is the argument from Labour. I have to say that I particularly enjoy the contributions from “Mr Triffid”. You see, he has gone out publicly—

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Green) Link to this

The whole process around the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill has been rushed and slipshod. It came to the House later than the Minister promised, and he was in a big hurry to get it through. The Local Government and Environment Committee sat for a lot of hours to deal with it, and the Green Party is the only opposition here. The Labour Party and every other party in the House except the Green Party is supporting this bill. I think that people who are listening need to know that that is the case.

The first evidence that this bill was rushed and slipshod was the interim report of the expert panel from which the select committee asked for assistance to determine whether the drafting in fact reflected the policy intention. The panel advised us—actually, in quite strong language—that the bill as it stood then would not simplify and streamline the Resource Management Act but would complicate and confuse it, which is what we in the Green Party have been saying since the beginning. The bill adds many pages to the Resource Management Act, and that is hardly simplifying and streamlining. It puts a lot of words in where there used to be few. It does not clarify; it confuses.

The Greens asked the expert panel to work with officials, and they did, under great time pressure, and they substantially changed and improved the drafting of the bill. However, there was not time to do it properly. What do we have now? We have the 44-page Supplementary Order Paper 39, which amends clauses from the beginning of the bill all the way through to the end, and, among other things, completely replaces new Part 6AA, inserted by clause 91. New Part 6AA was in the bill as it was amended by the select committee, and then, under the advice of officials, who have presumably cleared it with the Minister, in the Committee the Government has completely rewritten and replaced Part 6AA in the Supplementary Order Paper. In the reported-back version of the bill we can see that the whole of Part 6AA is underlined as new, but now we have another replacement of Part 6AA. In the space of a couple of weeks they decided they needed to do it differently again. The meaning of those changes is not possible to determine overnight. I do not know. I have looked at the two texts side by side, and they seem to bear little resemblance to each other. We have to take the Minister’s word that there is no substantive policy change there.

This reminds me of a series of speeches made last year by the then Opposition spokesman on climate change, who relentlessly attacked the previous Minister for climate change on the basis that he had introduced a Supplementary Order Paper to the legislation that set up the emissions trading scheme that was extremely long and made a lot of technical corrections. When we compare the two we will find that, proportionally, this Supplementary Order Paper is larger in relation to the bill it amends than the one that the previous Opposition spokesman on the environment attacked the previous Government for. So I am looking forward to an explanation from Nick Smith as to why, now that he is a Minister, it is OK to bring in a Supplementary Order Paper—

CHRIS AUCHINVOLE (National—West Coast - Tasman) Link to this

It is a pleasure to speak in the Committee stage of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. I would not use the words we heard from the previous speaker, Jeanette Fitzsimons, to describe the way the bill has gone through the House; I would use the words “thorough”, “totally engaged”, “committed”, and “diligent” to describe the Local Government and Environment Committee’s work, and the conduct of each and every member of it. I am surprised. The fact is that the Greens do not like the bill; they have said so from the beginning. That has always been acknowledged. It was not a matter of contention or debate. We approached the whole thing as everybody working together, and I am sorry that they wish to downplay the activities of the select committee and sell its work a little cheap. I am sure that the previous speaker did not really intend to do that, because we met regularly and we met often. We discussed a wide range of activities. A lot has been said about trees, and I will speak about them in a minute. We also heard from some serious, committed, diligent people from councils. We heard from the Porirua City Council that 90 percent of the consent applications they receive are not in a state ready for processing. This was echoed by other councils. The interesting thing in the whole approach to this bill was the level of support we received from councils, planners, and people who are involved at the coalface.

According to planners I have spoken to, the changes to notification will save huge amounts of time because of the freedom from needlessly writing reports to justify why they have not notified a particular application.

CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) Link to this

I will take a call relating to the changes being made to notification in the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. I do not think that the previous speaker, Chris Auchinvole, was right when he said that the legislation somehow creates a neutral position, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister on that. In reading the bill afresh it seems to me that it removes the presumption in favour of notification, so that there is now a presumption the other way, in favour of non-notification. That means that instead—

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this

I want to respond to a couple of the points that have been made. The first of those is in respect of the timetable and the intent of the bill. I know it may be a novel concept, but the Government is doing what it said it would do. We said we would introduce a bill to streamline and simplify the Resource Management Act within our first 100 days in office, and we did. We also said we would pass that bill into law within a period of 6 months, and we are doing so. I am surprised that other members in the Chamber are criticising us for doing exactly what we told the electorate we would do.

Mr Charles Chauvel made a thoughtful contribution around the issue of notification. He raised a point that was also raised by Jeannette Fitzsimons of the Green Party. It is a very important point around the thresholds for notification. It is proper that the Committee debate those. In Supplementary Order Paper 39, in terms of adverse effects that may be more than minor, my intention is to remove the words “may be” and substitute the words “likely to be”—and I ask members to remember that the consents I am talking about are the minor, small ones that are on the margin as to whether they should be notified. We do not want council officials having to spend huge amounts of time trying to work out what is minor, so we are saying in the Supplementary Order Paper that those consents are minor or likely to be minor. We are quite deliberately providing a bit more cover for council officials in that regard.

Other members have given examples, but let me give the Chamber an example. There is a real shortage of early childhood centres in my electorate. There are children who cannot get into an early childhood centre and get an early childhood education. I do not think there is a member of this Chamber who would not say that parents living in central Nelson need to have a place for their children to get an early childhood education.

I have an application from a person to build an early childhood centre. The council said that all the neighbours agreed. The neighbours said they wanted to have the children around. But the people six doors down said there would be increased traffic flows in their street, and they insisted on the right to be notified. So the council officials asked what the current law says. The law says that a consent needs to be notified if it has an effect on other people. Well, the early childhood centre will have an effect on that street. I would argue it would be a minor effect, but it will have an effect.

