Despite demonstrating little to no understanding about the bill he wrote, the Prime Minister has championed the Minister for the Environment, proudly stating that the Minister is “meeting and exceeding our expectations for our cabinet”.

In the same questioning session, the Minister for the Environment doubled down on his legislation, making factually incorrect claims and demonstrating even he, the author of the legislation, did not actually understand what clauses of the Resource Management (Increased Streamlining) Amendment Bill do.

The stated purpose of the RMA Streamlining Bill is “to streamline resource consent applications pursuant to the RMA 1991 as to make it so that important infrastructural upgrades, enhancements, and constructions are consented to by an appropriate authority as soon as possible”. In the first reading of the legislation, Minister Wilhelmus made the argument that the issues in the consenting process were primarily down to the ability of the Environment Court to ‘strike down’ developments. Examples raised were the (economically nonviable) Wellington International Airport runway extension which has been delayed and challenged in the Environment Court, and the rejected Basin Reserve flyover project.

The Basin Reserve flyover already enjoyed a fast-tracked consenting process, as it was deemed by the Minister of the Environment to be a matter of national significance and so enjoyed substantial consideration by a Board of Inquiry, rather than a consenting authority or the Environment Court, within a faster 9 month time-frame. This power is already granted under section 142 of the RMA. The government’s Board of Inquiry rejected the consent, which the applicant (the NZTA) then appealed in the High Court, only to lose again.

Neither project would have been saved by the Minister’s proposed reforms, as the Minister claimed.

Sections 87D to 87I of the RMA 1991 allow for a consent applicant to apply for their consent application to be fast-tracked to the Environment Court for consideration, rather than have it initially considered by the consenting authority. This is useful for consent applications like the runway extension, where the applicant expects it to be appealed to the Environment Court anyway. These clauses were inserted by the Key Government to streamline the consenting process, allowing applicants to skip a redundant step.

The amendment legislation presented by the Minister for the Environment gives new powers to the Minister for the Environment to intervene and act as a consenting authority to deal to a resource consent application considered nationally or regionally significant. Under the proposed legislation, specifically the new section 87J(2) , the Minister would be acting exactly as a consenting authority would, and accordingly all appeals processes and similar still apply. In short, members of the public could still appeal the Minister’s consenting decision to the impartial Environment Court for it to be upheld or overturned. The Environment Court’s ruling can then too be challenged in the High Court on matters of law, as was the aforementioned Basin Reserve flyover consent after its consideration by the Board of Inquiry.

The catch in the proposed legislation is the restriction on applicants from having their consent application fast-tracked to the Environment Court if the Minister chooses to intervene with their new powers.

The new section 87C(4) reads “When the Minister responsible certifies a consent application pursuant to Section 87C(3) of this Act, Sections 87D to 87I do not apply“. As discussed earlier, sections 87D to 87I allow for a consent applicant to apply for their consent to be fast-tracked to the Environment Court for consideration, rather than have it initially considered by the consenting authority, who in this case is the Minister. In plain English, when the Minister chooses to intervene on a consent application, the applicant loses the opportunity to fast-track the consent application to the Environment Court.

This ability for the applicant to fast-track the consent application to the Environment Court was used by Wellington International Airport Limited for their runway extension consent application. This was an example of a consent application that the Minister argued would be saved by this new regime, but under the proposed legislation, if the Minister intervened, WIAL would have to go through the Minister, and then have it appealed by the Environment Court, rather than skip straight to the Court.

Despite this being the key function of the legislation, the Minister for the Environment seemed clueless to the fact when questioned, and thought the question was about the Minister having the power to both approve or reject consents. Consequentially, the Minister made no comment about the prevention on applicants fast-tracking their consents when the Minister intervenes.

Initially, the Minister attempted to refuse answering the question, forcing the Speaker to intervene.

With the confused functions and poor quality of the legislation well traversed by the Greens, Newsroom and even the Front, more surprising still was the Prime Minister’s unconditional support and championing of the Minister for the Environment.

Not only did the Prime Minister deem the Minister for the Environment to be “a responsible and knowledgeable legislator” on environmental issues, but even admitted that Winston Wilhemus III was promoted because he met the low threshold of simply writing legislation.

To the surprise of the opposition and the cross-benches, the Prime Minister then went as far as to say that, despite authoring the infamous RMA Amendment Bill, the Minister for the Environment was “meeting and exceeding our expectations”, leaving many to wonder just how low expectations were.

The opposition’s message is clear: this bill is a joke, and will only do more harm than good. The Government intervening only to slow down the consenting process, whilst trampling over local government, is a huge mistake and builds extra uncertainty for developers. The Minister has avoided every opportunity to address these opportunities, the Prime Minister has opted to blindly support his Minister instead of looking critically at this legislation, and his Cabinet has been kept in the dark about what this legislation achieves.

As Newsroom’s commentator marsouins writes, “the legislation cannot be saved as it is. This reform, half harmful and half useless, has miraculously reached the final reading. The only way out is for it to be withdrawn. So, Minister Wilhelmus, withdraw your bill.”