When this Bill was announced in early November, the press release emphasis was on how the changes would speed up the approvals for new supermarkets.
There was a small mention of technical changes "to improve the efficiency of the Act and to cut project application processing times".
That all sounded rather innocuous and worthy. Only that is not how many others saw it.
As the parliamentary commissioner for the environment Simon Upton put it in his submission, the changes aimed at the grocery sector were not problematic, but the balance of the Bill was "alarming".
He said the Bill was advancing amendments under the guise of being technical or machinery matters which would have significant impacts on the fast-track process and decision-making.
Their inclusion made the Bill an attempt to relitigate procedural and substantive aspects which had been agreed and passed into law following the comprehensive select committee scrutiny of what became the Act.
He went as far as saying the Bill would take New Zealand back to 1948 days when under the Economic Stabilisation Act the government could, by regulation, intervene in every corner of economic life without public scrutiny.
It would allow the executive to impose its view of regional or national benefits, regardless of the views of the public who were often the owners of the resources at stake and regardless of standard cost-benefit analysis.
Before the appearance of this Bill, Mr Upton had reached the view that if the fast-track process continued in the way it had been initiated under the Act, it could win broad acknowledgement as a credible process, delivering sound decision-making.
"But it always depended on highly qualified, experienced practitioners who participated on the basis that they were there to exercise searching judgement. This Bill seeks to constrain their judgement, and in doing so, may place the empanelment of qualified and experienced practitioners at risk."
It is hard to avoid the conclusion the government was desperate to pass this legislation without proper scrutiny when it took advantage of a loophole in parliamentary rules and condensed the time for submissions on the Bill from the usual six weeks to 11 days. Almost all of the 2518 submissions, about 95%, opposed the Bill.
There was no regulatory impact statement on the Bill, with the Ministry of Regulation granted an exemption to provide one because the economic, social or environmental impacts were limited and easy to assess. Mr Upton was not having that either, saying it was completely at odds with the Ministry of Regulation’s role.
He said it was beyond comprehension the changes to the assessment of the economic, social and environmental impacts of some of the most complex — and contentious — projects to be proposed in recent times could be seen as easy to assess.
The amendments were clearly intended to shortcut proper consideration of economic and environmental analysis, reduce access to information for decision-makers, and potentially expose communities to the risk of ill-understood environmental impacts, he said.
The breakneck pace of this legislation process meant that rather than make any alterations to the Bill at the select committee stage, the Bill is being reported back to the House with no changes.
Any changes which the government considers may be necessary after the submissions process will now be put forward at the committee of the Whole House stage of the proceedings where consideration and debate will be necessarily truncated. Usually, committee recommendations are debated and voted on at the Bill’s second reading.
It is no accident the Bill’s final consideration is expected in the last parliamentary sittings for the year, a time when politicians hope the public’s attention is on Christmas and forthcoming holidays.
It is a cynical behaviour not confined to the current government, but it is poor form and shonky law-making, whoever is doing it.