Now, the impact of all of that and of the old law was that it cost the development of that early childhood centre an extra six months in time and an extra $20,000. Who do members of this Committee think will pay the $20,000? It will not be the fairies. There is no money tree. It has to be paid for by the parents of those children. So in this debate about notification, I make no apologies for saying that the effects have to be more than minor in order to justify the cost, the time, and the expense of notification. That is all the Government is saying with respect to these provisions. It is my view that the extra wording that has been developed with Local Government New Zealand—that is, in terms of effects that are or are “likely to be” more than minor—simply gives councils a little bit of room to apply some common sense. If there is anything that we need to get into the administration of the Resource Management Act, it is a good dose of common sense, because right now we are adding too much in cost.

The last point I want to make is that there is a balance to be struck between a level of public participation and the costs and delays because of that participation. In response to Mr Chauvel, I say that the Government makes no bones about the fact that we are shifting that balance. If public participation is to be the only criteria under which we run this Act, we will be relaxed about the fact that it took 17 years for some consents and a very long time for many others.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this

I want to start in this debate by making some general comments, because I think in all the detail we do miss some of the general points about the Resource Management Act. I think the Resource Management Act is one of the most maligned, misunderstood, and misrepresented Acts in our country. It has been attacked repeatedly, over and over, by vested interests. It has been subjected to absolutely vitriolic attack by those who want to advance the interests of developers, and so forth, yet the Resource Management Act exists to protect our environment.

There are two fundamental principles of the Resource Management Act. One is protection of the environment, and the other is public participation in decision making. Those are the two fundamental planks of the Resource Management Act. In the midst of the debate around red tape, cost, and so forth, I think we forget that the Resource Management Act is one of the primary bulwarks to protect the New Zealand environment on which we all depend. It is about protecting our land, our water, and our wildlife.

I think we also take it for granted that this is New Zealand—clean, green, and 100 percent pure. We forget that the reason why we have any kind of protection in our country is that community groups have been able to use the Resource Management Act to protect their local environment. As I travel around Aotearoa New Zealand, time after time it is community groups, it is hapū, and it is iwi who find themselves in front of consent panels and in front of the Environment Court, doing the hard yards to protect the environment of our country. Yet we have an Act that changes the balance. It changes the balance against the community so that it is harder for the community groups, the people, the not-for-profit groups, and the volunteers who do the work to protect New Zealand’s environment, day in, day out and year in, year out. These are the people who come before the Environment Court and get vilified, often by National and others, because they dare to stand up for the environment. They dare to clog up the courts, as it is told, because they dare to stand up for this country.

The Government of the day has now decided it needs to tilt the balance against the volunteers, the iwi, and the hapū of our country, who constantly stand up to protect the environment. The Government wants to change the balance against those voluntary groups, in favour of those who want to destroy the environment. That is what the Government is trying to do with this legislation. It is undermining the fundamental purpose of the legislation, which is environmental protection and community participation.

When we look at New Zealand and at our economy, we see that it is highly dependent on being clean, green, and 100 percent pure—more than most other places. In fact, it is built on the work that all of those not-for-profit groups and volunteers have done. We have built our economy on their backs. The people who have protected our environment are the people who underwrite and have formed the foundation for the New Zealand economy—the environment. This applies to every economy in the world because every economy, of course, is entirely dependent on the environment. But it applies to New Zealand in particular because we have decided to build our entire brand—as the Prime Minister calls it, the “master brand” of New Zealand—on being 100 percent pure, clean and green.

Those people who protect the environment now have a much harder job doing what they do best, which is looking after our country. This bill changes the balance against them. As the Minister quite rightly said, it is restricting community participation. Yeah; that is exactly right. It will make it harder for the non-governmental organisation sector and harder for community groups to do their job. In the Green Party, we think that is disgraceful.

I think we need to appreciate, as well, that if we were working against a backdrop of dramatically improving environmental performance, if we had biodiversity that was going through the roof, and if we had a background of environmental performance whereby we were getting better and better, year after year, then we might have some argument. But the reality of Aotearoa New Zealand is that we are seeing a decline in biodiversity. We are seeing a decline in the quality of our rivers and lakes, we are seeing a decline in the environment that underpins everything else, and here we are, weakening the law that is designed to protect the environment. We are seeing a decline in the environmental standards, the biodiversity on which we all depend, and that underpins the New Zealand economy. National, ACT, and the Māori Party so far, and Labour, are all voting for a law that weakens environmental protection.

Why would we weaken environmental protection, when the reality in our country is that we already have a declining and degrading environment? Why would we vote for a law that weakens the power of community groups to protect the environment? Why would we do that, when we already have declining environmental standards?

We need to address the broader picture, which is the ideology that says New Zealand is bound up in red tape; that somehow our country is completely bound up in red tape. I have in front of me the World Bank Group’s report Doing Business. This report ranks economies all around the world on the ease of doing business. The most recent report Doing Business 2010: Reforming through Difficult Times put out by the World Bank Group covers June 2008 through to May 2009. The easiest country in the world to do business in, and the one that has the least red tape, is Singapore, which I am not sure we really want to model ourselves on in all respects. The second easiest country in the world to do business in is New Zealand.

When we look at the international comparisons done by international bodies looking at the ease of doing business in the world, New Zealand is the second easiest place to do business. So all this rhetoric about how it is really impossible for New Zealand business to get ahead because of all the red tape falls flat, when we look at an independent report—rather than just an ideological position statement, as comes out from the Government so often—done by the World Bank Group where New Zealand comes out as the second easiest place on the planet to do business.

If we dig into the report a little bit deeper and look at some of the detail, we see a section called “Dealing with Construction Permits”, which looks, in particular, at obtaining a resource consent, obtaining a water consent, obtaining a building consent, and getting an inspection from the district council. If we look at those categories, they all go to inform the overall rating that New Zealand has as the second easiest place on the planet to do business. New Zealand ranks fifth on the planet for dealing with construction permits, which includes all of the resource consent permits and the water consent permits. When the ideological position is put forward that New Zealand is bound up from top to tail in red tape, I ask people to look at the evidence rather than listen to the ideological positions that are coming out of the Government.

