I have been waiting so far for something to debate in terms of what this bill is supposedly all about and the effect of its title. It is actually very difficult because although we have heard assertions that this bill is going to cause bureaucratic costs and delays, that it affects the ownership of land, that it is going to be responsible for a heap of terrible things, we have not heard a single reason. We have not heard a shred of evidence. We have not heard reference to anything the bill actually does to support these claims.
Dr Smith got closest to it. He alleged that this bill is going to be responsible for the energy crisis. This bill, apparently, is the reason that Maui Gas* is running out 2 years earlier than it was going to otherwise. This bill is apparently the reason for the faulty electricity market set up by his Government in the previous term. This bill is apparently the reason that it has not rained. I think that New Zealanders are going to take bit of convincing of some of those allegations.
The fact remains that most of this bill is based on the issues that Simon Upton introduced in his bill in 1999. There have been amendments to those, and we got rid of some silly ideas. Some members who have been here a little bit longer might remember the proposed scam of contestable consent processing, where a developer was supposed to be able to go out and choose from the market a planning consultant to process his consent for him. Then the council was only going to have the information provided by that person paid by the developer on which to base their decision. We got rid of that in the No. 1 committee.
Let me call it the No.1 committee because it dealt with the No 1 bill, and I am proud of the fact that we got rid of that. But most of the bill actually retains many of Simon Upton' s quite sensible ideas. As the report back* to the No 1 bill says, which we have not had the opportunity to debate in this Parliament, and I concur with the Opposition in their anger about that - we support the retention with amendments of a number of provisions in the bill - that is, Simon Upton' s bill. Some of the more significant provisions are…, and the bill lists 10 major issues. There are a whole host of others that we did not have time to list. So let us forget the idea that our committee somehow gutted Simon Upton's bill.
There are in fact only five changes to the No 1 bill that are introduced by this bill. It is just as well it did come to the No.2 committee, because we were told there were only two changes, and there are in fact five. But, never mind, we fixed that up in the report back. One of those five changes actually puts back something that was in Simon Upton's bill. So the Opposition ought to be pleased about that, although I am not, and that is limited notification.
I must say I am rather flattered by suggestions by the Opposition that I single-handedly* gutted Simon Upton's bill. Well, I have sat on a few select committees in my 6 1/2 years in Parliament, and I have never yet been to one where one person exercises a vote that outweighs the other 11 votes on the committee. A majority of that committee chucked out the silly ideas in Simon Upton's bill, and that was the right thing to do.
The fact is that this No 2 bill actually reflects two things. First of all, it reflects the Government's panic at the thought of spending 2 weeks in the Committee stage on this bill, and it has therefore collapsed it into one part. I actually would have supported collapsing it into, perhaps, five or six parts, but I think that collapsing it into one part is completely over the top. Secondly, it reflects the Government's loss of nerve during its first difficult winter when business revved up anger and fury at public participation in consent decisions, and somehow threatened the Government that if there was going to be any democracy left in the Resource Management Act, business was not going to be pleased. And that is responsible for two of the big changes: the putting back in of limited notification, and in fact removing the democratic opportunity to have notification decisions reviewed by the Environment Court in order to bring into line some of those councils who have already been found by the High Court to be seriously abusing the fact that there is no review of their decisions.
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