In fact, when we look at New Zealand’s performance, one of the reasons we perform so poorly in terms of protecting the environment is that we are not using regulations properly. Where are the national environmental standards? Where are the national policy statements that were always supposed to be part of the Resource Management Act, and that were a key part of protecting the environment? If we put up those “terrible” national policy statements and national environmental standards, we would be told that we are generating more red tape and more regulation. Those kinds of regulations provide consistency for business and protect the environment, and they were always assumed to be an essential part of the Resource Management Act framework.

If the Government wants to put energy into developing national policy statements and national environmental standards, then the Green Party will stand alongside them, as long as they improve environmental standards rather than set a maximum, more of which we will talk about later. At this stage we have this so-called streamlining bill, which seems only to be reducing environmental standards, thereby making it harder for community groups to protect the environment. It will make it harder for community groups to do their job and to do what non-governmental organisations have done for years in our country, which is protect the environment on which our economy and our quality of life depend.

Why is it that we have this ideological position around red tape, and all the evils of red tape? Where are the Bluegreens in all of this? The member for Auckland Central is voting for a bill that will result in the loss of tree cover in Auckland. Why are the Bluegreens standing behind a bill that will weaken the Resource Management Act? Fundamentally, that is what this law does and what it is designed to do—weaken the Resource Management Act.

I also ask the Bluegreens to look at the membership of the technical advisory group that formed this bill to start with. There was one—at least one—environmentalist on the technical advisory group; I give you that. But the technical advisory group membership was dominated by those who were not out to promote environmental protections; they were there to do the opposite.

NIKKI KAYE (National—Auckland Central) Link to this

I will make a quick point in response to Mr Norman regarding the fact that bureaucracy often holds up good environmental progress. A good example is Akaroa, where it has taken 2 years to get a resource consent around water treatment.

The other point I will make is around trees and clause 52 of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. We have heard a little bit about that clause today. I acknowledge the stance the Greens have taken on this issue, but I also acknowledge the temporary tree-huggers, the Labour Party. Those members failed to put up a minority report on this issue. I have concerns about the legislation but I am pleased we are having this discussion. I believe that the current system of tree rules in Auckland is fraught, that councils are spending excessive time on this issue, and that many individuals are spending excessive money on resource consents for trees. The question that needs to be asked is not about politicking, but about how we fix this. I believe that it is reasonable for individuals to be able to prune and trim their trees, so that is quite a positive change that will be made as a result of this bill.

However, I have a specific concern about tree scheduling. I want to ask the Minister in the chair, Nick Smith, and I would like him to take a call on this, how the people of Auckland can have confidence that between now and January 2012 high-value trees and bush will be adequately protected via tree scheduling. I think there are some benefits in respect to the Auckland governance reforms in that there will be fewer systems in place. There may be one team, if you like, that will be responsible for tree scheduling; I think that is positive. It is also positive that the Auckland governance reforms are coming into place because I think it will be easier to do scheduling. I invite the Minister for the Environment to take a call on that matter.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this

The member for Auckland Central, Nikki Kaye, raised quite an important point. The Labour Party has not yet learnt the degree to which it alienated the voters of Auckland Central. You see, Labour lost that seat for the first time ever—the first time ever—and I would be happy to bet the best bottle of Nelson wine that Nikki Kaye will be returned at the next election. Every member has been impressed with the way in which Nikki Kaye has represented that community. I am happy to bet with any member of this House that she will be returned at the next election because of that effective representation.

Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) Link to this

The Minister who has just resumed his seat, the Hon Nick Smith, said he had read the commentary on the bill and found no reference to Labour members’ concern about changes to the tree protection rules. The commentary on the bill makes the point that not all of the committee supported the prohibition on blanket tree protection. I will read from the commentary: “On balance most of us supported prohibiting blanket tree protection rules in planning documents. A number of us, however, regard clause 52, as amended, as unsatisfactory and would have preferred a more comprehensive solution for protecting urban trees.” There it is; there is exactly what the Minister said was not there. The Minister has not even read the commentary from the select committee. He has made that same reference twice.

I will return to some of the other serious issues in the bill—firstly the Environmental Protection Authority. I encourage the Minister to build up the capability of the Environmental Protection Authority with the Resource Management Act. In 2005 the Minister, with me and Jeanette Fitzsimons, was on the select committee that considered the previous major amendment to the Resource Management Act. We were somewhat dismayed at the quality of some of the drafting and some of the suggestions that came forward. With respect to the officials, there have been similar concerns about some of the amendments that were put forward for the legislation that went to the select committee this time. That is a matter of concern. I know that the Resource Management Act is a complex document, but there is a need for more capability within the Ministry for the Environment in respect of what is its core legislation. The fact that the ministry needs to do better in that regard is pretty clear from some inadequate drafting and advice in respect of both pieces of legislation. I am not making a political point here, because the last time it happened was under a Labour Government; this time it is under a National Government. There is a need for better understanding within the ministry of the detail of its own legislation. If it does not have such understanding internally, then it needs to contract it in.

The second point I will make is in respect of notification. I agree with comments that have been made by Jeanette Fitzsimons and Charles Chauvel. The Supplementary Order Paper that has been brought forward today dramatically changes the notification rules from those that were reported back. Until now the version of the bill that came back from the select committee stated that if there may be an adverse effect that is more than minor, then it had to be notified. Notification is the prerequisite to public involvement. If people do not know about something, they cannot submit on it.

According to the version that was reported back to the House, people have to be notified if there may be an environmental effect that is more than minor. The wording now gets changed so that it has to be proven to the satisfaction of the consenting authority that there will be an adverse effect that is more than minor, or there is likely to be such an adverse effect. Rather than it being a case of there may be an environmental effect that is more than minor, there now has to be a probability that there will be an environmental effect. Councils will be advertising and notifying fewer applications as a consequence. Therefore, people will not be informed of more applications that have an adverse effect than was the case previously. That is a very significant change, and I am surprised that it has been done late by way of a Supplementary Order Paper. Again, that amplifies the point I made earlier in terms of capability within the Ministry for the Environment on Resource Management Act matters. It is a poor change, and it is something that I would like to see overturned in the future.

There are some good things in the bill, which I acknowledge. There is always a need for housekeeping legislation. Again, I repeat the point I made that this legislation is vastly improved compared with its first reading version because we have restored rights to appeal on the merits against plan changes, which were absolutely essential changes. If it had not been for that change, Labour certainly would not be supporting the bill despite our reservations in the subsequent reading stages.

I will make two other references—firstly to the Minister of Conservation’s power. Under the existing law, if an application is made that affects land above the high-water mark, that land is generally owned by somebody, and the owner of that land has the right to say that he or she does not want that happening on his or her land. The owner effectively exercises a right of veto. The owner or occupier of land has an effective right of control to say “No, not here. It’s not right. It might be permitted under the plan but I don’t want it.”

Under the prior legislation, in respect of areas that are in the marine environment, they are not owned by private landowners. That right of veto is effectively held on behalf of all New Zealanders by the Crown. That is how it should be. The Crown deals with that through the Minister of Conservation having a right of veto and being able to say, on behalf of the Government, the Crown, and the people of New Zealand, just as if he or she was a private landowner, “No, it’s not going to happen here; we don’t think it’s the right thing.” Of course the Crown should have the right to do that; it is one of the responsibilities of the Crown to look after the wider public interest in respect of areas that are being managed for public purposes by the Crown.

The existing rights are constrained. That was shown clearly by the marina decision that the Minister relied upon in saying there was a need for change. In fact, in relation to the marina decision, it was found through a High Court review of the Minister’s discretion that in that case the Minister had incorrectly exercised his discretion. There is no shame in that; sometimes these mistakes are made. But it showed that the system works, because there was not an inappropriate withholding of consent.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this

I will make two responses to the contribution from Mr Parker. The first interesting thing in his speech was that he said he accepts that the current tree rules are an overkill and should be changed. He also said in respect of the other area on which he focused his speech that he does not necessarily think that the law as it relates to the Minister of Conservation’s veto is right, either. Well, is it not interesting? Labour had 9 years in Government to try to fix these bureaucratic problems with the Resource Management Act—

SUE KEDGLEY (Green) Link to this

Jeanette Fitzsimons said this morning that the Government cannot disguise the fact that the true purpose of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill is to remove the obstacle of public participation from the path of developers wanting to make their money at the expense of the environment and the community. That is absolutely clear. That is the underlying intention of the bill. The intention has been disguised by good words and so forth, but the hundreds and hundreds of submitters on the bill are very well aware that that is the true purpose of the bill.

One of the ways to remove the obstacle of public participation is through the notification provisions. The Government is tightening up the notification rules so that councils will have to notify affected parties about a development only if the effects “may be more than minor”, whereas previously councils had to notify affected parties if the effects “will be more than minor”. That might seem to be just a minor quibbling over words and not of great significance, but I assure people listening to this debate that the changes to those words are hugely significant. Some people have already predicted that they will effectively make non-notification the norm. Non-notification is virtually the norm already, because 95 percent of resource consents are not notified. Only 5 percent were notified under the previous rules, and now that they are being tightened up I predict that very few developments will need to be notified.

It is a very subjective rule, and councils interpret it differently, but I can say that when I was a councillor on the Wellington City Council for 8 years, lack of notification was the most common issue that I had to deal with in my constituency. People would wake up one morning to find a development going up next door. I well remember hearing from a guy in Hataitai who had woken up one sunny morning and looked out of the window to see his neighbour with a wheelbarrow. When he waved at him and started chatting to the neighbour he discovered that a huge building—a three-storey dwelling—was to go up outside his house without his being notified. A few months later all he could see out of his enormous windows was a great big concrete wall 1 metre away. That was a non-notified development. I could tell members numerous examples of what I had to deal with as a city councillor.

An enormous building is going up in Oriental Bay that was non-notified. It has had a huge impact.

LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō) Link to this

I am pleased to speak in the Committee stage of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. One of the things that I think has been missing is the focus on the fact that it is a simplifying and streamlining bill.

We have had a lot of debate about trees, which might be of interest to some of the Aucklanders, but other councils around New Zealand have adequate protection for trees—protection that works. Cambridge is a town of trees; it has fantastic trees. It does not have blanket tree protection, but it has the most beautiful trees in the country. The Taupō District Council, which is also part of my electorate for obvious reasons, does not have blanket tree protection.

I will turn this debate, therefore, towards the issues that actually matter to the majority of New Zealanders—the majority of New Zealanders who wanted a National Government because we promised them we would deliver changes to the Resource Management Act. And that is what we are doing: we are delivering a promise that we made to New Zealanders.

I will address the comment the Green Party made that we have rammed through this legislation. I am, quite frankly, disappointed with that. The Local Government and Environment Committee worked together very, very well. We had a great discussion and we made several changes. As a result of discussion on the first draft of the bill and the submissions, we have had many, many changes. We have had healthy discussion and healthy debate, and there have been significant changes from the first draft of the bill. We have come to a good position, and of course Labour thinks it is a great bill, as well. Labour members voted for it. They did not bother to put into the report as a minority report any comments they have said in the House today, because, inherently, they agree with the position.

I will come back to what many New Zealanders are interested in with regard to the Resource Management Act, which is its simplifying and streamlining. I will put in a plug for hard-working New Zealanders who want to build a garage on the back of their property, who want to extend their existing house, or who—though how dare they, if they are in Auckland—might want to trim a tree. It is actually those guys who will have huge benefit from this legislation.

I will give members the example of my brother. He wanted to build a fairly simple extension on to his house. We would have expected the resource consent to be back in 20 days. But because he had not done this before, he went to the expense of getting a planning consultant to advise him on the process, and to make sure that he came out with a successful resource consent at the end of it.

Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) Link to this

I congratulate the Minister in the chair, Dr Nick Smith, on taking so many calls on the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill to put his perspective to us and to help clarify some situations, but I am concerned about the removal of the Minister of Conservation’s decision-making powers in respect of coastal consents for restricted coastal activities. I was Minister of Conservation for only a year, but in that year I recognised that the public of New Zealand felt a sense of security because of that role of the Minister of Conservation. That role is repealed by clause 20. I think a feel-good factor was there about the Minister of Conservation being the activist and the protector on behalf of New Zealanders as a last resort. It gave New Zealanders a lot of confidence that the Minister would exercise that role; it was not used with gay abandon, as the Minister for the Environment said it was. There were only two cases in which the role was exercised, but I believe it is absolutely critical to have it there.

I ask Dr Smith what we heard from Local Government and Environment Committee responses to the repeal made by clause 20. Eighty-three percent of submissions felt opposed to it. I think that says a lot about New Zealand. As well, 76 percent opposed changes made by clause 83. I think this shows that New Zealanders do not feel comfortable with this change. Just having those powers there was a means of protection for all New Zealanders that they were comfortable with.

I picked up another issue when I was the Minister of Conservation, and that was the overlapping issues with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. Many were still disaffected, particularly in the Whangamata marina case, about protection aspects of land that were subjected to a Treaty claim. I think we need to look at that issue very closely. One cannot look at the Resource Management Act just on its own, take away the powers of the Minister of Conservation, and think that solves the problem. It will leave a legacy for iwi with cases that they are really unsure about. Within some common-sense applications regional councils are over-exercising their powers without oversight of the Minister of Conservation, but under the jurisdiction of another Minister—the Minister for the Environment. That really worries me. I think that power of veto was wonderful. It was not abused; it was exercised with due constraint. We may have got it wrong on the Whangamata decision, but in the end the working through showed that the issue there was process. We always said that the process needed to be clarified. When this bill was first put before us in some rushed state we said we should look at the UK model, where the Minister of Conservation is involved at the front end of the process for restricted coastal activities. That model works. But the Government is simply taking away the powers of the Minister of Conservation. I think it is a very sad day for us all in New Zealand.

The Minister in the chair also mentioned national policy statements and the Coastal Policy Statement. One piece of work that I was particularly proud of was the work that Judge Shonagh Kenderdine got moving on the Coastal Policy Statement. I can remember when the Minister in the chair was the National spokesperson on the environment. He asked me several times in the House what had happened to the national policy statements. Well, I ask Dr Smith what has happened to the Coastal Policy Statement. We quite rightly said that the report should come to an incoming Government, but that was in November. What has happened to the report from Judge Shonagh Kenderdine, which she prepared with very learned people who went around the country working on the Coastal Policy Statement? Where is that report? Why is that thinking not factored—

Dr CAM CALDER (National) Link to this

It is a privilege to stand again to address members on the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. My previous oration this morning on the issue of trees was cut off somewhat; one could say it was truncated. I would like to return to that subject. As the Minister observed, we need to apply a good dose of common sense in the Resource Management Act, and I think that with the broad cross-party support we have received on this issue, we are getting it.

Clause 52 of the bill, which deals with the general protection of trees in the urban environment, has occasioned much correspondence from the community, mirrored by the debate in the House. The major urban area affected by clause 52 is Greater Auckland, where a number of councils have general tree protection rules. There is a school of thought that clause 52 will countenance widespread rapine and plunder of our precious urban arboreal resources. What is it about Auckland and those who live there that should occasion such concern? As an MP who is resident in Auckland and fortunate to have his office in the green and leafy electorate of Epsom, I feel I must stand and speak on behalf of those residents who wish to trim or remove a tree on their property, without the time-consuming and expensive process of seeking a consent. This Government believes that citizens who own their properties should be able to do just that.

Are those good residents, as I asked this morning, all vegetal Visigoths? Are they philistines of Philodendron; plunderers of pōhutukawa; pillagers of pūriri; or castrators of kauri? I suggest that they are not. Are those good people ravagers of Rhododendron; topplers of tawa—

Hon NANAIA MAHUTA (Labour—Hauraki-Waikato) Link to this

I rise to speak after that entertaining interlude. There is a saying in Māoridom: “When one tōtara falls, another one stands.” But in the Opposition, when one tōtara falls, another building is built. After hearing Cam Calder, I say that his speech was very entertaining. We know now why it took such a long time for him to have another speech.

I want to go back to a speech made by a colleague of the member, the member for Taupō, Louise Upston. She talked about getting the balance right. If getting the balance right means we have a top-heavy model weighted in favour of developers, at the expense of public participation in the Resource Management Act, she can have it. I know that there are a great many more people in the Taupō community who have very real concerns about the way in which the changes to the Resource Management Act are weighted in favour more of developers and less of the community, public participation, and certainly iwi and hapū input into decision making.

I listened to the Minister’s previous contribution and I say that one thing is for sure: under the previous Labour Government, when it came to the Resource Management Act, the ability of the public to have input into the consent and planning process was never under threat. It was never under threat, and there was no misunderstanding about it. But what good ideas did we get from National members in their 9 long years in Opposition? Their ideas were to gut the Resource Management Act of any public participation in the resource management process, limit notification, and make it really hard for appeals to happen. We have to ask ourselves whether this is the track that this country, which we are proud to call a clean, green nation, wants to go down. I suspect not, because many submissions were heard during the first tranche of Resource Management Act amendments, and many submitters supported the retention of a high level of public input into decisions made in their local community.

We talk about limited public notification and minor adverse effects. Minor adverse effects are a matter of perspective, and a lot of smaller communities said that a lot of things that were happening in their backyard were of real concern to them, and the only way they could have a say was through greater input into the public process. When we talk about limited notification, in fact a lot of submissions said that people were very concerned about that move. Indeed, only 5 percent of consents are notified, so why change something that is not broken, and why limit the ability and the opportunity of communities—good, thinking citizens, who are concerned about preserving the quality of life in their communities—to have a say on what is happening in their backyard?

A fine example was raised with regard to minor modifications and housing improvements. But let us go to the other end of the spectrum where earthworks are happening that are significant to many communities. There are major earthworks where trees were being cut down on the corner of Grey Street in Hamilton by a developer who had no regard whatsoever to the interests of the community, and who would have rather stumped up with the $50,000 fine than preserve the quality of life and the green space within that part of the Hamilton City community. There are real issues for Māori landowners who, under a minor works umbrella, have seen that, in order for a lines company to clear space under, say, fallen lines, they have actually had another major road ploughed through the middle of their land. That is not minor; those landowners consider it to be very major. When we talk about minor adverse effects and when we talk about raising the threshold of notification, we have to look at a range of examples and not just at the one pointed to by members of the Government. We say that there are works happening under the label of minor adverse effects that need to be notified and that the public should have a say on, because, from the perspective of the local community, people are concerned about the impact on their quality of life and about what is happening in their community.

Again, I say to the Minister that many, many submissions on the issue of limited public notification said that there was really no need to change it—only 5 percent of consents are notified at present. What is the real intention here? It comes on the back of not listening to submissions on Auckland governance, on the back of not listening to a public referendum where a lot of people have spoken, and on the back of ramming through a number of amendments. Clearly the public sentiment has been to ask why we should change some of those things that do not need to be changed. The Minister really needs to provide greater clarity, because on the surface of it, the way in which these types of amendments are moving are weighted more in favour of developers’ interests rather than public input and public participation in the decision-making process. Again, I say that the Minister has taken a number of calls on the bill, and it is important to clarify those things, just so that there is no misunderstanding about what the second tranche of Resource Management Act amendments might foreshadow.

On the issue of Whangamata, one can hardly say that all the issues around it were an everyday type of scenario. But I want to provide my perspective, because it was this issue that, in many respects, provided probably one of the most difficult ranges of interests, and they were not all given equal weight in the consideration of that application. It was the interests that were promoted by Hauraki iwi Ngāti Hako and Ngāti Hei, and endorsed by the Hauraki Māori Trust Board, around really simple things such as that, if there were to be a marina in that space, it would significantly impact on our customary fishing interests, specifically the gathering of pipi in our pipi beds. It was very simple. But the weight of those interests against big development interests with a lot of money behind them was lost in the white water, so to speak. There was never really a sense from local hapū that the severity of their concerns about major impacts—protecting the pipi beds, protecting the natural habitat, and concerns for the moko skink in that area—was ever taken into account.

On the question of retaining the role of the Minister of Conservation, those powers have rarely been used. Why get rid of them? They should be retained for the public interest, and, more important, for the interests that exist amongst hapū with regard to some of the issues that are never really given much weight in the Environment Court, because hapū do not have the resources to have the technical support to provide the level of intensity in their argument within the Environment Court context. I want to support and endorse the contribution made by my colleague Steve Chadwick on the issue of retaining the role of the Minister of Conservation. She makes the good point that now, since the Foreshore and Seabed Act, in Whangamata the car park space, in a strict sense, would be considered as foreshore and seabed area. If we take out the role of the Minister of Conservation, who protects the public interest there? If customary interests are yet to be determined, who then fills that space? Where customary interests have not been determined, I do not think it is the Minister for the Environment. In fact, it should be the Attorney-General. In my mind there needs to be further thinking about how the gap that has been created should be rightly filled by the best person or position. I would say it should be the Attorney-General with regard to the foreshore and seabed space, to ensure that the opportunity for the customary interests of hapū to be claimed can be held, and the space can be preserved in the meantime for the rest of the public. That is the best way. We cannot assume, I say to the Minister, with respect, that the Minister for the Environment is the best Minister to preside over decisions on questions of that nature.

On that front, again I would argue strongly that this role has not been used very often, and there are obviously very specific limitations on the way in which the Minister of Conservation can make decisions. The court said that the process appears to have let the former Minister down on the Whangamata issue. However, let us not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Let us have another look at the implications of the issues of the space that we are talking about, especially when it comes to the foreshore and seabed. I think the Minister needs to revisit the question of who fills that gap. With respect, I do not think it should be the Minister for the Environment in a carte blanche way. In fact, I would petition the Minister strongly to do an assessment and scoping of the various lands that are captured in that domain, and ask for advice to ensure that the Attorney-General be considered as the most relevant person to fill the space, if it is not the Minister of Conservation.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this

I want to respond to a couple of the points that have been raised by Nanaia Mahuta in the Committee stage of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill. Firstly, regarding the issue of the Minister of Conservation’s veto or capacity to overrule the decision of an Environment Court, I put to the Chamber this scenario. Let us say that we had an application that was heard before the Environment Court. The local iwi come along and say that the application will have an adverse effect on their pipi beds, the Environment Court says that they are right, and it turns down the application. In this scenario let us say that the Minister of Conservation was my good colleague Chris Auchinvole, and he said “No, I’m a keen fisherman and I’m going to overrule the Environment Court. I’m going to let it go ahead.” He would be the very first member to scream foul. I say to the member opposite that that is what the law says.

My challenge to the members on my left is this: why do they not trust the Environment Court? There is no other part of the Resource Management Act where Ministers make decisions on individual consents, and members on this side of the House say that we trust the Environment Court. The sorts of issues that the member has raised should be properly dealt with in that court.

JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Green) Link to this

The Greens have put forward a number of Supplementary Order Papers on the notification provisions of the Resource Management (Simplifying and Streamlining) Amendment Bill, and I would like to run through them so that members will be able to support them.

I ask members to turn their attention first to Supplementary Order Paper 43. It removes altogether clause 68, which makes the changes to notification. Basically, these clauses have become a mess. It is confusing. It is not at all clear. We know that it somewhat raises the bar for notification, but it is very unclear how it will be interpreted. It is creating a legal mess. We should go back to the position we had earlier. It was not ideal, but at least we were getting some case law around it, and it was better than what we have now.

That brings me to some comments made by Louise Upston. She talked about people having difficulty getting resource consents to build a garage. Most garages and house extensions need a building consent but they do not need a resource consent. It would have to be an unusual kind of garage—one that shades people’s sunlight, encroaches on the boundary or bulk and location requirements, or whatever—to actually need a resource consent. People certainly would not be notified beyond the immediate neighbours. So it is a very bad example. I give members an example of something of much greater impact that does not get notified, at all: an open-cast coal mine in the Waikato. An open-cast coal mine was regarded as having effects so minor that it did not need notification, at all. I ask members to try that next door!

If Supplementary Order Paper 43 fails, which I am sure will not be the case, we have Supplementary Order Paper 45. It clarifies that in a case of limited notification, where the restrictions on who gets notified are quite narrow, an organisation representing the public interest when there is an impact on that public interest by the development should be regarded as affected persons. Because the definition of “person” under the Resource Management Act makes it clear that organisations are persons under the Act, we would think that an organisation representing the public interest would be a person affected anyway. But some have argued that only natural persons can be affected in the sense of the Act and that, therefore, organisations representing the public interest could be excluded from the limited notification provisions. That is why we have said, for the avoidance of doubt, that these organisations should be regarded as affected persons. If that organisation is the tennis club and water quality is being affected, then it would not qualify. But if the local environment group has done work on water, and water quality will be impacted, then it ought to be notified.

Supplementary Order Paper 45 also omits new section 95D(a)(ii), inserted by clause 68, which has the peculiar effect of saying a person “must disregard any effects on persons who own or occupy—(ii) any land adjacent to that land;”. So people can cause effects on their immediate neighbours, and they do not get notified, but people cannot cause effects further abroad. That seems to be bizarre, and we propose that that new section should be omitted altogether.

Supplementary Order Paper 43 removes clause 131, which is the clause that repeals the right, under section 274 of the Act, to join an appeal brought by another party. I dealt with this issue somewhat in my second reading speech, where I said that the ability to join an appeal brought by somebody else will never be needed by a large developer with full-time lawyers. They will be in there right at the beginning. The people who need section 274 are the people who are holding down jobs and looking after families. They are volunteers, they are part-time, and they just do not see the deadline coming up in time to get into the original case in front of the council. Therefore they lose their right to appeal. As the law stands, section 274 allows them, when someone else appeals, to join that appeal and to bring their information and evidence for the benefit of the court in order to make a better decision. I quote the case of the Cypress mine appeal, where the Buller Conservation Group, under section 274, joined as an interested party the Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, which had appealed. They were able to fund a lawyer, an ecologist, and a landscape architect, and that helped the environment movement produce a well-rounded case in that appeal.

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, and groups like it, sometimes use that ability to join a case. In this case a national environment group brought an appeal, and then the local group was able to join that appeal and bring its local knowledge. Local knowledge is really important in a case like this. I have already mentioned in my second reading speech the case of the local people who knew that the land on which a mining tailings dam was built was unstable and would slip. Unfortunately they were not listened to, even though they got as far as court, and the land was unstable and slipped, and it cost $20 million. The mining company might wish that it had listened at that stage to the local group. So we believe that section 274 adds a useful provision to the Act and should not be repealed.

If all of this fails, finally we have Supplementary Order Paper 44, which clarifies that even if section 274 is repealed, a person representing some aspect of the public interest that is affected by this case can appeal against the case. I recommend those Supplementary Order Papers to the House.

I will talk about trees. We do not have laws on murder because we think every good citizen of Auckland will go out and murder people. We do not have laws against theft because we think most people are thieves. We have those laws because there are a few who might be. Likewise, we do not need tree protection laws because we cannot trust the householders of Auckland; we need tree protection laws because in Auckland, above all other places, a lot of infill development is going on whereby developers buy a section they have no real connection with, do not intend to live on, and have no attachment to, in order to build as many apartments as they can fit on to it, and the trees are in the way. This is a totally different situation from a person with a beautiful magnolia in his or her front garden, who is unlikely to chop it down. That is not who this rule is for. We are talking here about the areas that have the most intense development pressures. Of course we are not losing trees in Christchurch! Developers are not trying to cram multiple apartments into every tiny corner of Christchurch. It is not growing at quite that rate. We have those pressures in a few parts of the country. Councils can use this tool in the public interest where it is necessary to have some control over trees in those areas that are being densified quite fast.

The Minister for the Environment said there were 5,000 applications per year to trim trees. If the Minister is right, then what he is saying is that all of those 5,000 cases would not have had to happen if he had accepted my amendment, which excluded trimming trees and allowed a blanket protection only for felling, removing, or destroying trees. But the Minister would not accept that amendment, at all, despite the fact that it would have dealt with those 5,000 applications, which he said were about trimming trees. My suspicion is that roughly half of them were about trimming trees and roughly half of them were about felling trees, but in either case it would have dramatically reduced those compliance costs.

In addition, councils could delegate the decision to an officer on site who goes out, visits, and makes an assessment. The officer says yes, signs the piece of paper, and says: “Off you go.” There is no need for the mass of paperwork that goes on at the moment. It could be done very quickly and simply. It is just a matter of having a check. The scheduling will create very much greater compliance costs because every single tree scheduled is open to appeal by people who do not want it scheduled. The council will be tied up in a nightmare of compliance, red tape, cost, and paperwork trying to get its schedule, and most councils simply will not try.

Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) Link to this

Self-sown or planted, raised and nurtured by the landowner or growing up naturally through the canopy cover above. Growing over dozens of years, sometimes hundreds of years, sometimes thousands of years, they emerge to provide shelter and shade. They provide stability for our soils, they prevent erosion and slipping. They fertilise, they attract rain, they hold moisture, they provide beauty, wilderness, amenity, and view. They refresh our souls as well as our waters. Trees. They are slow to grow, quick to go.

At the heart of the debate lies this paradox. There are two competing views of the ownership of these things called trees. On the one side is a party that believes that ownership is entirely individual and entirely temporal, and therefore every individual should have the ultimate right to cut them down. On this side we have a party that believes that trees are part of our birthright that we give to other generations, and are also something that we own collectively as well as individually. In recognition of that broader view, some communities around New Zealand have joined together to agree rules that everybody in that community should stand by in the way that they either protect, or decide to chop down, a tree. Clause 52 amends section 76 of the Resource Management Act to prohibit any rule in a district plan from providing for the protection of any tree or group of trees in an urban environment. It is an act of prohibition against any community deciding that there is a common interest in maintaining those trees. Clause 151 requires any council to remove rules from the district plan by 1 January 2012, conveniently after the next general election, which probably explains why the Government has brought in a Supplementary Order Paper that at least scores the unrestricted trimming of a tree immediately on the passage of this bill, before the next general election, just in case National does not win it.

Here we come to another fascinating political point. In the life of any Government there are some key moments, moments when in its arrogance it puts its big boot right in the organic matter, and this is one of those moments, just as it was on adult and community education cuts, and just as it was when the public decided that it was revolted by Rodney Hide’s minimalist vision of a local government agenda. On this issue inboxes are clogged with hundreds and hundreds of emails from Aucklanders who say that it is not the Government’s right to override their democratically elected councils that have put in place rules that the majority stand for. Here is the problem. This is an active override by central Government over local democracy, from a party that campaigned against the nanny State! This is the chainsaw State, the bulldozer State, driving its way through local government rules. It is the party of liberty crushing bottom-up democracy—go figure! That is what these tree provisions are really about.

This is a bill that was supposed to streamline and simplify, but whose only solution to the trees issue is to create a mountain of bureaucratic red tape by requiring that every tree or—maybe, just maybe, especially if Lynne Pillay’s amendment goes through—group of trees has to be individually scheduled by the council, creating a trail of paperwork and further consultation. They say the blanket rules are too bureaucratic so we are going to get 100,000 little individual rules for each tree. One of the members opposite raised the subject of Timaru. I grew up not far from there. That is the kind of place where, if people are driving along an empty country road and see another car, they wave because they never know whether it is the last car they will see. It is not hard to protect an individual tree in Timaru; there are not too many of them. But it is a totally different scenario in Waitakere, where I now have the privilege of living. In Waitakere, there are hundreds of thousands of trees. It is completely impractical to do individual scheduling or even small group scheduling of trees, and many properties and many dwellings exist in the bush.

There is a ridiculously inequitable state of affairs in these clauses, because they apply only to urban trees and urban councils. That says that rural people—is that because they vote National more often—must love their trees more or would be more sensible. Is that the hidden agenda here? Why should urban people not have the right to join together through a democratically elected council and protect their native flora? It does not make any sense, it is inequitable, and it is unnecessary because streamlining is an operational matter. It does not need to be a legislative matter. If it is, the Greens have an amendment that quite rightly allows for improved trimming and provides for on-the-spot consenting processes, and we believe that there is a lot of potential there to find a good middle ground. We are not opposed to streamlining, but we believe that these provisions take the Act in the opposite direction.

The legislation is unethical. It manifests an extreme individualism. It says “The tree on my property is mine alone. It doesn’t matter if it took 200 years to grow. It doesn’t matter if I am a blink in the eye of the life of the tree. It doesn’t matter if as well as being on my property it provides shade or stability for the properties beside me, above me, or below me on the hill, and it doesn’t matter if removing it might cause erosion or a slip. That does not matter. It does not matter if it is part of a view. It doesn’t matter if it is part of a line of pōhutukawa along the coast. That does not matter, because it is mine alone.” That is the kind of individualism that ordinary New Zealanders do not buy into.

Labour will be vigorously opposing these tree provisions, and we will be moving three amendments to remove or reduce them. Phil Twyford will be moving amendments to strip those offending provisions from the bill because they are wrong and they should go. At the very least, they should be deferred into the second tranche of the Resource Management Act reforms so that the Government has time to properly consult. If National is a party of consultation, then let it be true to its word. I will be moving an amendment to exempt the Waitakere Ranges Heritage Area, established by this Parliament not a year ago after 30 years’ work and supported by 81 percent of Aucklanders, according to Colmar Brunton. That should be akin to a reserve or a conservation management area, and that should be exempted for very, very sensible reasons from the operation of those clauses, if they stand. If the Government rejects both of those two, I call on the Minister to state whether he will support an amendment on behalf of Waitakere City by Lynne Pillay MP. They are technical amendments that hold the Minister to his word that it is not an individual tree but a group of trees that can be scheduled, if scheduling must occur.

I come to the fundamental point that the trees of west Auckland are a community resource as well as an individual resource. There are far too many homes on properties of less than 4,000 square metres that are reticulated that are surrounded by trees. In fact, the only area on some properties that is not treed is the physical area of the house. The rest of it is solid tree cover, and scheduling every tree is a nonsense. At best, it is a bureaucratic nightmare; at worst, it is a deliberate con. That brings me to National’s Auckland MPs. Nikki Kaye goes around the tree groups and says that she will help. Either she knows she is powerless and she is not being frank, or she has an overblown impression of the Minister’s willingness to listen. Either way, it is vacuous; she has delivered nothing. Paula Bennett would not return the phone calls of the Waitakere City Council. She presents herself as a defender of west Auckland, yet she is selling it down the river. Tim Groser could not be bothered because he is overseas. Pita Sharples could not pick up the phone. In his case, I understand there may some family reasons, so we will cut him some slack on that. But I call on Māori Party members to be the kaitiaki of the trees, not just talk about it, and vote with Labour if they can get over themselves and long-past history, and support these amendments.

Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister for the Environment) Link to this

That was an extraordinary contribution from David Cunliffe. It was wrong in fact, wrong in process, and wrong in philosophy. Let me go through each of the issues. The member opposite said that there is no provision except for individual tree protection. That is wrong. There is absolute capacity for groups of trees to be identified for protection through the proper process. All this bill does is ban blanket protection rules across the district.

The second error I want to mention, which I find extraordinary, concerns amendments. Where are all the amendments that Labour members moved at the select committee when they heard submissions on this bill? I do not think a single amendment was put forward at the select committee. [Interruption] Mr Twyford has said he has strong concerns. He was on the select committee. Was he asleep? Was he not there? Why did Labour members not move a single amendment at the select committee when these detailed provisions concerning trees were being dealt with? They have completely let the side down.

Let us turn to the issue of philosophy. I will explain very simply the philosophy on this side of the Chamber. In an extraordinary backwards flip the member David Cunliffe is saying that somehow the changes we are making are an attack on liberty. Let me very simply explain for the member the principle that applies here. It is perfectly proper for Parliament to define something as simple as a person’s property right. Probably the most important asset that New Zealanders own is their little quarter acre, and it is the proper business of this Parliament to define the limits and the extent of people’s rights around their little quarter acres.